I’ve been discussing how a strategic approach to sales may involve standing still for a while in order to create solid future growth. In order to achieve that the strategy must contained two defined
processes.
First and foremost a sales process that enables everyone to sing off the
same song sheet (I discuss that at salesdr ).And this applies to recruitment consultancies too!

Secondly any process for hiring salespeople that achieves less than the 20% success rate which is an industry standard is broken and costly.

For as long as I can remember we have adopted a system for hiring salespeople dependent on gut feel and a labour intensive process of CV 2
interviews and a presentation (CV2IP). Then, we wonder why we can’t get
and keep the right sales people. In fact the standard is that only
20% of sales hires are effective and failed hires are often the biggest
single cost in any sales department.

Psychometric tests almost double this figure, but the number of times I have been told – “Oh you need to do this – just to prove you aren’t an
axe murderer” . Sorry I’m not a moron or a child either.And they are only better than not having anything, even if they are a confirmer, not a selector. I have posted about the main offenders in the past here.

So the evidence (and all business decisions are based on that – aren’t they ?) is that traditional hiring methods don’t work. But, what does work to get the best, and only the best salespeople?

Perfect Hire is a name given to an effective process. Perfect Hire uses data from hundreds of thousands of successful sales hires to guarantee success. And it is simple, time efficient and easy.

1. Source in the normal way
2. Evaluate using an on-line evaluation (the one we use is expensive but 95% effective)

For sales we use a competency based systems, but the Perfect Hire process will work with skills or trade tests
3. 5 minute phone interview

This is just to clarify questions posed from the assessment. Minutes = money
4. Read the CV

Up until now the process has been blind, so you have removed a lot of risk from anti discrimination. You only progress those with demonstrable competency and you make no conscious or unconscious discrimination
5. Face to face interview.

At last. This should be the first time the hiring manager sees the candidate. Agencies and inhouse recruiters can provide a visible, differentiated service. And you remove the manager's pre judgements from the process. They are probably the least skilled part of the process.
6. Decide

This is crunch time for the manager and we would see this using a decision matrix plus intuition; they have to work together after all

7. Hire
8. Structured Onboarding

Start the day after acceptance, and run for 90 days from the start.

Warning

This process can only be used if you want a successful salesforce, that exceed targets and delivers against business goals.