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How To Hire Sales Staff

How To Hire Sales Staff
Post Series: How to Hire

Sourcing the best staff to lead or be a member of your sales team requires putting many moving parts into place. Hiring salespeople can be costly and time-consuming if you don’t get it right, and poor sales hiring can leave your company lacking the experience and skills it needs to drive revenue and profit.

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However, by following the proper steps, you can implement a sales recruitment process that will see you hiring sales reps and sales managers on time and within budget. Harness effective recruitment solutions appropriate to your business, and you can tap into the resources you need to find and hire salespeople that will help you deliver your business strategy and secure long term success.

In this sales team hiring guide, we lay out the steps to hiring a successful sales team, including:

  • Preparing To Recruit Sales Staff: Your Employer Brand & Company Careers Page
  • Writing A Sales Job Description & Job Advert
  • How To Hire All Sales Staff
  • Advertising Your Sales Position: Referral Schemes, Social Media, & Job Boards
  • Reducing Sales Team Hiring Costs And Time: Recruitment Companies & ATS
  • Screening A Sales Candidate & Conducting Interviews
  • Presenting A Job Offer & Onboarding Sales Hires

Preparing To Recruit Sales Staff: Your Employer Brand & Company Careers Page

How To Recruit Sales Staff

Before you begin to advertise externally for a sales rep or sales manager, you should review your existing candidate touchpoints to ensure you are promoting a positive employer brand. You ultimately only secure the right candidates if you show that you are a highly desirable employer that your target market should be banging down the door to work for.

It would help if you considered how you portray your company culture, company values, and your company’s own success, along with other elements such as sales training and career development. In our Guide On How To Hire, we delve deeper into topics such as Why Should SMEs Build An Employer Brand and What Should Be On A Company Careers Page.

Writing A Sales Job Description & Job Advert

Writing Sales Rep Job Descriptions

Writing an effective job description and job advert for sales positions is only possible if you speak to key decision makers in the hiring process, including the position’s line manager:

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Sales Job Descriptions

Writing sales person job descriptions will help a hiring manager speed up the hiring process. The best practice is to have one on file for all positions, which can be quickly updated and used to create the job posting whenever recruitment needs arise.

For SEO, it is best to use keywords and phrases that potential candidates might search for in a search engine. It should have a clear message to attract the most suitable sales candidates. It also helps to refrain from using too much industry jargon and excessive punctuation.

When writing job descriptions for a sales role, consider:

  1. Identifying and outlining typical company-wide requirements
  2. Collating today’s minimum skill requirements, qualifications, and experience
  3. Reviewing what your competitors are saying in their job descriptions
  4. What your new hires should look like
  5. How you want your brand to be perceived

Our Job Description Templates can help you get started; we appreciate writing this content can be challenging. You can discover the most popular Sales Job Descriptions here.

Further useful resources include How To Define What People Do In Their Jobs, Preparing Job Descriptions, and Key Roles And Responsibilities In Sales.

Sales Job Adverts

Your sales person job descriptions form the basis of your job ad. There are other elements to add to attract qualified candidates, so ensure your job ad includes:

  1. An accurate job title – that sales representatives and sales leaders may search for
  2. An opening statement – saying why sales candidates will want to work for your business
  3. The job’s description
  4. A list of responsibilities – close deals, qualifying prospects, understanding different buyer motivations, building client relationships, generate leads, finding potential customers, and revisiting lost sales
  5. Qualifications, personality traits and preferred skills, including soft skills and hard skills – growth mindset, knowledge of the entire sales cycle and sales process, experience using sales CRM, sales skills, knowledge of new buying processes, persuasiveness to achieve sales success, and confidence
  6. Job location – office-based (sales managers) or remote (sales representatives)
  7. Pay range and benefits – check the average salary for a good salesperson here
  8. Next steps – potential candidates should email xxx

You can use a job advert template to get down the basics and fill in the more unique aspects of your company, sales teams, position, and ideal candidate.

