You can’t build a sales engine without the right people, but sales roles are notoriously difficult to fill. Why is that? There’s the supply-demand reason: not enough sales candidates at a time when high volume sales recruitment is ramping up. Another reason could be your decision-making process. Heavy reliance on resumes and the impression sales candidates make with interviewers can backfire since neither is a rock-solid indicator of a candidate’s future job performance. If your high-volume sales recruitment isn’t building the B2B or B2C sales engine your organization needs, it’s time to move to data-driven hiring and proven hiring workflows.
Identify and engage top sales talent faster
According to hiring forecasts, 2021 is going to be a challenging year for sales recruitment. LinkedIn and Monster both project there will be high demand for sales candidates this year. That means recruiting teams need to engage, evaluate and hire the best sales talent quickly. Modern Hire’s Sales Hiring Blueprints can help recruiters fast-track high-volume sales recruitment. These ready-to-go hiring templates are built around scientifically validated, sales-job-specific assessments and interview content. Sales Hiring Blueprints are available for Sales B2B, Sales B2C, and Sales Manager roles. Each role has a recommended workflow that combines three or more of the following stages:
- On-demand text or phone screen
- On-demand realistic job preview
- On-demand job-specific Virtual Job Tryout™ assessment
- On-demand video interview
- Live phone interview
- Live face-to-face interview
Hiring Blueprints are also highly configurable to enable you to create the correct workflow and candidate experience for the role. For instance, if you have a big push to hire entry-level financial services reps annually in Q2, you might consider a recommended workflow that engages college students with an on-demand text interview, includes a Virtual Job Tryout, and ends with a live phone interview. If you’re hiring sales managers to drive purchases of a new medical device, you could implement a four-step hiring process that begins with an on-demand realistic job preview and Virtual Job Tryout and concludes with a live face-to-face interview that candidates can self-schedule when invited. The Blueprints can also be tailored with custom branding and customized content to mirror the open sales position.
It’s about your talent brand
Candidates for sales positions evaluate you as an employer with every interaction – what does your hiring process tell them? Modern Hire’s Virtual Job Tryout engages sales candidates with a job preview, job simulations, and branded content that gives them visibility into working for your company. The multimedia assessment offers an informative, modern experience that helps sales candidates envision joining your team. And the information goes both ways: Virtual Job Tryouts are proven to accurately predict candidates’ future success in the role by focusing on competencies related to on-the-job success. For sales manager roles, some of these competencies have been identified as communicates effectively, drives for results, solves problems, and manages priorities.
The Modern Hire virtual hiring platform modernizes the interview stage, too. Recruiting teams can access interview aids with dynamic job- and candidate-specific questions and use structured rating scales to promote consistent evaluation. Modern Hire’s advanced, ethical artificial intelligence (AI) automates scoring of structured and unstructured interview responses, expanding the scope of candidate assessment that can be used consistently and fairly at scale. Like Virtual Job Tryouts, Modern Hire interviews can be used to give candidates a window into your organization. In one study of more than 1,200 candidates interviewed via video for sales roles, 84% said their opinion of the hiring company improved.
New talent analytics research indicates that more than half of companies start their hiring process with resumes and social media profiles. With Modern Hire’s Hiring Blueprints, recruiters can use science-based pre-hire assessments and AI-powered automated interview scoring to prioritize candidates for high-volume sales roles. They gain powerful insights to make data-driven candidate selection decisions. Hiring managers get the evidence they need to make well-informed decisions that result in on-the-job success.
Case in point: hiring personal bankers
Modern Hire worked with a leading global financial institution based in the U.S. to help its recruiters accurately identify sales candidates able to convert referrals to sales and prospects to clients. The organization also wanted to provide an engaging, interactive candidate experience that would reinforce its brand with all candidates participating in its hiring process. To assess the complex, underlying attributes linked to personal bankers’ success in this particular organization, Modern Hire built a custom Virtual Job Tryout with measurable results. Candidates with the highest scores on the Virtual Job Tryout were high sales performers on the job, with $25,000 more in sales and 25% less turnover.
If you’d like to put your high-volume sales hiring into high gear, get in touch with Modern Hire for a demo. We’ll help you transform your business outcomes with the deepest and broadest talent intelligence in the market today.