When it comes to hiring salespeople, attracting and selecting the best candidates is crucial for the success of your business. In this blog post, we will explore a masterful interview process that will help you identify and hire top talent. By following these steps, you can streamline your hiring process, improve candidate engagement, and ultimately assemble a team of high-performing sales professionals.

Step 1: Identify Your Ideal Candidate Profile

Before diving into the hiring process, it's essential to clearly define the characteristics and qualifications you seek in a candidate. The key here is to get it in plain English so every single person in your organization fully understands it. We love our HR folks, and so does our sister company www.hiringstint.com; however, sometimes the job descriptions coming out of that department can be overly formal or entrenched in corporate jargon. Keep your ideal candidate profile really simple! Here’s an example:

• Degree'd Professionals with 2-5 years of sales experience

• Intelligent, quick thinkers

• Researchers who are intellectually curious

• Social, team-minded, and competitive winners

• Currently making less than 90k, looking to make between 90k and 120k

Keeping the candidate profile simple, straightforward, and in plain English will help you identify the candidates who genuinely match the role and responsibilities. This won’t necessarily be public. This is an internal-facing document.

Step 2: Sell the Career Path

To attract top talent, it's crucial to demonstrate the value your company offers through a well-defined career path. Build a document for candidates that showcases:

• Expectations for performance and clear income expectations

• Multiple routes for career progression

• Promotion milestones

By providing a clear growth trajectory, you address what candidates commonly want and need, including a constant incentive to excel, a career that enhances their professional development and resume, promotions to increase their self-worth, and a supportive team atmosphere. Highlighting these factors will help you position your company as an attractive long-term opportunity. Follow our CEO Adam Morris on eventbrite for workshops on this topic.

Step 3: Help Candidates Feel Comfortable

We know that some employers like to stress-test their candidates, but SalesFirst never recommends that. Why? Because creating a comfortable and authentic interview environment is simply the best way to extract the most genuine information from candidates. When a candidate is relaxed, you are far more likely to see them in their natural demeanor. Here are some effective techniques to make that happen:

• When you like a candidate’s answer, offer up a compliment and give instant feedback during the interview.

• When you don’t like a candidate’s answer, instead of giving negative feedback, dig in a little more and give them a chance to explain further.

• Explain the interview process upfront so that candidates can understand it and follow along.

• Go beyond the resume and ask questions about the candidate’s life experiences that are more engaging than standard work-related questions.

• Allow candidates to take their time with answering questions - don't rush them.

By making candidates feel at ease, you encourage them to express themselves more freely and provide you with a clearer picture of their qualifications.

Step 4: Have a Pleasant Phone Screen

Start the interview process with a phone screen to evaluate candidates efficiently. Let the candidate know that you always like to give 15 minutes of your time on the phone to make sure it’s a good fit before a formal interview. This is a perfect way to give instant respect to a candidate and set the tone right away. Follow these tips for a successful phone screen:

• Keep a consistent format for all candidates.

• Set the phone screen for 15 minutes, and if you want more time after that, just ask.

• Make candidates feel comfortable by encouraging them to share both personal and professional aspects of their lives. This doesn’t mean you should cross barriers and ask them direct questions about their personal lives. Instead, let them know that you are open to discussing the things that are important to them. Here’s an example: “So, what’s going on in your life that you’re proud of these days?”

• Ask open-ended questions about their background, relevant knowledge, and future goals. “It looks like you’ve done well so far in your career. What do you think is next for you?”

• We recommend that you avoid discussing the job details too much at this stage. Instead, focus on assessing their compatibility with your ideal candidate profile.

If you intend to bring them back for an interview, inform candidates that you were impressed with their performance and would like invite them for an in-person interview. But this is the point where you emphasize the need for thorough preparation. Let them know that the most prepared candidates will likely be the candidates moving forward.

Step 5: Have a Thoughtful In-Person Interview

Get ready, because this is where SalesFirst Recruiting flips the script on our clients. The in-person interview should be a two-way conversation that allows candidates to take the lead. Yes, we recommend letting your candidates begin the interview by letting them ask any question they want. Here’s why:

• You get the perfect opportunity to gauge their research, level of preparation, and ability to handle a professional meeting.

  • Did they show up well researched?

  • Were there questions tactful and insightful?

  • Are they controlling the meeting like a professional who can run a sales process?

• As always, congratulate candidates on both their questions and answers, and continue to build their confidence and get them comfortable. Once the candidates feel comfortable, proceed with your questions about their resume, education, experience, etc.

