Jordan Wan's Posts - RecruitingBlogs2024-03-28T22:07:56ZJordan Wanhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/CloserIQhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1527008944?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=0z4jiu83pia7w&xn_auth=noHow Startups Can Lose Sales Recruits During The Interview Processtag:recruitingblogs.com,2015-06-18:502551:BlogPost:18964632015-06-18T14:30:00.000ZJordan Wanhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/CloserIQ
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<p>As a recruiting platform focused on helping startups hire top sales talent, we converse with candidates on a daily basis about how they are evaluating their job offers.</p>
<p>In a competitive hiring market, such as the one we are in, the playing field for the interview process have been leveled. Startups need to treat each candidate like future family members — this…</p>
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<p>As a recruiting platform focused on helping startups hire top sales talent, we converse with candidates on a daily basis about how they are evaluating their job offers.</p>
<p>In a competitive hiring market, such as the one we are in, the playing field for the interview process have been leveled. Startups need to treat each candidate like future family members — this mentality increases your offer acceptance rates and the value of your brand in the community.</p>
<p>We have reduced the list of drop-off reasons from candidates to three main categories: timing, interview experience, and compensation. While some nuances are specific to startup sales, we recommend you consider the concepts on a broader level, as they can be relevant in the recruitment of all roles regardless of company type.</p>
<p><strong>Timing</strong></p>
<p>It is extremely important to understand where a candidate stands in their interview and decision-making process — do not wait until you have made a final hiring decision before having this conversation with your candidate. We recommend outlining the interview process with the candidate from the get-go so they have an idea of what to expect and raise concerns, if needed.</p>
<p>As for the interview timeline, efficiency is the way to go since it shows the candidate you value their time. You should try to limit your interview process to 3 total meetings — an in depth phone screen, a first meeting, and a final pitch — as candidates can get frustrated with multiple round interviews where they meet one person at a time. Rescheduling interviews and adding more interviews to the schedule are other moves that elongate the hiring process and increase the odds of losing out on a great candidate.</p>
<p><strong>The Interview Experience</strong></p>
<p>Whether you realize it or not, you are creating an everlasting impression of your company for the candidate from the very first communication and every correspondence there on out. Three simple ways to create a noteworthy interview experience are: facilitating positive communication, including leadership in the hiring process, and promoting mutual discovery between the candidate and the company.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Positive Communication: </strong>Courteous, considerate and candid communication can build trust quickly and separate you from competing offers later on in the process.</li>
<li><strong>Include Leadership: </strong>A major selling point for a candidate looking to join a startup is exposure to the executive leadership team, and an opportunity for rapid career advancement and personal growth. If a 30-person startup cannot get their founders to attend a final round of interviews, it can be a warning sign to a candidate. Make sure your executive team is not only present, but is actually focused on engaging in a meaningful conversation — a 15 minute interview with a founder who is preoccupied on their smartphone is counterproductive.</li>
<li><strong>Mutual Discovery: </strong>With each interview, do not talk down to the candidates — make the tone of the interview conversational with the goal of mutual discovery. Give the candidates a comfortable environment to ask questions throughout the interview and pitch the opportunity as you go along.</li>
</ol>
<p>You are losing out to competition if you are waiting until you have made a hiring decision to “sell” the candidate on the role and the company.</p>
<p><strong>Compensation</strong></p>
<p>The two common sore areas for candidates when it comes to startup sales compensation plans are the OTE (on-target-earnings) and equity incentives.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, if a candidate has concerns about the OTE, it is because they do not understand or believe in your commission structure. Make sure your commission plan is fully baked. A simpler compensation structure is fine as long as you address how revenue generated is commissioned (e.g. how churn impacts performance and what sales goals leads to attainment of quota). If you can provide conservative, baseline and stretch scenarios to demonstrate how the payout would work, you will make the OTE a lot more tangible.</p>
