Is it recognition? Is it the organization’s culture of accountability? Is it the challenge?
It’s all those things.
Top performers want to work hard and report to a leadership team that recognizes their efforts. They are ready to take on any challenge that has a defined path to your future success. They welcome personal accountability. They need to see how their skillsets will make a difference to your organization. Their values need to be aligned with your culture.
Your ideal salesperson will be measured by the contagious can-do energy they exuberate, or the passionate response to the common icebreaker “so what do you do?”.
Therefore the aim of your job posting is to attract candidates who are excited by the unique challenge that has been presented and who want to be tested by a robust hiring process.
Now, if you look around your current team, how many seem to be underperforming in their role? Who really wants to be there, and who is putting in the work to be successful?
Before you decide to embark on hiring another new salesperson, you need to ask why these employees are demotivated.
- What kind of environment have we created?
- Is our environment one where top performers thrive?
- Do their values and purpose match ours?
- Did we hire the right person, both from a culture and skill-based perspective?
The reason why I bring this up is the sales hiring process needs to be right every single time. If not, the cost of a bad sales hire will have a significant impact on the bottom line, the revenue targets your team needs to hit, as well as many other opportunity costs.
Furthermore, your best talent won’t want to stick around with deadwood either.
So how do you recruit the ideal sales professionals for your business?
What your ideal candidate wants
Before you dust off the old job posting, let’s consider what your ideal candidate is looking for.
This might sound the wrong way round, but please indulge me for a moment.
You see, recruitment is a 2-way street. While we expect the candidate to navigate through our challenging interview process, we need to excite top sales performers when they view our job posting and visit our website About us page.
So, how do you influence your ideal candidate to understand how they can become a successful contributor to your sales team?
- Top sales performers love a challenge, so be specific with your goals and clear about the expectations.
- Describe your purpose and how your new sales hire can make a real difference.
- Top sales performers expect to be tested during the hiring process, so we will make sure it’s robust and challenging to allow the cream to rise to the top.
- You need a team that are open to continuous self-improvement, and we have developed a process that identifies those who demand it.
- Leading by example is the best way to demonstrate that personal accountability and effective leadership is a core value within your team.
- Take the time to explain the onboarding process so there’s a crystal-clear path to success.
When you can articulate this vision and sell it to the marketplace, the cogs start to whirl inside the candidate’s mind. They begin to picture themselves in the role. They start to think about how they can bring their talents and skills to create a successful impact. Their mind is no longer 100% focused on their current role, but the opportunity to work at your organization. You’ve succeeded in getting the right candidate to click Apply.
Who is my ideal candidate?
Now you have a clear understanding of the opportunity and value you are selling to the candidate marketplace, it’s time to drill down into defining your ideal candidate.
The goal for any company and hiring team is to find talented people who will thrive and perform at high levels, contribute to the culture, lead us all to new successes, and stay for the long term.
So before sitting down to write the job posting, it’s crucial to ask yourself “what personality traits and skills will my ideal candidate have?”.
Recycling the last job posting back out into the market is unproductive. Your future new hire and your business deserve better. Think of your job posting as a marketing piece for your company.
There’s an art here, and a natural flow that piques a candidate’s curiosity, and feeds that curiosity to help them determine if they’re a good potential fit and should click apply to continue the process.
The job posting is an opportunity for your company to find not just qualified candidates, but candidates whose heart aligns with your mission, and whose passion to do the work you need to be done will shine through!
To learn more about the steps in the process, check out this slide deck.
Our one-of-a-kind sales hiring system, MetaHire, takes this highly impactful job posting and inserts it squarely in a hiring process that delivers 100% confidence that you’re hiring the ideal person every time. Why not look around then contact us to find out more?
