Avoid These Sales Hiring Mistakes

When we get called in to help a company improve its sales hiring record or turn around poor hiring performance, the first thing we do is investigate what has worked and has not worked in the past.

There are several mistakes that are commonly made and most involve poor preparation or lack of process. Given the pressure to deliver results, the temptation always exists to cut corners and make a hire, but the results can be catastrophic in terms of lost revenues, lost leads, and lost customers. The good news is that these misakes can easily be fixed once they are recognized.

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1. Emphasizing Experience over Ability

Too often, sales hiring and recruiting emphasizes specific industry experience that both limits the resource pool and takes focus away from the finding the person with the right skills and sales DNA for the position. If, for example, you require five years sales experience selling a certain type of medical product a large pool of capable candidates quickly becomes a puddle and there is no guarantee that anyone in that pool will have what it takes to succeed in your company.

The Fix – focus on the attributes that makes someone successful in your unique selling environment and draw from a much larger pool of candidates. Product knowledge can be taught; ability cannot.

 2. Personal Recommendations

They’re nice-to-haves, not must-haves. They tempt sales recruiters to circumvent the screening process based on the reputation and performance of the sponsor, not the candidate. Also, as a general rule, rather than pesonal references, you want to see references from former managers who can speak to what it’s like to employ the candidate.

 The Fix – Put all candidates through the same process to ensure an objective assessment.

3. Not Keeping Past Performance in Perspective

Awards and accomplishments are worthy of due respect, but not necessarily indicators of future success on your team if your selling environment is different from their past experience. Due diligence is required regardless of the track record of the individual currently in the limelight. Different environments and circumstances may highlight weaknesses that never surfaced in previous assignments.

 The Fix – Assess candidates past experience in roles and selling environments that are similar to yours.

4. Poor preparation. Many hiring managers will “fly” into a meeting cold and attempt to wing the interview. The usual outcome is ad-hoc interview and a non-objective assessment of the candidate, which in turn typically leads to a mediocre hiring record.

The Fix - Every interview should have a structured set of questions and script to ensure that every relevant detail is explored during the interview.

5. Not Letting the Candidate Talk – In many interviews the hiring manager gives and brief intro to the position and then never stops talking, moving from an explanation of the position, to the required skills and then in some cases selling the candidate on the role, particularly if the search has been long and a desirable looking candidate shows up. Telegraphing the requirements or not letting the candidate speak, means the interviewer has to make assumptions about the candidate to fill in the blanks, which utlimately compromises the assessment.

The Fix – Stop. Ask questions and stop to let the candidate answer. At certains times you can even give up control of the interview to see if the candidate takes control of the meeting and attempts to qualify and/or close.

To read more about avoiding sales hiring mistakes, see the FREE Ebook The Ten Most Costly Sales Hiring Mistakes

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