• Here’s another tip we like to share. When you describe the position, it’s important to talk about the challenges of the role, the support they’ll receive, and the commitment it’ll take to be successful. “Mr. Candidate, I can promise you that this position will be a challenge. You’ll have to be structured, disciplined, and creative to be successful here. But we will never stop supporting our reps in reaching their goals. We will be with you every step of the way once we make the decision to hire you.”

• Be sure to highlight the company's processes, growth, and the candidate's ability to represent the organization effectively.

When concluding the first interview, it's important to leave candidates with a positive impression while “putting the ball in their court.”

• Encourage candidates to take the lead and demonstrate their interest & commitment. It makes us cringe when employers say “Well, we have 5 other candidates to interview, so I’ll get back in touch with you once we’ve met them all.” Instead, express your interest in them, emphasize their potential, and assign them a small task or a personality test to gauge their engagement. "There are a few more steps in this process, and I’m excited about your candidacy. Hop on to our careers page and find the personality assessment we posted. Let me know when you are done, and we can take it from there.”

• Now you can watch how quickly they take action. Obviously, many of the best sales reps have a high sense of urgency.

Step 6: Dig Deep in the Second Interview

The second interview aims to delve deeper into candidates' behavior, work ethic, motivations, and problem-solving abilities. Differentiate between behavioral and situational questions, and the key here is to make sure all the questions remain professional, relevant, and do not discriminate based on race, sex, religion, age. etc.

• Behavioral questions ask candidates to recount past experiences. Discuss specific examples of how the candidate has handled challenging situations in the past to determine their ability to thrive in your company's environment, and be sure to ask lots of follow-up questions to their initial responses to get more detailed information on their thought process and decision-making skills.

• Situational questions present hypothetical scenarios to gauge their future reactions and alignment with your company's culture. Use lots of probing questions to uncover their motivation, problem-solving skills, and ability to handle stress and pressure. Additionally, be sure to give them enough information within the hypothetical scenario so they can answer thoughtfully and provide a well-rounded solution.

• These questions should be really challenging and really thorough, so keep complimenting the candidate when you like their answers!

Step 7: Time with the Team

Your best recruiters might in fact be the candidate’s future teammates. Allow your candidates to spend time with your team, providing an opportunity for mutual assessment. Schedule a job shadow session for 3 to 6 hours, and foster transparency and openness. Let your candidates know they can ask any questions they have about your leadership style, culture, compensation, etc. “Mr. Candidate, there are no secrets in this company. Any single question you have is fair to ask, and your questions will be kept confidential. So if you want to what I’m like as leader, feel free to ask. If you want to know if we actually promote from within, I encourage you to ask those questions too.”

Step 8: The Offer

When you think you have your candidate, we recommend a few small steps to maximize your chances of getting a yes.

• Start with a soft verbal offer to gauge their interest and commitment. “Ms. Candidate, you have really done well in this process, and I think I would really enjoy working with you. If we extended you an offer with no surprises, how do you think you’d respond?”

• When you get a positive response, schedule a final "talk" to present the official offer in person, emphasizing the importance of the position. If this is a remote role, it’s fine to settle for a virtual meeting. But if you can, meet for coffee and hand over a beautifully prepared offer and encourage the candidate to ask any questions they want- including questions about commissions, benefits, etc.

• Discuss the candidate's readiness to take on the challenges and ensure their personal support network is on board. “Now, I fully realize that you’ll want to discuss this with your spouse and look carefully at the details, but I want to know is- Are you ready to join my team and take that next big step in your career?”

• Set a deadline of no more than a few days to get that signature. Be strict. Don’t budge. This is important because it sets clear expectations. You don’t want the candidate to take too long and risk losing them in the meantime. Not only is it ok, but they SHOULD feel pressured. In fact, you owe it to them to help them make a quick decision.

Ask SalesFirst Recruiting for Help!

By implementing this masterful interview process, you can attract and hire the best salespeople for your organization. From creating a compelling candidate profile to conducting effective interviews and presenting offers, each step is designed to identify top talent and secure their commitment to your company's growth. Remember, a well-executed interview process will impress candidates and help build a winning sales team. Want to join workshops about matters such as this, follow our CEO Adam Morris on eventbrite!

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SalesFirst specializes in recruiting the full spectrum of client facing professionals such as Sales Development Reps, Account Executive, Outside Sales Reps, Account Managers, Sales Managers, Directors of Sales, VPs of Sales, and Chief Revenue Officers.

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