Thursday, July 20, 2006

The Rules of Sales Hiring Have Changed If You Are Still Trying to Play By the Old Rules, Here's Your Notice: The Rules of Sales Hiring Have Changed In the old rules of sales hiring, managers went looking for half a dozen applicants with some previous sales experience. In the interview process they would pick the one who "interviewed the best." If they were really progressive, they'd use a profiling tool to find out more about their choice. These old rules probably didn't work then any better than they do now, but hiring salespeople was cheaper and profit margins were fatter. Managers had a lot more time because there were more management layers. Plus, profiling was slower and more costly. Today, salespeople cost more, margins are thinner in most businesses, layers of management have been reduced and you can profile all your applicants for less than the cost of a week's salary. Here are the new rules: 1) Get a MINIMUM of 20 applicants for every position you are recruiting for. 30 applicants might even be better when you are using Internet job boards. 2) Make sure your ads have the special psychological trigger words that top salespeople use to describe themselves to themselves. 3) Profile every applicant. Look for diamonds in the rough. Think of all of those new salespeople that have become top performers. They're out there! Have a minimum  of 20 applicants take the ValuesMatrix. 4) Run a Styles Test on those that "pass" ValuesMatrix. 5) Only interview applicants that score Persuader, Promoter or Conductor toward the outside of the Success Insights Wheel. 6) Use a structured, scripted interview (AHS 4-Part Hiring Interview). Hire the applicant who scores the best on the AHS 4-Part Interview. 2:12:35 PM    comment []

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