No matter what industry you’re in, great sales people are hard to find. These individuals are in the minority of the applicant’s you’ll receive for any sales position, less likely than others to regularly change their employers, and usually, need to be tempted to choose one employer over another. This complicates the hiring picture since the mission is to not only find but also to appeal to great sales people.
The good news is that these contenders are in the job market today. By understanding why they are so hard to find you can help companies to improve hiring strategies so that they engage, attract and hire great sales people.
Great Sales People Seldom Apply to Conventional Job
As you already know, great sales people seldom just appear on your doorstep. But if you’re advertising to attract them and top sales talent still isn’t applying, the job description may be to blame. Great sales people have extraordinary talents that go far beyond what most boilerplate job descriptions demand, and they’ll seek out the job descriptions that promise to best utilize and reward their skills.
Few organizations have mastered the fine art of writing a job description that will attract great sales people. This can leave your company in a position where great sales people will remain hard to find but those without proven track records in sales are continually applying, wasting your time and resources as you weed out hundreds of unsuitable applicants. All businesses should have a hiring strategy of hiring for potential at the entry level. For the companies who need great sales people now instead of later, a tailored job description and posting to attract the great sales people is a must.
Top Sales People Are in a Competitive Position
Top sales talent that decides to make a career move now, when most companies are just starting to transition towards more aggressive hiring strategies, is in a pretty competitive position. Many companies are now willing to offer extremely tempting benefits packages of the kind that haven’t been seen in years to attract and retain great sales people. Organizations that aren’t offering comparable benefits packages won’t gain or retain the interest of these candidates.
Furthermore, great sales people who are in the job market now will probably receive multiple job offers. The employers with the longer hiring cycles may consequently lose out on a qualified and sales driven candidate who’s decided to not to wait on making a move. So, even in the hiring process, the old sales adage of “time kills all deals” proves true.
Great Sales People Partner with Great Sales Recruiting Agencies
All great sales people share the personal characteristic to make and keep personal connections. Great sales people tend to use their network to find new positions through their peers and former managers, and they are more likely than others to use sales recruiting agency. A trusted and experienced sales recruiting agency provides the same benefits to job seekers and your organization:
- Better matches between companies and new hires
- Personal connections as a guide to the recruiting and hiring process
- Substantial savings in both resources and time over traditional hiring
As a result, top sales people frequently use sales recruiting agencies exclusively to find their new positions. This means that businesses looking to recruit top sales talent should be using sales recruiting agency as part of their hiring strategies. The first step to improving the quality of your candidate pool is to seek the support of an experienced sales recruiting agency.
There is the same amount of great sales people today as there were five years ago; it’s just that the great sales people who are seeking new employment in today’s economy are in greater demand. To be competitive, your company needs to do all that it can to reach the great sales people that are out there. Analyze your approach to recruitment and make sure that it’s designed to attract the top talent your company needs.