Recently, we brought together sales leaders from a range of industries for our quarterly dinner. As always, the value came from sharing real experience: what’s working, what’s not, and where small changes are making a difference to sales teams.
At this dinner, the conversations moved through skills-based hiring, how AI is reshaping recruitment and interviews, keeping top performers engaged, and much more.
Here’s the breakdown of what came out of the discussions.
Skills-based hiring and where it fits
Skills-based hiring drew a mix of views. For one leader, hiring salespeople with direct sector or competitor experience works best for their business. Others have had success with skills-based hiring, particularly for junior roles.
The conversation then moved to succession planning. Some businesses are building skills-based approaches into how they plan future promotions, not just how they hire externally. But it takes commitment. A lot of work goes into selecting someone for promotion long before they know about it, and once you start moving someone forward, you have to see it through.
There was also an admission that managers can be reluctant to release their top performers into new roles. Rewarding the losing manager both creates recognition and motivation in supporting wider growth.
What should candidates know about how they’re assessed?
Whether you’re hiring for skills or experience, you still need a fair way to assess candidates. One leader shared how their business runs its assessment centres. A couple of current employees join the group as if they were candidates, take part in the Q&A, then give feedback to the hiring team on the candidates that were around them.
This opened up a wider discussion about transparency. Should candidates know exactly what they’re being assessed against? On one hand, it feels fairer. On the other, leaders pointed out that when candidates know the criteria, they often give the answers they think you want to hear. That doesn’t always tell you much about how they’ll actually perform.
There’s no easy answer here, but it’s worth deciding where your business stands and being consistent about it.
How AI is changing the hiring process
Presentations came under the spotlight early in this discussion. Many modern sales processes involve very little presenting, but presentations remain a common part of sales interviews, often at the final stage. AI is now adding another layer, with some leaders actively encouraging candidates to use it during the process. Their reasoning is simple: if you expect someone to use AI in the role, you want to see how they use it. But this raised an interesting point about AI-created presentations, where neither the candidate nor the interviewer knows exactly what will appear on screen. As a result, some leaders are asking a different question: what are the mechanics that actually deliver results in the role? That might mean testing how someone gathers information to diagnose a problem, or how they’d approach business development activity.
There was also a concern that AI is reducing the differences between candidates. When lots of jobseekers use AI to write CVs and applications, the results start to look very similar, because AI knows what “good” looks like.
One sales leader described recruitment as a pyramid. Lots of candidates enter at the bottom, rough filters narrow the pool at each level, and the final decision happens at the top. The challenge is that AI is making those early filters less reliable. As a result, the table agreed there’s now more need for human judgement during the sifting stage, not less. Getting real evidence takes time. Questions like “How did you do it?” and “What went wrong?” still need a person on the other side of the conversation.
When the group was asked whether they’d told candidates what they expect around AI use, it turned out few businesses have formally addressed this yet. The general feeling was that trying to work out whether something was written by AI is a waste of time. It’s more useful to decide what you want and make that clear to candidates from the start.
Who’s measuring recruitment?
With so much changing in the hiring process, the table was asked: who is measuring how recruitment is going? Around the table, very few said they had a clear way of measuring it, whether in sales leadership or HR.
The group also noted that sales teams often end up talking mostly to other salespeople. That can make scaling and adding new talent harder, because the wider view is missing.
Leaders agreed that measurement is often the first step to working out what’s really wrong. Without it, businesses can misdiagnose the problem. “We can’t find people from our industry” might actually be “we have an attrition problem”. Getting the diagnosis right changes the solution entirely.
Getting more from your talent acquisition partner
Once you understand the real problem, the next step is making sure the people helping you hire understand it too. The message from sales leaders was clear: if you want better advice from your recruitment or talent acquisition partner, share more.
Those who get the most value treat their partners as part of the team. That can mean inviting them into monthly team meetings, being open about the people you already have and sharing the challenges you’re facing. Keeping a recruiter at arm’s length usually means they can only work with part of the picture.
Keeping junior talent engaged
Keeping entry-level salespeople engaged was a challenge many at the table recognised.
Leaders talked about helping junior employees understand how their own career might develop within the business and the wider market. Early wins came up again and again. Getting a first sale builds confidence and gives sales reps the motivation to keep going.
One practical idea was opening up more product lines to junior team members. More products mean more chances to have a conversation, and more chances to close a deal.
When does your top salesperson stop being the example?
At the other end of the scale, your most experienced performers bring their own challenges. Not every high performer wants to become a people manager. Some people like the company, enjoy their work and want to stay exactly where they are. The difficulty is that doing the same thing for too long, or being pushed into a change they didn’t want, can both lead to disengagement.
Sales leaders also discussed how a high performer can gradually start to drain energy from the team around them. Strong numbers don’t always mean someone is setting the right example. Several leaders felt that spotting when that shift happens, and having an honest conversation about it, is one of the hardest parts of the job.
Getting value from your tech stack
The final conversation of the evening was around the tools sales teams rely on every day. One sales leader shared how they brought in a conversation intelligence platform that recorded and stored call data that their sales team could search and analyse. Over time, the team stopped using it and didn’t realise they were sitting on a huge store of useful information.
It’s a familiar story. New tools are introduced to speed things up, but the real challenge is getting people to use them and see the value. So, it’s worth asking: what’s sitting unused in your tech stack?
One suggestion was to create champions for specific tools. This gives individuals a chance to take ownership and build a case for their own progression, while also helping the business get more from its investment.
The value of conversation
What stood out most from the evening was how many sales leaders are working through the same questions, whatever their industry or team size. There were no perfect answers, but plenty of practical ideas worth trying.
That’s what makes these dinners worthwhile. The insight comes from the conversation itself.
Interested in attending one of our events? We’re already planning our next one. Get in touch with one of our specialist consultants to find out more.