How To Hire All Sales Staff

HOW TO HIRE A SALES ASSISTANT

To hire a Sales Assistant, describe your company and its facilities, promoting your mission and values. Targeting the best sales team prospects requires posting a person profile, including a drive to hit targets and excellent telephone and face-to-face communication.

To compel job hunters to apply for your opening, define the crucial tasks such as listening and questioning customers to determine their needs, promoting the advantages and benefits of services and products, securing sales, and processing transactions.

Sales Assistant Job Description Example

Post A Sales Assistant Job

HOW TO HIRE A RETAIL ASSISTANT

To hire a Retail Assistant, your job ad should tell your company’s story, the products it sells, and the organisation’s values and mission. The job post must define applicant requirements, such as POS system familiarity and team-working, to ensure your inbox is filled with relevant CVs.

Download Job Advert Template

The alluring parts of the retail assistant role include striving to meet sales and customer service goals, building customer rapport, processing sales, handling complaints and issues, and processing authorised refunds.

Retail Assistant Job Description Example

Post A Retail Assistant Job

HOW TO HIRE A SALES MANAGER

To hire a Sales Manager, define your preferred leadership style and state the size of the sales team or department to be managed. Suggesting which individuals will enjoy job satisfaction will help you find a good match. This primarily comes down to clarifying the extent of needed industry and leadership experience.

Enticing responsibilities of sales managers include mentoring staff, conducting appraisals, setting sales targets, auditing paperwork and contracts, and assessing training needs.

Sales Manager Job Description Example

Post A Sales Manager Job

HOW TO HIRE A RECRUITMENT CONSULTANT

To hire a Recruitment Consultant, state your firm’s focus, typical clients, specialities, and values. An average salary, commission opportunities, and career development will entice the top talent.

The consultant’s role may require an in-depth recruitment process and HR knowledge, qualifications, and experience. Appealing job tasks include creating job listings, screening candidates, interviewing prospective employees for your company or on behalf of clients, and conducting background checks.

Recruitment Consultant Job Description Example

Post A Recruitment Consultant Job

HOW TO HIRE A COMMERCIAL MANAGER

To hire an outstanding Commercial Manager, your job ad should cover the important and relevant information about your company and include links to your website where interested candidates can find out more. Top required skills include leadership, organisation, commercial acumen, and communication.

Prioritise the most appealing duties and core functions, such as developing and implementing commercial strategies, collaborating with other departments, building external partnerships, and ensuring resources are available to help the company achieve its short and long-term objectives.

Commercial Manager Job Description Example

Post A Commercial Manager Job

HOW TO HIRE A PRODUCT OWNER

To hire a Product Owner, discuss your product and project portfolio and the company’s goals and work culture. Product owner qualifications you might denote include a computer engineering degree, with problem-solving being a top skill.

To compel individuals to apply for your job opening, set out responsibilities such as developing a product vision and overseeing all aspects of the product lifecycle. 

Product Owner Job Description Example

Post A Product Owner Job

HOW TO HIRE A SALES ADVISOR

To hire a Sales Advisor, write a short company overview and bestow the perks and benefits of being one of your sales team employees. You might request a proven track record and business sector knowledge or provide training and career development opportunities.

Sales duties that attract candidates include identifying needs to secure appropriate sales, engaging with potential clients, building client relationships, providing customer service, processing sales, and scheduling follow-up conversations.

Sales Advisor Job Description Example

Post A Sales Advisor Job

HOW TO HIRE A SALES EXECUTIVE

To hire a Sales Executive, describe your product or service offering and typical customer accounts. A candidate profile can help you secure relevant applications and could include CRM system proficiency and a drive to exceed sales targets.

Typical sales executive tasks include building customer networks, negotiating deals, communicating with clients via the telephone or email, analysing potential sales, and nurturing long-lasting relationships.

