It’s not uncommon for companies to recruit and hire sales staff directly. In many cases, they may have investigated using an outside recruitment agency and couldn’t justify the cost. Or they may have used one in the past and were unsatisfied with the results and figured they could do as good or a better job recruiting themselves.

There is no doubt that if Companies can find an outside recruiter that consistently provides Top Sales Talent that delivers results, they would treat it as an investment rather than an expense.

The key sentence is “finding a recruiter that consistently delivers Top Sales Talent who perform!” and if you can find them, they provide you with a strategic advantage over your competition.

The good news is there IS recruiters that can deliver Top Sales Talent are out there, and you need to search for them. No different than you had to search for Top Sales Talent.

Five things to look for when hiring a Sales Talent Recruiter.

  1. They Maximize Technology. Identifying talent has traditionally included resume review, testing for skills, aptitude, personality, the face-to-face interviews, and reference checks which are still very much relevant today. What’s missing is Data Science. Being able to digest all the candidate information and employer needs and with algorithms further evaluate which candidates have the highest probability to perform the best. When interviewing recruiters, you want to ask questions about the technologies they use. Essential items you want to hear they use is Data Science Algorithms, Machine Learning, and Artifical Intelligence which identifies candidates quickly and speeds up the entire recruitment process.
  2. They are Specialists. There is a saying, “You can’t be all things to all people,” and this is very true in recruitment as it is in medicine. You wouldn’t go to a general practitioner for brain surgery, and you shouldn’t go to a general recruiter or one that focuses on tech if you need sales talent. Not only is it vital that they specialize in recruiting a specific talent but are specialists in that talent personally. If a firm is focusing on recruiting for sales talent, do their recruiters have proven field experience? It makes a huge difference.
  3. They Serve Specific Regions. If given a choice most people don’t want to have to commute to far for work. Recruiters that focus within a defined area tend to have a more in-depth database of local sales talent or talent that may want to move to the area.
  4. They Vette Extensively. A significant predictor of the future is looking into the past. The question you need to ask is “how do you Vette candidates?” The concept is to view the hiring of Sales Talent no differently than you would in making a personal investment. You want to hear they are not only doing employment, education, criminal background, and reference checks.  You want to know they are verifying past income history and performing credit checks.
  5. They are Confident. Actions speak louder than words, and fees and guarantees are actions. Beyond looking for the best price, which could be the highest cost if the candidate doesn’t work out. Is the recruiter prepared to provide a more extended guarantee than most? Are they confident enough to do so? Or offer you the option to disperse your payments over a longer term based on the performance of the candidate?

It takes time, but if you can find a sales recruiter that can deliver on those five requirements the probability of success will be much higher than if you go it alone. Not to mention it will take much less time and effort on your part.

 

Author: Bryan Payne is the Chief Talent Scout and Founding Partner at Just Sales Jobs with over 25-years of experience in sales and leading high-performance sales teams. Bryan and his team specialize in recruiting top talent within the Greater Toronto Area to Kitchener Waterloo. You can reach him at bp@justsalesjobs.ca