<p>While ultimately each startup has their own comfort level with providing equity compensation details, we recommend you error on the side of being more transparent. While stating a “500 shares option grant” may be sufficient for some candidates, it is a bad way to start the conversation for a candidate who knows 500 shares provides little insight to the overall equity stake.</p>
<p>Being upfront about what is being offered is a great way to build trust for startup career opportunities. Chances are, they will eventually find out anyways so it is better for you to add context up front as to how you justify the grant and control the messaging.</p>
<p><strong>Final Words</strong></p>
<p>There is no downside to providing a candidate with a great interview experience. Even if you end up passing on the candidate, a positive interview experience will create an everlasting impression about the brand (and the appeal of your team) for their future job prospects, their friends, and their referrals. With the three aforementioned tips on how startups lose sales recruits during the interview under your belt, you can keep recruits interested in your startup.</p>
<p></p>
<p><em>This post was published on the <a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/06/how-startups-can-lose-sales-recruits-during-the-interview-process/" target="_self">CloserIQ blog</a>. </em></p>How To Interview Salespeopletag:recruitingblogs.com,2015-06-02:502551:BlogPost:18929502015-06-02T17:27:57.000ZJordan Wanhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/CloserIQ
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<p>In my <a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/04/how-to-hire-salespeople/" target="_blank">previous post</a>, I discussed why an interview rubric helps you make better hiring decisions for salespeople. How you structure your interview is shaped by other factors, including the job’s role, your product industry and your company’s stage.</p>
<p>To bridge the gap between…</p>
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<p>In my <a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/04/how-to-hire-salespeople/" target="_blank">previous post</a>, I discussed why an interview rubric helps you make better hiring decisions for salespeople. How you structure your interview is shaped by other factors, including the job’s role, your product industry and your company’s stage.</p>
<p>To bridge the gap between an all-encompassing interview rubric and the particular structure you need, here’s a generic framework to get you started on creating an interview agenda for your particular search.</p>
<p><b>Culture</b></p>
<p>In addition to assessing passion and personality for cultural fit, it is equally important to explore sales-specific culture dynamics.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Strategy vs. Execution:</b> Depending on your product/market, you may need a “figure-outer” as opposed to someone who can crank out 100 calls a day and crush repetitive sales activities. It’s hard to find someone who can do both well, so prioritize what you need in advance.</li>
<li><b>Career Ambitions:</b> Often times, we hire sales talent by asking them to make short-term financial sacrifices in return for rapid career growth and/or management duties. Can you deliver on these promises? Can you meet individual ambitions, and are their timelines for growth compatible with your team? Be honest with yourself and the candidate from the get-go to decrease the chances of attrition later on.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Sales Process</b></p>
<p>A candidate’s familiarity with your sales process not only reduces ramp-up time, but it can also drastically reduce your risk of making a bad hire.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Similarity + Track Record:</b> It’s important to dig into a candidate’s metrics as well as the characteristics of their previous sales process (e.g., price point, deal length, stakeholder types). For example, if you know your sales process has low access rates, you should evaluate a candidate’s ability to gain access by asking them to estimate their activities versus the number of meetings they are able to set. Probe deeper on qualitative answers, and don’t be afraid to ask interviewees to estimate and quantify so you can check for consistency.</li>
<li><b>Tools:</b> There are a ton of sales tools (e.g., CRM, email tracking) your team may be using that could increase ramp-up time for a new rep. It’s important to understand how much learning a rep will have to do to master your tool suite and be productive. If the hurdle is significant, test their experience, tech savvy and learning speed.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Product Knowledge</b></p>
<p>Simply put, your salesperson needs to be a credible expert in front of your customer. A candidate’s product knowledge profile can be viewed as a 2 x 2 quadrant of strong and weak at current knowledge and learning ability.</p>
