most challenging recruiting job ever! need advice

hey guys, thanks in advance for your response. any advice or comments are appreciated. sorry for the length, but i need to explain the process...

here's the scoop i use to be the HR manager for a retail store for ten years , I was very successful hiring for them and it was more one on one hiring. it was fun. Decided to look into recruiting for a career.... I took on a Corporate Recruiter position for a credit card processing company...I hire their sales reps... great opportunity. I am paid 15$ hourly, with a bonus of 500$ per hire that I make once they are trained and sign their first deal. The problem is I am trying to hire 100% commission, 1099 independent contractors. On top of that I am hiring sales reps from out of state, once they accept the position they must attend training in CA, we do give $2,000 travel riembursment once they complete the 2 weeks of training, $1,000 given upon completion of training and the other $1,000 upon thier first deal that's signed. Now there are very successful sales reps making $200,000 a year, this is a fact, however this is a hard sale to make to someone.... I do place job postings on craigslist, hotjobs and monster, I don't get many responses being straight commission... I cold call a lot, aprox 30 new prospects a day, and have successfully hired 8 sales reps in a 6 month time frame, 3 of them quit before they signed deal, which ment no bonus for me... I am trying to propose a new pay structure of 1/3 payouts on bonus 1/3 paid when they accept the position, 1/3 paid when they complete training, and the last 1/3 paid when they make their first deal. hopefully this will go thru if anything to boost moral since this is such a let down to put so much effort into recruiting someone who then quits before thier first deal. This is a new department, the company has been around for 10 years but they have hired sales reps before from referrals from current sales reps, when they are hired this way the sales rep that referred them gets 20% of the sales that new rep makes their first year. okay so i believe that is it... what advice do you have to source out someone that would agree to a straight commission/1099 job and the travel for training. Or if you have any advice on posting or my bonus structure that would be great, thanks guys!

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Permalink Reply by Carl Chapman on July 15, 2007 at 7:58am

Kelly, you should call me. I did the math on your recruiting gig. Slightly over 18K in your six months. If you learned to recruit in my space you would be doing much better. We have a draw against commission and a placement would make you between $1200 and $2500. A good recruiter would be making about 4 deals per month.

Starting out, the positions that you will be hiring for are full time salaried with bonus starting on the low end at about $25,000 and the high end over $45,000. Not travel involved in the training, and the hire cycle lasts little more than a week, 2 at the most.

Feel free to give me a call if you'd like to discuss. -Carl

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Permalink Reply by Jim Damico on July 16, 2007 at 12:54pm

Kelly, with the ongoing collapse of the subprime lending industry, that may be a great group to target for your opportunities. A friend of mine in Cleveland who recruited in that field used myspace and linkedin as a source as well as targeting fresh college grads.

Jim

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Permalink Reply by Christian Fauchald on February 21, 2008 at 1:15am

Honestly, Kelly, regardless of "where" you look, what you're looking for is a very specific personality type. In such circumstance, I'd strongly recommend employing the use of profiling, ie. the Carl Jung Myers-Briggs personality assessment. While it shouldn't be the only factor in a candidate assessment -- used properly -- it could be one of the more powerful ones.

Regardless of what their professional experience is, in order to succeed in such a position, one needs the right personality type.

You can find them free online. You can probably get your $200k killers to take the profile tests(they're not long). After establishing a benchmark, not only will your results help you determine that a candidate has strong odds of doing well, but also use those results to help close the good scoring candidates!

I'd predict that the Real Estate, Car Sales, Insurance Sales, entreprenuers etc. who are successful all score very similar results on the profiling.

When you have the right personality for a position, success is like falling out of bed.

As far as your being/remaining in this current position... only you can decide if it's right for you. A hundred people will try to sell you on coming to work for them and with many of them, you could indeed do better, but that's NOT what you asked. You asked how to succeed in your CURRENT position, not whether or not you should look for a new job.

Due to your having joined here and your desire to solve your current riddle, I'm quite confident that wherever you go in the future, you have both the ambition and the curiosity to do very well.

Best,

Christian

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Permalink Reply by Renee Gear on February 22, 2008 at 11:35am

Jim,

How do you leverage linkedin and my space? What steps do you take to find the type of person that Kelly is seeking?

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Permalink Reply by Melody Anicich on July 30, 2008 at 10:55pm

I live in California where your employer would have a hard time keeping Recruiters and Sales Reps at those salaries. I would suggest that they bring in a sales compensation consultant to create something which works. Your compensation could use an overhaul too.

Melody Anicich
also a Sales Recruiter

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Permalink Reply by Alex Putman on July 31, 2008 at 7:37am

Kelly,

I have worked on all sides of the desk; corporate, contract recruiting and staffing. I have to agree with Carl, the current plan will not net what you could potentially earn in another area. I suggest you 1st look at the overall staffing plan and see how many hires your company needs for the year and calculate your potential annual earnings. Second, what do you feel the position is worth, thus backing out the math too your personal annual comp goals.

As for finding more people, you are making a tough sale, straight commission, training reimbursed after the fact etc... Conduct your own SWOT analysis on the company; i.e. strengths (what do you offer that is better), weakness, opportunities and threats. A thorough analysis will provide insight on how you sell the opportunity.

Lastly; finding talent is a true challenge. Put together a behavioral profile of the people that have success in your industry. Identify their key attributes then utilize this in your target areas, selection process and hiring decisions. As for type, what about inside sales people that want to grow financially; banks, small companies, manufacturing...they all have inside sales people wanting to grow!

I hope you find this helpful, I will be happy to assist any way I can.