Selection & Recruiting

Recruitment &
Recruit Select Validating
Selection
candidates prospects the process
Planning
Planning process
• Get it right the first time
• Personnel needs
• Changes in market
• Turnover
• Cultural fit
• Job analysis
• Interviews
• Questionnaires
• Observation
• Job description
Job description - Basics

• Reporting line
• Types and levels of customer
• Training required and provided
• Specific tasks to be performed
• Mental and physical fitness requirement
• Type of products to be sold
• Degree of responsibility-negotiations and decisions
• Career paths – compensation and growth
Job description - Details
• New vs. established account selling
• Selling through distributors
• Entertaining customers
• Level of buying authority
• Physical activity required
• Sales vs. Technical knowledge
• Relocation
• Written proposals
• Individual vs. team selling
• One time vs. systems selling
• Type of prospects/customers
• One-on-one vs. group selling
• Travel: how much & what kind
• Program or concept selling
 What Customers Want in Salespeople

Traits
Willingness to fight for
customer:

Thoroughness/follow
through:

Market knowledge/
willingness to share:

nowledge of product line:

Diplomacy in dealing with

operating departments:

Imagination:

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Percent of Respondents Who Rated Most Valued

Recruiting sources
Classified Ads
• Reaches wide audience (trade publications
may narrow the reach)
• Used if high turnover
• Tend to over-produce under-qualified
candidates
Present Employees
• Familiar w/ company products & procedures
• Established job histories
• Sales as a promotion
• Over-rely on previous experience
 Recruiting sources
Referrals/Networking
• Company executives understand needs, culture and
potential fit for sales responsibilities
Employment Agencies
• Best if company pays
Schools & Colleges
• Poised & easily trained
• Lack experience & become bored
Customers, Suppliers & Competition
• Good if need w/out much training
• Legal & ethical issues
• Common: insurance, stock broker, office equipment,
clothing
 Direct recruit to control
location or phone number

Complete application
blanks

Conduct screening
interviews
Hiring
criteria Check credit and
for background
sales
jobs Complete psychological
used and achievement tests
to
guide Secondary interviews
selection
process
Make offer for sales
position

Physical exam

Modify hiring
criteria, tests or Measure subsequent
Interview procedures success on the job Reject

A Model for Selecting Salespeople

Resume analysis

• Account for all dates.

• Examine the number of jobs and length of time spent
on each job.
• Reasons for leaving job.
• Is there a pattern of growth?
Interviews

• At least two levels – knockout and assessment

• Opportunity to gauge by speaking
• Discuss details mentioned in resume and application
form
• Subjective by nature
• Interviewing styles
• Structured
• Semi-structured
• Field observation
 Research on interviewers
• Does extensive interviewing experience help an interviewer to make better
judgments?
• Does pressure to recruit impair the judgment of experienced interviewers less
than inexperienced interviewers?
• When interviewing multiple recruits, do interviewers tend to use previous
applicants as the standard of comparison for subsequent applicants?
• Will the positive effects of good appearance offset an unfavorably rated
personal history for a recruit?
• How much of the factual information presented in an interview will the
interviewer remember immediately after a short interview if no notes are taken?
• How will lack of notes and factual recall affect the interviewer’s rating of the
recruits interviewed?
• How reliably can a group of interviewers rate a recruit’s qualifications for a job?
• How reliably can a group of interviewers rate future job performance by a
recruit?
Common interviewer mistakes

• Failure to establish rapport

• Lack of plan
• Insufficient time
• Not listening
• Personal bias
• Questions
• First impressions
 Asking the right question

• May I look at your resume?

• Where will I get my leads?

• May I review your sales literature?

• When are your slow times?

• May I go with you on a sales call?

• May I visit your marketing department?

 Previous employer reference
check
• Dates of Employment?
• What was the Job?
• What type of selling was involved?
• How did the applicant get along with his/her
manager? Customers? Fellow salespeople?
• How did his/her job performance compare others?
• Applicants strongest points? Weaknesses we should
help him/her overcome?
• Why did s/he leave your company?
• Would you rehire the applicant? Why?
 Testing

• Intelligence test
• Personality test
• Aptitude test