<p>Strong/strong and weak/weak should be easy decisions. The other two cases depend on your patience for their ramp-up time and the accuracy of your assessment.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Current Knowledge:</b> A harsh reality in some sales industries is that a knowledge gap can be too large despite raw horsepower. In industries like healthcare and finance, for example, the sales role can require years of prior experience to be able to “talk the talk.”</li>
<li><b>Learning Ability:</b> A great way to test aptitude for learning is to teach the candidate something about your product and then ask them to explain it back to you. You can do it orally on the spot or send them a case study before the interview. Great candidates can master the concept and even articulate new insights. You can also do this exercise using a randomly selected, unfamiliar subject.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Dry Run</b></p>
<p>You wouldn’t hire an engineer without seeing their code, so why would you hire a salesperson without seeing them sell? Here are four ways to test their skills:</p>
<ol>
<li><b>Role Play:</b> A rapid succession of tough (or weird) objections can be a great way to test for how the candidate will handle edge cases.</li>
<li><b>Mock Pitch:</b> Test a candidate’s presentation and closing ability by having them present a mock pitch to your team of stakeholders.</li>
<li><b>Field Day:</b> Ask a potential salesperson to spend a day shadowing one of your reps. Creating controlled environments to have them speak to real prospects is a great way to estimate their ramp-up time.</li>
<li><b>30-60-90-Day Plan:</b> For senior hires and big-ticket enterprise sales, your sales person needs management consultant-type skills to help organizations make strategic purchasing decisions and visualize implementation roadmaps. Have your interviewees lay out a 30-60-90-day plan for how they would approach their new role in the company so you can test their visioning, conceptual thinking and presentation skills.</li>
</ol>
<p>As you navigate how to structure your interviews, keep in mind that competition for top sales talent is incredibly fierce, so it is important to balance your interview diligence with getting candidates through the process efficiently.</p>
<p></p>
<p><em>This post was published on the <a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/06/how-to-interview-salespeople/" target="_blank">CloserIQ blog</a>. CloserIQ is a <a rel="nofollow" href="https://closeriq.com/" target="_blank">sales recruiting platform</a> connecting top sales talent and startups.</em></p>Why You Should Use a Grading Rubric When Interviewing Salespeopletag:recruitingblogs.com,2015-05-21:502551:BlogPost:18869322015-05-21T14:10:52.000ZJordan Wanhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/CloserIQ
<p><a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/why-engineering-graduates-should-learn-sales.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://blog.closeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/why-engineering-graduates-should-learn-sales.jpg?width=400" width="400"></img></a> Whether you’re a startup founder building your own sales team or a seasoned VP of sales, interviewing sales representatives can be a chore because predicting candidate success is very challenging.</p>
<p>Growth companies tend to have performance data afflicted by major pricing, product and strategy shifts. These changes limit the effectiveness of using…</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/why-engineering-graduates-should-learn-sales.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://blog.closeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/why-engineering-graduates-should-learn-sales.jpg?width=400" width="400" class="align-left"/></a>Whether you’re a startup founder building your own sales team or a seasoned VP of sales, interviewing sales representatives can be a chore because predicting candidate success is very challenging.</p>
<p>Growth companies tend to have performance data afflicted by major pricing, product and strategy shifts. These changes limit the effectiveness of using historical performance data to identify the perfect sales candidate. Despite best efforts, sales hiring decisions tend to be made based on intuition rather than candidates’ answers to brain teasers.</p>
<p>You can avoid common pitfalls in your interviewing process by adopting an evaluation framework and consistently applying it for each candidate. You’ll make sharper hiring decisions if you try to understand the risks for each candidate instead of trying to predict who will be definitively successful.</p>
<p>So before you interview your next salesperson, create a grading rubric. If you do, it’ll help you avoid common sales interviewing blunders:</p>
<p><strong>1. </strong>You’ll stop making transmission errors. A rubric will align your recruiters with your hiring managers on the evaluation criteria.</p>
