When I was first starting to recruit sales people, life was much simpler. Select the media that was read by the people you wanted to recruit and advertise, making it clear what skills and experience you were seeking. Great advertising agencies helped you craft compelling ads to attract the best – not just those ‘job seeking’ but those in current jobs who weren’t looking but were, hopefully, drawn to your ‘pitch’. Applicants had to take the time to write a letter, type and print out their CV and post it.
I work in change management. I embrace change! I’m the archetypal early adopter so don’t get me wrong, much online has immeasurably improved our lives and the ways we work, but for recruitment, frankly it sucks!
I can tell you about this first hand as I’ve been working with a couple of people recently, one looking for a first job after graduating and another seeking their next role after redundancy.
The user experience for candidates is just so woeful it’s brand damaging. No matter how carefully you match your CV and take the time to write an interesting and pertinent cover letter – nothing comes back. No ‘thank you for your interest’, no response, radio silence. Who the hell is getting these jobs?
The user experience for recruiters too is dismal. Too many applications, as it is all too easy to submit a CV through a job board without thought or consideration, so I sympathise with the challenge of how to find the time or resources to respond. I had a conversation with someone the other day about this, and he knew it was a potentially damaging problem but explained that for a recently advertised junior role he’d received over 2,000 applications. This is why companies resort to using algorithms to sift applications.
Now, for some roles, this might work – particularly if you are looking for specific hard skills and defined experience. But to recruit great sales people and indeed for anyone you want to attract to train it just isn’t going to be effective.
If I think back over my career to the very best, most talented sales people that I’ve recruited the boxes they ticked couldn’t have been determined by a word match. They each had a spark, ‘soft skills’ if you like to call them that – emotional intelligence, drive, motivation, innovative thinking, bravery. You identify these at an interview in conversation and with carefully crafted questions to tease out these traits.
How many of these amazing people, now VP’s, CEO’s and Directors, would have gone unrecruited today? (You know who you are guys.)
So what’s the answer?
1) Ditch the algorithms
2) Be specific about what you’re looking for
3) Conduct some smart analysis as to where your best current performers came from and what they have that you want more of
4) Make time to interview and don’t pass the buck – do it yourself or with you leadership team who share your vision
5) Use workshops and events to test candidates to uncover hidden talent.
Contact us if you’d like to talk more about how to find, recruit, train and motivate world-class sales teams.