Sales Executive Job Description Example

Post A Sales Executive Job

HOW TO HIRE AN ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

To hire an Account Executive, focus on relaying the significance of key accounts and customers, your company values, and targets. Account executive skills to request include adaptability, outstanding communication, attention to detail, and a personable manner.

Duties that entice applications from job seekers include increasing revenue from existing accounts, identifying new clients, planning business growth strategies, visiting clients at their location, and ensuring customer satisfaction. 

Account Executive Job Description Example

Post An Account Executive Job

HOW TO HIRE A SALES DIRECTOR

To hire a Sales Director, you may need to leverage leadership or sales job board advertising and create a job overview that is more detailed than a regular ad. Links to your LinkedIn profile and company website are essential.

Download Job Advert Template

Responsibilities of the role that will entice contact include providing motivational leadership, leveraging marketing knowledge to produce business growth, negotiating deals, building reports, and evaluating costs.

Sales Director Job Description Example

Post A Sales Director Job

Advertising Your Sales Position: Referral Schemes, Social Media, & Job Boards

Advertising For Sales Reps

With your job ad in hand, you are ready to find the perfect salesperson. Your sales recruitment strategy might include posting your advert:

Internally (Employee Referral Schemes)

A non-incentivised or incentivised employee referral scheme is extremely valuable when you want to hire sales people. You will turn your existing sales people and managers into motivated recruiters, sharing that you are hiring a new sales person across their social and professional networks.

Employee referral schemes often bring in good sales reps, with your team’s connections including like-minded professionals and industry contacts. To engage this sales hiring strategy, share your job descriptions with your team and reward referrals.

You can explore referral schemes further by reading Introducing An Employee Referral Scheme.

On Social Media

Hiring salespeople through social media is effective, with free and paid advertising options. Ensuring your social media messaging is consistent with your employer brand and conveys a positive image is vital. An active social media channel is helpful if you want to build a community of the best salespeople just waiting for an opportunity to join your company. Recommended activity includes posting news, updates, expert opinions, and industry insights.

Our tips and advice for implementing a successful social media hiring strategy include:

  • Marketing yourself first
  • Joining industry networks and groups
  • Engaging with respondents and nurturing discussions
  • Using advanced search tools and Recruiter Lite on LinkedIn
  • Using Twitter’s advanced search tool and direct messaging
  • Building activity on your company’s Facebook page and encouraging staff engagement, turning them into employer advocates

We explore sales hiring through social media further in our articles Social Media Hiring Strategies For SMEs and Job Advertising On Social Media.

On Job Boards

Download Job Advert Template

If you want to hire a good sales rep in an acceptable timeframe, advertising on job boards is essential. You can post a sales rep job advert on one job board, or many using an Applicant Tracking System. Job board resellers help you advertise your sales job across multiple general, niche, and geographical job boards using their integrated ATS software, minimising the hassle and time of developing leads to hire the right sales reps.

Leading General Job Boards:

Niche Sales Industry Job Sites:

Aggregator Job Sites:

Geographical Job Sites:

You can advertise your job on these job boards today.

Reducing Sales Team Hiring Costs And Time: Recruitment Companies & ATS

Reducing Hiring Costs

Budgets, deadlines, and administration require careful consideration whenever you instigate the hiring process. To get the best results, you may decide to work with recruitment companies with a UK wide focus, a global recruitment partner, or a niche recruitment company. 

We discuss agency fees and recruiters in these two articles; How To Avoid High Recruitment Agency Fees and The Pros And Cons Of Having A Recruiter On Retainer.

Fixed Cost Recruitment

Fixed-cost recruitment allows you to hire at a flat fee governed by the level of service and functionality you desire.

The success of fixed-cost recruitment depends on the company offering the service, the methodologies they deploy, and their expertise and knowledge of your industry or business sector. You will need to determine which actions you need assistance with to use flat-fee recruitment successfully.

