If you’ve ever met an overly optimistic person, you’ve learned firsthand how optimism can murder your time and wreak havoc on your life. Although it seems wrong, there’s a dark side to optimism when it comes to sales recruiting. Sales recruiters who are endlessly optimistic will waste too much time on the wrong sales candidates.
It’s no secret that recruiting sales talent is a is a challenge.
If you’ve gone through the interview process with multiple candidates and have finally winnowed it down to one final choice, it’s painful when your finalist turns down your job offer.
If you’re working hard to recruit the top 20%, this will happen.
It’s not only acceptable but inevitable. Part of recruiting the best is getting turned down.
Recruiting top sales talent is always competitive. They have lots of choices. But it shouldn’t happen too often because it burns through too many resources and takes too much time.
I was on the phone with one of my candidates yesterday. A true talent with an amazing track record of sales success hunting and winning new business. Probably not another person like him in the entire region –he is that good.
He went for an interview and was expecting to discuss an offer
Hiring is difficult. In some cases you’ll spend more time recruiting for someone than they will last in the job! But if you are struggling with your next hire, you could be overthinking things.
If you’ve noticed during the recruiting process ……
The position has been open for more than 6 months.
Sometimes an executives busy schedule is not his or her own. Let’s face it, “things happen.” Unfortunately, this happens to some busy hiring managers or recruiters more than others. When you are unable to consistently keep your calendared appointments, arrive late, or constantly reschedule there are both direct and indirect costs.
In good economies and bad, finding top talent is difficult. Think it’s any easier for Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, or Google? Sure, they have distinct competitive advantages, but it still takes teams of recruiters interviewing around the clock to recruit and hire staff even for well branded growing organizations.
If I want to bake a chocolate cake, I’ll pull out a recipe book. Then I’ll follow the directions and in about an hour and a half or so I’ll have a cake. If you just follow a recipe, you’ll get predictable results. Right?
Except every time I try to bake a chocolate cake, it never comes out quite the same. Sometimes they’re good , sometimes they’re burnt, other times they just taste like a cardboard sponge. (Not sure I’ve ever eaten a cardboard sponge, but you get the point.)
Are you recruiting top software sales talent and running into roadblocks? You’re not alone. The sales function appears to be an easy role to recruit for on the outset. Yet recruiting sales talent is one of the more difficult and time-consuming recruitment jobs around.
Hiring can bring out your worst fears. Especially if you’re a new manager or just starting with a new organization. When your first goal is to immediately staff up—your reputation hangs in the balance. Everyone’s watching…quietly rooting for your success or failure.
Are you still dealing with high-turnover, under-performers, and missed quotas? The greatest challenge of any sales manager is in the recruiting. Getting the right people, on time, with the right skills that fit the corporate culture is a challenge.
So how do you pick the best sales talent?