<p><strong>2. </strong>You won’t fall in love with personality. A rubric can prevent you from jumping to conclusions by replacing emotional judgment with bite-sized factors—helping you make objective, micro-evaluations about each candidate.</p>
<p><strong>3. </strong>You won’t commit to only one type of salesperson. Great salespeople come in different forms. A rubric will help you compare different profiles and resolve differences in strengths and weaknesses.</p>
<p><strong>4. </strong>You’ll eliminate redundancy and focus your conversations. A good rubric will allow multiple interviewers to focus on different areas of exploration, giving you a better overall read on the candidate.</p>
<p><strong>5. </strong>You’ll learn more easily from hiring mistakes. If you end up making an unsuccessful hire, the rubric can help you understand which factors you’ll need to reassess in the interview design.</p>
<p>Curious what a sales interview rubric should look like? We’ve created a <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17U5XuQgM1v52niQU-LBrk2j4qaQhcnziuUBCYTA2fMo/pubhtml">simple template</a> that will give you an idea of the framework. It doesn’t need to be a complex spreadsheet—it should be clear and easy for interviewers to fill out immediately after meeting the candidate.</p>
<p>Each template should be customized to align with the key success factors in the particular sales role you are hiring for. In my next post, I’ll discuss some of the most important success factors to explore in sales interviews and sample questions to use to get the most truthful responses.</p>
<p></p>
<p><em>This post was published on the <a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/04/how-to-hire-salespeople/" target="_blank">CloserIQ blog</a>. CloserIQ is a <a rel="nofollow" href="https://closeriq.com/" target="_blank">sales recruiting platform</a> connecting top sales talent and startups.</em></p>What Startups Can Learn From Saturday Night Livetag:recruitingblogs.com,2015-05-18:502551:BlogPost:18863242015-05-18T14:30:00.000ZJordan Wanhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/CloserIQ
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/04/what-startups-can-learn-from-saturday-night-live/" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="http://blog.closeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/snl.jpg"></img></a></p>
<p></p>
<p>If you missed <em>Saturday</em> <em>Night Live</em>’s epic 40th anniversary special, <a href="https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/saturday-night-live-40th-anniversary-special-part-1/2846551" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">you should check it out on NBC</a>.</p>
<p>Not only was it a nostalgic look at 40 years of comedy, it was also a…</p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/04/what-startups-can-learn-from-saturday-night-live/" target="_blank"><img src="http://blog.closeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/snl.jpg" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p></p>
<p>If you missed <em>Saturday</em> <em>Night Live</em>’s epic 40th anniversary special, <a href="https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/saturday-night-live-40th-anniversary-special-part-1/2846551" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">you should check it out on NBC</a>.</p>
<p>Not only was it a nostalgic look at 40 years of comedy, it was also a mind-blowing display of how a relatively small organization (only 141 cast members in 40 years!) can dominate an entire industry.</p>
<p>But how was anyone to know that 19-year-old Eddie Murphy would become a legendary comedian back in 1980? Or that young, 20-year-old Robert Downey Jr. would eventually crank out Hollywood blockbusters? The answer is simple: they didn’t, but they saw potential. SNL is the American institution it is today because it has been extremely successful at recognizing promising actors and developing talent.</p>
<p>In the startup recruiting industry, companies seem to be focused on hiring “A players.” But as someone who spends every waking moment helping startups find sales talent, I think we should take a cue from SNL.</p>
<p>For one, you only know that a candidate is an “A player” once they’ve already proven themselves. In today’s competitive war on talent, not many startups can afford to pay for these “A players” (not to mention dealing with the challenges of retaining them as the company grows). Meanwhile, there are plenty of high-potential, but unproven candidates looking for the next <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">PayPal Mafia</a>.</p>
<p>Startups should target candidates with high potential and focus on developing their recruits rather than chasing “A players”—just like in the early days of SNL. The original 1975 cast was known on-air as “The Not Ready For Prime-Time Players” and included supposed “B players” like John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, and Chevy Chase. Not bad right?</p>