Four steps to leveraging fixed cost recruitment when hiring sales staff:

  1. Place ads across leading job boards
  2. Search CV databases and social media channels
  3. Headhunt and shortlist new sales reps
  4. Receive interviewed and qualified candidates

Useful resources:

Applicant Tracking Systems

Automatic Tracking Systems can significantly reduce the costs of hiring sales reps by creating efficiency. Candidate, vacancy, and job advert management fall within the software’s parameters.

Team access creates a unified place to work, helping you build a seamless hiring process and candidate experience.

Five steps to centralising recruitment with ATS:

  1. Find sales reps online
  2. Review candidate scores
  3. Distribute personalised messages to a large candidate pool
  4. Automate responses
  5. Direct candidates to application forms

To explore all the features and benefits of Automatic Tracking Systems, read Centralising Recruitment With ATS.

Screening A Sales Candidate & Conducting Interviews

Screening And Interview Sales Process Candidates

Before your interview process commences, you need to shortlist sales reps by reviewing their CVs. Indications that you have a sales rep worth interviewing include:

  • Quantifiable evidence of the sales reps past achievements
  • The sales rep has steady career progression
  • The sales rep is not job-hopping
  • The CV is free from spelling and grammatical errors
  • The sales rep has the relevant experience and skills to meet the job requirements

Decision-makers and hiring managers need to be prepared to deliver a consistent interview experience. Ensure that anyone who has candidate contact is on the same page and understands the brand’s vision, values and opportunities. Interviews should be challenging, supportive, engaging, and positive.

Video interviews are an increasingly popular recruitment solution, saving on resources and speeding up the hiring process. Video sharing, shortlisting, and feedback from hiring and line managers ultimately generate more successful outcomes. If you haven’t conducted a video interview before, read How To Conduct A Remote Interview.

Our article Defining Your Interview Process, discusses interview questions, avoiding unconscious bias, and interviewing tips.

Presenting A Job Offer & Onboarding Sales Hires

Presenting A Job Offer

Once you believe you have the right person for your sales job, you will need to present a job offer and onboard your sales reps:

Making A Job Offer

The process of presenting the job offer to sales reps varies depending on what has occurred before. If you don’t already understand the candidate’s current earnings, expectations are better managed over the phone. Phone offers should be confident but be prepared to make changes if the individual’s circumstances have changed. Reaffirm that the candidate is happy with the offer, clarify their acceptance, and proceed to a formal written offer.

A formal offer letter can be conditional or unconditional and should include:

  • Job title
  • Candidate name
  • Your conditions – i.e., this offer is made subject to…
  • Official start date, time, and location
  • Probationary period
  • Offer terms
  • Candidate actions and acceptance instructions – i.e., signed copy of job offer
  • Terms and conditions of employment (issued within two months of the start date)

You can read further on Presenting A Job Offer here.

Onboarding Sales Reps

The onboarding process should support sales reps as they become part of your sales team and begin to communicate with potential clients.

Actions for onboarding sales reps might include:

  • Creating an employer identification number
  • Presenting the new hire with an employee handbook
  • An office tour, introducing the person to their manager, team, and senior executives
  • Informing the person of the communication methods and company software to use in the new role
  • Presenting clear responsibilities and duties
  • Defining new role expectations, standards, and performance indicators
  • Gathering feedback from new hires

Hiring Sales Reps FAQs

Here we answer your sales rep hiring questions.

What job titles do most sales reps search?

Job titles for staff handling the sales process include:

1. Account Executive
2. Account Manager
3. Account Representative 
4. Area Sales Manager
5. Business Development Executive
6. Customer Relationship Manager
7. Regional Sales Manager
8. Sales Associate
9. Sales Director
10. Telemarketer 

How To Hire Staff In Different Sectors

Find our recruitment guides for different sectors below:

All Sales Job Descriptions

Post All Sales Jobs

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