Recruitment and Selection of Salespeople

  1. 17.3 Discuss recruitment and selection of salespeople

Careful recruitment and selection of salespeople is very important. This is one of the most difficult tasks sales managers perform because sales organizations have been forced to become more sophisticated. The authors of How to Hire and Develop Your Next Top Performer: The Five Qualities That Make Salespeople Great say that about half of the people working in sales should be doing something else. In addition, they say that about 20 to 25 percent of the salespeople currently employed are selling products or services not suited to their personality.19 If the research reported by these authors is accurate, then it appears that sales managers are frequently hiring the wrong people.

Successful salespeople are often difficult to identify. The selection of sales personnel today is, however, more of a “science” and less of an “art.” Sales managers no longer need to rely on “gut feelings.” The ability to identify sales aptitude accurately can be acquired. Many progressive sales organizations recognize the need to help sales managers develop the interviewing skills necessary to make profitable hiring decisions. It is impossible to avoid occasionally hiring a poor performer, but sales managers can improve their average by using some established recruitment and selection guidelines.

Determine Actual Job Requirements

To decide what type of applicant is needed, the manager should first outline the duties the person should perform. The sales manager must have a clear picture of the job requirements before beginning the recruitment process.

A photo shows a woman presenting an award and shaking hands with a man in a meeting.

Ken Blanchard, co author of The One-Minute Manager, says the key to developing people is to concentrate on catching them doing something right. Here we see a salesperson receiving recognition.

Source: Digital Vision/Getty Images

Some sales managers make every effort to discover the success factors that contribute to the achievements of their high-performance salespeople. Success factors are the skills, knowledge, abilities, and behaviors considered critical for successful performance. This information may be collected by use of interviews with salespeople or customers, by observing the salesperson during sales calls, or by some other method.

After a careful study of the duties the salesperson should perform and identification of the success factors, a job description should be prepared. A “job description” is an explanation of what the salesperson will do and under what conditions the work will be performed. It is a good idea to spell out in as much detail as possible the abilities and qualities that the applicant needs to be successful. This can be accomplished by answering a few basic questions about the position.

  1. Will the person be developing a new sales territory or assuming responsibility for an established territory?

  2. Is the product or service well established, or is it new to the marketplace?

  3. Will the salesperson work under the sales manager’s close supervision or independently?

  4. What amount of travel is required? What are the likelihoods of eventual transfer and promotion?

Once the job description is prepared, the foundation has been established to determine the type of person to be hired. There is no substitute for knowing what the job requires.

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