Only 20-30% of Sales Professionals consistently meet or exceed their goals. The likelihood of a Sales Professional being successful appears to be low. In selection psychology, we speak of a low base rate: few people are suitable. This is reflected in the poor conversions of the recruitment funnel.
If the recruitment pipeline is too thin, there is a considerable temptation to make concessions on the selection criteria because, “after all, we can’t turn everyone down.” When there is too little choice, employers focus their selection primarily on extraversion. That is, selecting a good chat, presentable looks, and easy contact. Being successful in sales requires much more than that. In this blog, I take you through 7 critical traits and give tips on selecting them.
Sales Professionals who consistently achieve their goals appear to possess these seven critical traits.
Now that we know the seven critical characteristics, we can start selecting Sales. The trick in selecting Sales is to avoid being tempted to be too uncritical. Accept that you will have to reject many candidates. Making contact easily, having a smooth chat, and having good looks really isn’t enough.
Therefore, it is crucial to identify all seven essential characteristics of a candidate. A good selection process consists of several steps. At each step, you gather evidence about multiple characteristics. For example, the steps of a selection process may consist of an interview1 / interview2 or online tests / telephone interview / live interview or interview / online assessment / live exercise, etc. The combination of steps should ensure that your organization collects sufficient dominant evidence on all seven traits.
An interview-only selection process provides evidence of some of the seven critical traits. Still, a sharp judgment of all traits proves difficult in practice. This requires additional selection steps.
Moreover, you have to consider low conversions in the funnel. In other words, many candidates will drop out. Because of these low conversions, you will have to recruit many candidates; therefore, you can only spend limited time and costs per candidate.
A selection process with the following steps can help you select a good Sales Professional:
No, of course not. There is no standard selection process for all sales positions. Some sales positions are so specific that you call a headhunter for those, or you know someone yourself. Even then, the seven critical characteristics apply. With one candidate in the pipeline, a pre-assessment will not help you. But if you have doubts, consider a full assessment as a final step.
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