Your sales team are at the heart of your business because of the nature and importance of their job. If you make the wrong decision whilst recruiting sales people, or if you take too long, your business could suffer the effects of missing out on top talent. With this in mind, finding the most talented sales candidates and making hiring decisions in a timely manner is essential.
Research from Glassdoor Economic Research showed that the average time it takes to fill a vacancy is 23 days. It varies by industry, but in terms of sales, every day you’re short of a sales person is a day where you stand to lose money and momentum in your business plan.
We are experts in sales job hiring which means we understand the importance of filling a vacancy quickly but correctly. If you’re looking to recruit a new candidate to your sales team, here are some proven ways you can speed up the sales hiring process.
- Look to hire internally
Recruiting internally has several benefits, with one of them being that you can greatly reduce the time it takes to find someone new. Before posting an external job advert, it’s worth asking your current employees if they want to take on a new challenge. The onboarding process will be quicker because they already know the company and are already on the payroll. On top of this, it sends a positive message of job progression within your team, and this can boost employee retention.
You will still need to interview candidates, but you should have a good idea of how they perform and whether they’re up to the job based on how they’ve acted to date.
- Pre-screen candidates
If you’re thinking about hiring externally, a good way you can save time is to pre-screen candidates. This means setting out industry-specific tasks for applicants to complete, such as skills tests. Pre-screening can massively reduce the time it takes to complete the sales hiring process by highlighting those who have exactly what you’re looking for versus applicants who have applied on a whim and who aren’t qualified.
- Use flexible interview tactics
Sales is a candidate-driven market. If you’re looking at hiring the best sales people, you need to be prepared to be flexible. There are several ways you can do this, but the easiest way is to be flexible whilst interviewing. Over lockdown, many employers had to use video interviews to speak to candidates. Despite lockdown ending, video interviews should continue to be used if you want to shorten the recruitment process.
- Post adverts on specialised job boards
Posting on job board websites can bring forth plenty of talented applicants, but it can also entice lots of unsuitable candidates to apply. This means you have to spend more time sifting through endless applications. Save time and attract top talent by posting on specialised job boards geared towards sales people specifically.
- Use sales recruitment agencies
The best way to speed up the sales recruitment process is to use a recruitment agency like us. Our expert team knows how to recruit sales people in a timely manner. We will sift through applications for you, finding the best talent and filtering out applicants who aren’t a good fit for your business. We will send forwards candidates who are interview ready, taking all the hassle out of recruiting and leaving you with just the interviews the conduct and more time to focus on your business.
Hire New Sales People Today
If you’re looking to speed up your sales recruitment process, our team is here to help. Please contact us to discuss how we can assist you in finding exceptional sales people in the shortest time frame.
