Stop treating your sales hiring process like gambling at a casino

Humans are emotional animals. This is a proven fact and one that is too often overlooked by salespeople in their endeavours to sell their wares. They think their prospect are rational when they aren't. As the saying goes

We decide emotionally, then we rationalise.

But it is also a fact in recruitment, especially recruitment of sales people which, as a reminder, is the most critical recruitment a company does (well, yes, sales people are the one bringing the revenues used to pay the rest of the company after all).

Many biases lead us to make decisions that are not the most beneficial for us and the business we work for.

Why and how do these biases work against us?

How can biases impact your recruitment?

Let's imagine a business hiring a sales executive in a traditional manner. They receive the CVs, they see a couple of data points on the CV that are attractive, say a previous employer in the same industry, successful companies and they already have a positive perspective. So when interviewing the candidate, they may fall to a confirmation bias…

The same applies the other way round of course, just based on the candidate's name. I still remember a French-Mexican friend who graduated from an excellent London MBA programme telling me about his difficulty in finding work in the French market despite being completely bilingual. His name was Mexican and he really struggled to get interviews. No need to articulate here the bias at play…

I've also lost count of the number of sales managers in a mid-cap company or even scale ups and start-ups who tell me they've recruited salespeople from a "big company" only to realise that the people they recruit are not delivering the expected results. This obviously costs time, money, energy and opportunity, the amounts of which, in hard cash, can be astronomical.

Or, last example, it has also been proven that order has an impact on decision-making. Recruiters remember the first and last candidates far more than those in between.

In short:

Too many companies treat sales hiring like casino gambling. Knowingly or unknowingly, they trust their feelings

The process in place is also often flawed 

Beyond human bias introduced by using a CV too early, the recruitment processes that I see in many companies is also often the source of numerous errors.

There is too much certainty by hiring managers about how they need to interview without any previous training (I know, I've been in this situation) and a huge amount of improvisation during interviews. For example, there are no script that introduces appointments in the same way, questions are asked in a random order, no definition of good, average or poor answers so all is left at the appreciation of the hiring manager.

When a recruitment process begins with a video interview or a face-to-face meeting, numerous studies show that a recruiter takes five minutes to decide whether or not to proceed with a candidate. Examples of biases that impact sales recruitment decisions can be found here or here.

Sadly, this level of improvisation is similar to sale representatives who also make things up when selling to prospects.

Is the right information being sought?

One last thing. Success in sales depends on factors that are difficult to assess robustly in an interview. For example, a salesperson must be able to handle rejection. They must be able to challenge their prospects and not seek emotional validation. Therefore, their "need for approval" must not be strong. It is important to know their motivation, whether extrinsic or intrinsic. It is rare, very rare, for recruiters, TAMs or hiring managers to seek out this information. And yet, it is key to success.

More details here, here, or here

So what should we do?

A meta-analysis of research spanning more than 85 years has proven that when selecting candidates, the predictive effectiveness of the most frequently used methods is disastrous. In particular:

CV: 18%

Traditional interviews ("gut feeling"): 20%

Personality tests: 20%

References: 23%

The meta-analysis entitled "The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology" can be found at this link, among other places.

I find it difficult to think of any other professional field in which such low success rates would be acceptable. And yet, in recruitment, these methods, which have no predictive value, are used on a daily basis. Here are a few recommendations to improve your sales representative recruitment process:

1- Implement candidate assessment based on pure skill criteria. Personally, I recommend OMG, the global leader in this field. Based on several decades of activity and 2.5 million profiles, when recommended candidates are recruited, in 71% of cases they are top A-players in their first year. Compare this with, for example, the 18% predictability of a CV. As they say in English: the mind boggles...

2- Do not initiate the recruitment process with a meeting, whether virtual or in person, as this can lead to the biases mentioned below. And do not use the CV as a criterion for deciding whether or not to consider the candidate.

3- Implement structured interviews that prevent managers responsible for recruitment from varying in their judgement based on their personal and professional circumstances and that allow for overall transparency.

If hiring A-Player type of candidates is a priority for you, let us know.