A necessary part of managing and growing your sales team and results is to recruit the right candidates. When it comes to building a strong sales team, you know you’re looking for competitive, driven people, and you know your recruiting strategy has to be aggressive enough to compete to attract the best of these candidates, many of whom will have a range of job options available. Read our sales recruitment guide.
When it comes to sales recruitment or recruiting of any kind, one of the first essential steps is to determine the exact job position you need to fill. From there, you’ll want to leverage a variety of channels, including social networks and job boards, to get the word out about your open sales positions and pull in the best candidates. Working with a hiring agency like Chester Recruitment can also help with your recruiting efforts for all kinds of candidates – just contact us to learn more about how we can help!
Create a Detailed Job Description To Guide Your Sales Recruitment Efforts
The first thing you’ll want to do to get organised for recruiting a new job candidate is to fully think through what that person will do daily and what skills you’re looking for a candidate to bring to the role. Once you have that clarified, you’ll need to create a comprehensive job description that communicates to candidates what you’re looking for, and that you can use to stay focused throughout the hiring process.
Having a job description that narrows down your key expectations for a new salesperson can be especially helpful if you have individuals from multiple departments collaborating to recruit or interview candidates. Although everyone will approach interviews and recruiting slightly differently, your job description will help everyone involved understand the position and what candidate skills or traits to focus questions and recruiting efforts around.
As you develop a job description and determine what you need a sales representative to bring to your company, don’t forget to outline what your company offers to them as a part of your job posting. You’ll want to provide some information about benefits, sales bonuses, company culture, and professional development within your job description to help you communicate what makes your company competitive. Whether you choose to list the information or not, you’ll also want to know the compensation you can accommodate for the role, so you can screen candidates and answer compensation-related questions more efficiently.
Consider Asking for Previous Sales Experience
For most sales roles, you’ll want to seriously consider hiring candidates with previous sales experience. Although many sales positions often allow a great deal of flexibility when it comes to how sellers tackle prospecting, developing leads, and going into sales conversations, these positions can also be quite challenging and aren’t a fit for everyone, so finding candidates who have a little bit of extra experience and understand and enjoy the sales process can be a big help.
Get the Word Out To Potential Sales Role Candidates
Once you’ve got a job description on paper and ready to go, it’s time to start getting the word out about your open sales roles. Get started by posting on job boards and social media sites, but don’t forget about more traditional job recruitment efforts, like job fairs and talking with your professional network. Working with a recruitment agency can also help you bring more candidates in during the recruitment process, especially if you’re trying to recruit with limited in-house HR resources.
Generally, while any of these approaches could end up being the one that brings in your top sales recruit, leveraging all of them simultaneously will be the most effective at drawing in the broadest range of qualified candidates. Having the most competitive line-up of recruits will help you find the best fit for your organisation and avoid the need to settle for a candidate who may not be ideal for your company just to fill a vacancy.
Create Online Job Listings
It’s a basic step, but having online job listings is crucial to finding candidates. Be sure to list your sales positions on your website and job board sites like Monster, LinkedIn, and Indeed. Additionally, consider posting on industry-focused sites, like Dice, which is a job search site for those looking to work in tech.
Don’t forget to also consider any local job boards or professional association sites you can list your open sales positions on as well! If you’re considering entry-level candidates, consider also getting in touch with local colleges or universities to have your job opening advertised through their career centre(s).
Share Your Open Sales Roles on Social Media
Promoting your job openings on social media can also help you draw in more candidates. Social media posts can be especially helpful in finding those who may be interested in other job opportunities but aren’t actively seeking out positions listed on job boards.
While LinkedIn is probably the most obvious social network to share your sales position on, don’t forget the others. Although Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even TikTok may not be only for professional content, they can still help get more eyes on your sales openings and potentially help you draw in additional candidates. You can also consider promoting your job openings through an email blast, especially if you think your email list (or a segment of it) would have potentially qualified candidates.
Consult Your Professional Network
Your professional network is likely full of people in your industry who are aware of your organisation. Consider consulting with those you trust in your network to see if they know of anyone who might be looking for a sales role like yours. You might even find that some of your contacts help you promote your sales openings once you fill them in on what you’re looking for.
Check Out Job Fairs and Other Local Recruitment Events
While digital job boards have made recruiting easier, don’t ignore the power of networking with jobseekers directly. Consider going or sending a representative to career fairs (including virtual ones) to talk to candidates and promote your company and career openings. This method is especially helpful when looking to recruit salespeople, since it allows you to evaluate their communication skills before even processing their application. By talking to candidates individually, you’ll get a much quicker sense of who they are and what they could bring to your organisation.
Not sure where to start on finding job fairs? Local colleges and universities often sponsor them, so you might start by getting in touch with the career development contacts at your local schools. You might also see if local economic development groups are involved in hosting, or at least know of, career events that might be relevant to your business.
Work With a Sales Recruitment Agency To Maximise Your Results
Recruiting agencies generally have access to a larger number of candidates than your organisation will, and are specialised in recruiting top-quality candidates. If you’re looking for a way to maximise the resources you have available in-house, or are just struggling to find the time to promote your job listings and vet and evaluate job candidates, getting help from a recruitment agency can mean getting a lot of extra manpower on your side.
Contact Chester Recruitment for Help With Sales Team Recruitment
As you’re looking to fill your next sales role, Chester Recruitment has the resources you need to not only find competitive job candidates, but also evaluate them for your organisation. To find out how we can help you source candidates for your sales or other positions, just reach out to our team! We’ll be thrilled to work with you to find the right candidate, no matter your industry or the specifics of the role you’re looking to fill.