by Lee Salz

Candidate screening is one of the most difficult tasks that recruiters and managers face. Most will tell you that screening sales talent is the toughest of all. Why? Sales people are trained in the art of persuasion. They know how to provide the desired responses to the questions. Even more daunting is when you are interviewing sales people that worked for a competitor. These sales people know the language and industry buzz words making it even more challenging to screen them. Fret not! It is possible to successfully screen sales talent, but there is work to be done before you even look at a résumé.

The most important step a company can take is to develop a sales talent screening program. This helps bring focus to the initiative. The mission of this program is to provide data that allows for the measurement of the candidate pedigree versus the desired profile. Think in terms of formulating a marriage, a sales marriage, that is.

This program should be fully documented showing step-by-step the components of the screening program. It is best to define who will be interviewing the candidates and their role in the interview process. It should define the tools that will be used as well as their purpose. Below are seven key components of an effective sales talent screening program.

1. Ideal Sales Person Profile. It has always surprised me how many companies have fully documented profiles of their ideal client. Yet, few have a profile of their ideal sales person. How can you screen when you don’t know for what you are screening? Many of you have a clear picture in mind of the profile of your ideal mate. My bet is most of your close friends can rattle off your profile in a heartbeat. The same principle applies to sales talent. If you don’t know exactly what you are looking for, how will you find it?

This profile should be fully detailed. Some of the areas to address in the profile are the experience you expect that candidate to already have, the skills that the candidate should already possess, and the skills you are not willing to teach. Truth is, this is an extensive topic about which I have dedicated another article. (Send me an email and I’ll send you a link to that article.)

The lack of a fully-defined profile of the ideal sales person is the most common cause of bad sales marriages. It is also the major point of frustration between sales managers and recruiters. Recruiters often tell me that they feel they are throwing darts while blindfolded because they have so little detail about the desired profile.

2. Always Be Recruiting. In sales, there is an old expression. “The toughest time to make a sale is when you really need one.” The same holds true for recruiting. When a slot is open on the sales team, it becomes an all hands on deck exercise to fill it. While the seat is open, revenue targets are in jeopardy. This leads many to forget the profile of the ideal sales person profile in the interest of filling a seat. Playing this forward a bit, the seat becomes vacant again a short time later when either side determines that it is not a good fit.

Sales recruiting is a year-round exercise. The best sales forces are always on the look out for strong sales talent. Find a company that identifies a strong candidate that meets their profile who wouldn’t find a way to hire this individual. It is a rarity to say the least. Sales teams have turnover either driven by the company or the employee. It is best to have a candidate portfolio at the ready than to begin a process of surfacing candidates when a seat is open. Poor hiring decisions are made out of desperation to fill a seat. The open seat is a cost to the company every day it is unfilled. Yet, the cost is more painful if the seat is filled by someone who doesn’t fit.