<p>Today, SNL has become such a colossal star magnet that new hires are instantly destined for the comedy A-list. <strong>“A players” are now flocking to join SNL.</strong></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>This post was originally published on the <a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/04/what-startups-can-learn-from-saturday-night-live/" target="_blank">CloserIQ blog</a>. CloserIQ is a <a rel="nofollow" href="https://closeriq.com/" target="_blank">sales recruiting platform</a> connecting top sales talent and startups.</em></p>
<p><em><em>Photo Credit: Pixgood.com</em></em></p>Don’t Make These 5 Mistakes When Hiring Your First Startup Head of Salestag:recruitingblogs.com,2015-05-15:502551:BlogPost:18863222015-05-15T14:46:32.000ZJordan Wanhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/CloserIQ
<p><a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/01/hiring-startup-head-of-sales/" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="http://blog.closeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mistakes-hiring-head-of-sales.jpg"></img></a></p>
<p>Hiring your first senior salesperson is daunting when your business is new—you don’t know much yet about what has worked so far. And even if you do manage to find the perfect hire, you may find yourself needing someone with different strengths as your business grows and changes over time.</p>
<p>Here are the common mistakes we’ve seen founders make when pursuing their first startup…</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/01/hiring-startup-head-of-sales/" target="_blank"><img src="http://blog.closeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mistakes-hiring-head-of-sales.jpg" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p>Hiring your first senior salesperson is daunting when your business is new—you don’t know much yet about what has worked so far. And even if you do manage to find the perfect hire, you may find yourself needing someone with different strengths as your business grows and changes over time.</p>
<p>Here are the common mistakes we’ve seen founders make when pursuing their first startup head of sales.</p>
<h2>Mistake 1: You don’t try doing the job yourself first.</h2>
<p>We often meet founders who hope their new head of sales will bring a playbook of the best sales tools, recruiting tactics, and sales scripts. Some candidates have built a career doing this, but it’s risky to rely on a new hire to import critical pieces of your sales infrastructure. You need to tackle some of these challenges yourself before starting your search. That way, you’ll gain a much deeper understanding of what your business really needs in your new head of sales.</p>
<h2>Mistake 2: You only look at candidates from big companies.</h2>
<p>Previous success at a public company, or even just a larger startup, does not always translate well to a first head of sales hire. You need someone who’s going to bring in a lot of value from Day One, and it’s hard to measure the value in a candidate from a big company where the resources and support system is much deeper.</p>
<p>Corporate sales leaders also tend to focus more on building processes and operational efficiency, whereas startups sales is more about trial-and-error. So don’t be entranced by resumes full of prestigious company names—look for someone who has proven success at early stages and shows lots of adaptability and problem solving skills.</p>
<h2>Mistake 3: You agree to pay a large, corporate salary.</h2>
<p>This doesn’t mean you should be cheap. Just don’t try to compete with big company compensation packages and be wary of candidates who try to put you in that position. Be frugal with salary and generous with your commission and equity incentives. Candidates who believe in the potential of the company will put a larger value on future earnings than immediate cash.</p>
<h2>Mistake 4: You skip the reference check.</h2>
<p>Beyond closing deals and building a sales team, your head of sales is also going to be the face of your brand. Make sure you spend plenty of time making reference calls and background checks to make sure you know the character of the person you are hiring. Ask your own network of people who may have crossed paths with your candidate. And if you have specific concerns about a contender, don’t be afraid to ask his or her references direct questions about what’s worrying you.</p>
<h2>Mistake 5: You hire someone with “forever” in mind.</h2>
<p>Set modest expectations for how far your first head of sales will lead your company. Even the most successful hires end up having their roles narrow as their breadth of responsibilities widens. Instead, focus your first hire to achieve a few, concrete milestones six months to a year out. Setting these goals will also help you prioritize the relative importance of traits you are looking for in your search.</p>
<p></p>
<p><em>This post was originally published on the <a href="http://blog.closeriq.com/2015/01/hiring-startup-head-of-sales/" target="_blank">CloserIQ blog</a>. CloserIQ is a <a href="https://closeriq.com/" target="_blank">sales recruiting platform</a> connecting top sales talent and startups.</em></p>