Despite our best efforts to attract, vet, and hire high-performing sales professionals, finding good candidates can often seem random. We can’t always see through the veneer every good sales candidate has.
How many times, a few months after hiring a new sales team member, have you lamented that the once-promising recruit was, in fact, a bust?
Though seeing someone’s personality and intelligence can help us predict sales success, it doesn’t tell the whole story. To truly understand a sales candidate’s prospects, we need a gauge that gets to the heart of their driving forces, sales competencies, and acumen.
At The Brooks Group, we use a tool called the Brooks Talent Index® to understand a candidate’s behavior style and communication preferences. It’s a multi-faceted sales assessment that measures long-term potential.
This hiring assessment incorporates one of the most trusted tools in the industry: the DISC assessment. Every sales professional’s profile reveals their unique behavior style and preferences.
The tool looks at soft skills such as resiliency, time management, long-range planning, and how someone deals with the stress of sales. The scores show how candidates communicate, interact, and sell—and areas to develop if you do hire them.
Using a Sales Assessment to Find Good Sales Candidates
Let’s take a deeper look at the value of sales assessments by comparing what motivates three sales professionals.
- A top salesperson in a fast-paced, low base/high commission retail sales environment may be strongly motivated by economic gain and influencing other people’s decisions.
- A top salesperson in healthcare services may be strongly motivated by altruism and a sense of obligation to help others.
- A top salesperson to the government sector may be motivated by knowledge acquisition and following procedures.
In each of these three examples, it’s clear that personality alone or claiming that someone is a “born salesperson” is an inadequate measure of potential success. You need objective information to avoid sales hiring mistakes.
To build a sales force that can execute well in your specific business environment, you need to understand the answer to the fundamental question: “Can they sell our products or services in THIS market?”
Here’s why this question is so important: A person can learn the steps of value-based selling, but achieving long-term success in sales requires the right person.
When a salesperson fails or underperforms, it’s usually not the steps of the sales process that trip them up, it’s their attitude about selling, their product or service, their customer, and/or themselves.
How a sales candidate sets priorities, what they value most, and if they have empathy for their fellow human beings will ultimately drive their sales performance.
10 Tips for Effective Sales Hiring
With so much at stake, how do we ensure that the candidates flowing into our hiring pool are a strong fit with our culture, philosophy, and goals?
Here are 10 tips that will help you select the best sales candidates.
1. Don’t hire just to fill an open spot quickly.
Rushing the hiring process often leads to costly mistakes that can damage client relationships and team morale for months to come.
2. Don’t hire just because you “like” someone.
Personal rapport matters, but likeability without demonstrated sales capability rarely translates to quota attainment.
3. Know EXACTLY what your environment requires for top sales performance.
Define whether you need a hunter who thrives on cold outreach, a farmer who excels at account management, or a hybrid role before you start interviewing.
4. Look beyond the formal interview.
Observe how candidates interact with your team, respond to emails, and handle unexpected scheduling changes—these reveal their real work style.
5. Use an objective sales assessment for hiring.
Data-driven assessments remove unconscious bias and predict sales success far more accurately than gut instinct alone.
6. Be sure finalists spend a day in the field with your top seller.
This gives candidates an authentic preview of your sales environment while allowing your best performer to assess whether they’ll fit and contribute.
7. Evaluate the strength of their sales skills and acumen.
Use role-plays and real scenario exercises to see how they handle objections, build rapport, and close—not just how well they talk about doing it.
8. Be sure the candidate invests in their own personal and professional growth.
Top performers continuously read industry content, seek mentorship, and invest in their own development rather than relying on company-provided sales training.
9. Get specific about sales scenarios in your interview questions.
Ask candidates to walk you through exactly how they’ve navigated complex deals, lost opportunities they learned from, and recovered from setbacks.
10. Stop overlooking yellow or red flags.
If you’re already making excuses for a candidate’s weaknesses before they’re hired, those issues will only magnify once they’re on your team and carrying a quota.
For more than 45 years, The Brooks Group has partnered with sales organizations around the globe to hire, train, coach, and develop sales professionals with the right fit. Get in touch to learn more.
