Recruiting and Selecting Salespeople

Interview issues

*-Order matters:*primacy bias, contrast bias *-Relying on One Opinion:* Consensus assessments are key -research shows that without notes, interviewers could correctly recall only 50% of the factual information in an interview after a 20 minute interview -Interviewers without notes tended to rate everyone more favorably and there was less variance between the ratings of all the applicants, than were the ratings of people with notes who could recall factual information

Primacy bias

-going first you're most likely to be remembered

Attitude Interview Q

Up to this point in your life what do you consider to be your biggest disappointment? -Resilience How do you feel about the way your previous employer treated you? -Organizational Identification

Performance Impact Analysis

-% to quota -new customers -sales revenue

Recruitment & Selection Process

-*Planning*: Job analysis, qualifications, R&S objectives, R&S Strategy -*Recruitment*: Internal, External -*Selection*: Screening Resumes, Interviews, Assessment, Selection -depends on size of sales force, kind of selling involved -recruiting specialist may assist when a firm must be selective

3 steps needed to align a hiring process with a firm's core culture

-1) An organization must clearly understand how each core culture uniquely contributes to salesperson connectedness. Four generic types of core cultures discussed by Harris and Brannick are: customer service, innovation, operational excellence and/or spirit. 2) The authors argue that successful organizations tend to embrace one core culture as its operational driver. While all of the above-mentioned cultures could exist simultaneously, knowing which core culture is your company's competitive advantage is the considered important to hiring successes. 3) Sales managers must then align all staffing and retention strategies to the core culture. The hiring process, then, becomes a more strategic, rather than reactive, function.

Costs of Inappropriate Selection Standards

-50% salesperson will be fired/quit in the first 5 years -firms spend $7,000-$100,000 to train new recruits -3-12 months before new rep breaks even -total cost average: $75-$200 thousand

Recruiting: External sources

-Advertisements -Online -College Recruiting -Professional Organizations -recruiting team is more efficient with external sources -college recruiting has recently boomed in popularity for recruiting teams looking for immediate help

Recruitment

-Depends on size of sales force, kind of selling involved -Recruiting specialist may assist when a firm must be selective

Unstructured interview

-Discussion on wide ranging topics -May yield unexpected insights -Requires interviewers with interpretative skills

R&S Objectives and Strategies

-Objectives must align with firm objectives: -Reduce the number of over or underqualified applicants -Increase the number of qualified applicants for a specific cost -What are the objectives for this hiring period? -When will this process be done? -Where are the most qualified candidates?

Sources for Job Analysis and Description

-Observe and interview current staff to determine what they actually do -Interview sales managers who supervise people in the job to determine what they think job occupants should be doing -Use the job description creation process as a means of reaching consensus on job content, activities and training needs

What are desirable characteristics of candidates?

-Optimism -Extraversion -Adaptive -Conscientious -often managers don't have accurate expectations for the position they want to fill

New reps

-People lacking necessary personal traits/abilities tend to leave before training and experience can make them productive sales performers -3 to 12 months before a new rep generates adequate sales to cover compensation and expenses

Personal interviews: structured

-Predetermined questions -Interviewer may fail to probe unique qualities or limitations

Recruiting: Internal sources

-Referral Programs -Inside Knowledge -Company Intranet -Promotions and Transfers -When you're more dependent on first-line managers, they will be more efficient with Internal recruiting -This is primarily b/c their time allocation doesn't allow them much knowledge of outside recruiting sources or channels

Qualifications for Salesperson Performance

-Role perceptions -Aptitude -Skill level all lead to performance

What should an applicant be asking?

-Where will I get my leads? -What kinds of training do you offer? -May I review your sales literature? -When are your slow times? -May I go with you on a sales call? -May I visit your marketing department?

Job Analysis

-a systematic way to describe how a job is to be performed, as well as the tasks that make up the job 1) Conduct a job analysis which determines activities, tasks, responsibilities and environmental influences that are involved in the job to be filled 2) Write a job description that details findings of job analysis 3) Develop a statement of job qualifications describes personal traits and abilities needed to perform the tasks and responsibilities of the job

Company Culture and Hiring Process

-develop a hiring process related to core culture -Aligning an organization's culture with its recruiting strategies should help attract and retain higher performing salespeople ex: Home Depot known for customer service; McDonald's known for operational excellence

Sales Aptitude

-has been thought to be a function of the following characteristics: *Physical factors* - age, height, sex, and physical attractiveness. Family factors can also be important: family size, education *Ability factors* - TRAINABLE personal abilities that determine an individual's overall ability to perform a sales job. ex: verbal intelligence, mathematical ability, and sales expertise. *Personality characteristics* - ENDURING personal traits that reflect an individual's consistent reactions to situations encountered in an environment ex: empathy, ego, sociability, aggressiveness, dominance (social styles), need for power, need for achievement, locus of control.

Planning

-most difficult part of recruitment and selection -need specific criteria to guide the selection: -examine job description -evaluate personal histories of current sales force to identify differentiating characteristics among high performers

Objective of Turnover

-objective is to have enough turnover so that new personnel and enthusiasm can be added to the sales force, yet not so much that sales managers spend all their time recruiting and training new employees

Role perceptions

-refers to the degree to which the salesperson's perceptions of his or her role partners' demands - particularly company superiors - are accurate. The two major dimensions of role perceptions are: -2 major dimensons of role perceptions are *role conflict* and *role ambiguity* -one major issue of role perception problems is vagueness in the description of role responsibilities

Role ambiguity

-the extent to which an employee is uncertain about the expectations of his/her job

Role conflict

-the extent to which an employee perceives the expectations and demands of two parties (e.g., sales manager and customer) to be at odds with one another

Personnel Needs

-the number of new salespeople needed will depend on several factors, including sales growth targets, distribution strategies, changes in sales force organization, and sales force turnover -understanding the reasons for salesperson turnover is an important factor in assessing personnel needs

Turnover

-turnover is a very prevalent in the sales domain -could be because of poor performance, retirement, promotion, taking another job -Also, what if a large % of the turnover were high performers? Would have 2-3x the impact of losing a poor performer and replacements will be slow to gear up -Large turnover scares customers and harms sales -turnover can be too low as well as too high; could indicate lack of career growth opportunity

contrast bias

-when ranking things, be sure to consider the whole group. you shouldn't rank something just on one comparison

Selection

1) Candidates submit resumes 2) Meet w/ District Marketing Manager 3) Online profile survey (PASS / FAIL) 4) Handwritten application 5) Reference and Background check 6) 3 patterned interviews with District Manager 7) Two days of shadowing 8) Final interview with Reg. Mgr. and Dir. Of Field Ops

Resume Analysis

How should we select for.. -initiative -leadership -problem solver issues that come up: -consistency across raters due to definition of attributes, resume artifacts -time pressure -reliance on experience

Behavior Interview Q

What was the most difficult decision you ever had to make as a leader? -Leadership style Describe how you set your goals for last year and how you measured your progress -Goal-setting

Who is responsible for recruiting?

first-level sales managers vs. recruiting team (human resources) *first level sales managers:* -straightforward sales jobs -new recruits need no special qualifications -turnover rates are high

Turnover rate

turnover rate=separations per year/avg. size of the sales force