Testing times when recruiting ‘good’ salespeople

When I consider how I spend my time professionally, I find it is often devoted to demystifying two things:

1. What is ‘good’ selling?
2. The proper use of psychometric assessments, especially in sales recruitment

Having written on the former on many occasions, I would like to dedicate this space to the latter – the proper use of psychometric assessments in sales recruitment.

To put this into perspective, my business has psychometrically assessed 40,000+ people in sales, business development and leadership roles using a variety of purpose built assessments. This has provided us with valuable insight into what assessments work best in sales recruitment. Over the years we have been exposed to many test publishers promoting their various assessments, claiming this and claiming that. We are constantly scanning for new tools.

We have discovered that there is no one single assessment that can measure everything you want to know about a sales person. Some test publishers have made this claim, however upon investigation we have found that they have often compiled several different assessments (measuring different things) into one offering. In doing so, they reduce the number of items measuring each area; therefore limiting the laser effect you need in sales recruitment.

This brings me to the major issue at hand: sales recruitment is one of the most challenging jobs around. It is fraught with ambiguities because of the very nature of trying to assess ‘soft skills’ such as attitudes and actual versus perceived capability. Given this complexity, as a sales recruiter it may be beneficial to partner with a qualified and experienced organisation to support you when using assessments.

There is not one-quick-fix to getting this right. To assist you in your sales recruitment, let’s look at three important questions when it comes to using psychometric assessments:

1.Why use assessments?
2.What assessments should you use?
3.When should you use assessments?

Why use assessments?

While you don’t have to use assessments when recruiting, when used in conjunction with a robust sales recruitment process they can add real value to your decision making. The problem arises when assessments are used in place of a multi-pronged recruitment approach.

Recruitment, especially sales recruitment, can be very time consuming, therefore there is a tendency for people to take short cuts and replace the other steps in the recruitment process with a ‘quick’ psychometric assessment to base their hiring decision on.

This ‘assessment only’ approach is not how psychometric assessments are designed to be applied (reputable test publishers will always tell you this). This approach is not best practice; it does not give you all the answers and could get you into trouble with recruitment and anti- discriminatory laws. In fact, best practice states that assessments should account for no more than 20% of your decision making process in recruitment, especially sales.

The other main issue that arises out of this ‘assessment only’ approach is that the ‘assessment’ can get blamed if the sales person doesn’t work out. Assessing in isolation is the issue here, not the assessment itself.

Psychometric assessments are best used to back up and cross reference the current data you have gathered via other means. Depending upon which assessments you use, they can corroborate what you have already gathered and give you additional information to further investigate areas of concerns.

Tip: Psychometric assessments should compliment a multi-pronged sales recruitment process rather than be the recruitment process in entirety.

What assessments should you use?

I have seen anything from the CLEO quiz, numerology, star signs, and simplistic 4 quadrant models through to purpose built psychometric assessments used in sales recruitment.

Essentially there are thousands of so called ‘psychometric assessments’ out there, many claiming to test for sales effectiveness and predict sales performance.

So what to use?

First of all, it depends on what you want to measure. There are a variety of purpose built assessments which are designed to address the following important questions about a candidate:

•Will they sell?
•Why will they sell?
•How do they sell?
•How well can they sell?

In our work we use a range assessments which have been purpose built to measure different areas including:

•Personality
•Motives and Values
•Prospecting fitness- sales hesitation and call reluctance
•Leadership potential
•Cognitive Abilities – i.e. abstract, numeracy, and verbal reasoning, etc.
•Coping strategies under pressure
•Emotional Resilience and Emotional Intelligence (EI)

Tip: Depending on the level and complexity of the sales roles you should match the psychometric assessments to the required competencies and areas of capability.

When should you use assessments?

As assessments should not be used as the sole determinant, it is often advised to use them after the first interview but prior to the second interview and reference checking. This is recommended so that the assessment results can be used to verify and check gathered candidate information and then incorporating the results into interview questions and reference checks.

While there are some assessments you can use prior to the first interview or even at the resume submission point, the decision to assess earlier is often based on costs to the business. Obviously, it would be great to test everyone who applies, however this would not be economically viable or recommended in most recruitment situations.

Tip: Use the insight gained through assessments for the second interview questions and reference checks.

Conclusion

Whether you currently use assessments or are considering (recommended) incorporating them, the important point is:

Providing structure and using a multi- pronged approach are the two techniques most likely to help improve the reliability of your sales recruitment process and placements.

Remembering that sales recruitment is one of the most challenging jobs around; the average increase in output resulting from improved selection is approximately 2.5 times greater in sales jobs than in low-complexity, non-sales jobs. This is why is can also be important to partner with an organisation who has a sound understanding and working knowledge of recruitment and assessments.

I wish you happy and successful selling and sales recruitment.

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of BARRETT Pty Ltd. For more information please go to www.barrett.com.au.

You can send feedback via this form.