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What Helps Hiring The Right Sales People?
Even though someone may have the right experience and a good work ethic, and a great attitude, it doesn't always work out. The best turnover rate we had experienced is only one out of three new hires working out, and there have been some periods where it was only one in five. I tried a variety of interviewing techniques with no noticeable difference. I tried two different DISC based assessments and another personality profile assessment specifically developed for business-to-business call centers, with no decrease in this short-term turnover problem. Our basic requirement for a person to be considered for employment is sales related: * Direct sales experience as one-on-one sales, business-to-business. * Inside sales, business-to-business. * Call center business-to-business sales, not tech support or customer service. With this experience they are comfortable in a call center environment, but also understand what they are setting up in the appointment (they've been there), which is that first introductory meeting with a new prospect to present the new product or service. The age range that tends to work best for us is mid 30's to mid 50's. We need someone who has a reasonable amount of business experience so that the manager, director, vice-president or owner perceives that they are having a peer-to-peer conversation with our caller. Someone younger, fresh out of school just doesn't have the business experience to be able to handle the contacts at these levels. There are also quite a few people who apply to our job postings with good sales experience, but with no inside sales or call center experience. They don't stay very long as they prefer selling in person and do not want to be on the phone all day. So to find out more about the candidate's sales aptitude and to uncover some skills that I wouldn't really see during the interview, I'm using an assessment focused on sales. Last year we started using the OMG sales assessment (www.objectivemanagement.com), which has significantly increased our success rate - from 1 out of 3 hired it went up to nearly 1 to 1. OMG is a web-based testing tool, which contains about 90 questions related to sales. As soon as the candidate completes the test, I receive an 18-page PDF document with detailed test results. It includes: * A dashboard with the main results. * A detailed explanation for every result. * A summary and recommendation regarding the candidate. * Interviewing tips based on the candidate answers. Just looking at the result summary you could tell a lot about the candidate. Do they enjoy selling, can they handle rejections well; are they trainable and coachable? You can see their score for commitment, responsibility and desire. Their weaknesses are also shown, the confidence factor as well. The test gives a general conclusion indicating whether the person should be hired or not, it also highlights their best Skills as a major advantage. The OMG Assessment is the best test I have tried so far and I'm quite pleased with how it helps us hire the right sales people. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Jay Plesner, Owner |
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