11 Steps to Hiring a Good Salesperson in a Tight Job Market

11 Steps to Hiring a Good Salesperson in a Tight Job Market

Hiring a quality inbound sales person in 2021 is hard. 

Success requires a fairly rigorous process to find that unique individual that has a combination of skills and motivation and can execute the never ending prospecting grind. In today’s business environment, the hiring company has to take extra steps to differentiate the opportunity to find, attract and retain the right person.

But it is possible, and it is an essential skill to learn if you are looking for scale. 

Here are the best practices that have helped our portfolio companies hire hundreds of successful sales people over the last few years. 

1. Understand the basics of a job description, reporting structure, compensation program, training program and ramp up process. 

This blog article explains the areas of recruiting, managing and motivating good sales talent: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/startups-who-should-your-first-sales-hire-be

1. Set the right expectations for recruiting time and effort. If you are searching for a top 5% or 10% performer, it typically takes time and hard work to shift through a lot of average resumes and connections, before you get to a few quality candidates.
2. Create a distinctive job posting, descriptive of your culture and the opportunity. Quality inbound sales people typically have a lot of options in the current environment, and your job description should explain why you are different and unique, the sales team, and the growth opportunities. It’s not always easy to differentiate a sales position but creativity is encouraged.
3. We have found great value in posting a video by the CEO or sales leader that explains what you are looking for and why people should apply. It’s fun, human and a great way to showcase the reason people want to work with you. 
4. If you want my help in raising visibility for the position, tag me on each social media channel, so I can quickly spread it to my network. Tag other sales leaders who you know and trust so they can send it through their networks easily to get you the maximum # of applicants. 
5. Schedule periodic reminders and mentions on social media so that you increase visibility.
6. Post/send the information to a local or global HubSpot User Group or other places where inbound people congregate. Where poaching other employees is not a sustainable hiring strategy, some groups start off remote sessions with a public announcement of people looking for jobs and offering jobs. Find marketing network groups or associations to build the visibility. 
7. Identify the top marketing and sales professors at your local university and ask them to feed you quality candidates from their current classes. Engage with the local academic career centers and tie into their alumni base for potential returners. 
8. Pay an internal referral fee (payable 90 days after the hire date) commensurate with the hard work to find the right person. Make the referral fee available to friends and family or open it to everyone to increase exposure.
9. Ask each one of your employees to spend 15 minutes to identify 3 candidates that they have personally worked with and can introduce you to to start the process.
10. Never stop the recruiting process and make sure you are building an employee pipeline just like a revenue pipeline.