It’s on you (hiring managers and recruiters) just as much as it is on the candidate. Simply put, hiring managers and recruiters need to be of certain mind. They need to have the capability to assess, analyze, and dig deeper. Hiring sales people is not easy. It’s double the bullshit: not only do you have people putting on their best faces (most often than not, a different face) to get the job, these are sales people, so they’re good at selling. In an interview, they’re selling themselves. These are three things a recruiter or hiring manager must possess in order to be able to identify an A Player when they are smacked in the face with one.
- Comfortable being uncomfortable: You’ve gotta be comfortable making your candidates uncomfortable. This is usually an uncomfortable place to be for people, putting people at unease, but if you want to get to the core behaviors of someone, you’ve gotta be able to ask candidates personal questions, questions that will prove or deny your initial suspicions. A good recruiter is not only comfortable doing this, they watch out for certain red flags and probe to get to the root of their methodology not just the easy answer front they put on for interviews. It’s not about being an asshole, it’s about challenging and digging deeper for more valuable clues to how they work; their process. “Why It’s Hard to Identify Killer Sales People in an Interview and What to Do About It” shows you how to get comfortable making the candidate uncomfortable.
- Not a resume-r. Bet that’s the first time you’ve heard that term. A resume-r is someone that relies on resumes to hire. Collects resumes, compares resumes, and chooses a resume. No, just no. This is not the world we live in today. Just like you need to dig deeper in an interview to get to the real “Johnny- I-Want-This Job”, you, as an hiring specialist need dig deeper when it comes to the job requirements- what are the goals in filling this position? What do you need your candidate to accomplish? Start with the end in mind. “Can A Great Resume Prevent You From Hiring an A Player?” Breaks it down specifically how to get to your goals, the process to aligning your goals and the skill-sets the candidates possess to accomplish these goals. The age of the resume is gone. You can’t rely on the resume anymore to find the A Players you need to build a successful team.
- Courageous! You have to be ballsy enough, after interviewing all your candidates, to really assess if you even have an A Player. And if not, don’t choose from the B and C’s. It’s a time-consuming, painful process to interview dozens or more…. but in the end it hurts you and your organization more if you choose a candidate that cannot totally meet your goals. “You Could Be Hiring the King of Pigs”.
This process is not easy, not only do you have to break down, assess and analyze the candidates, you have to really analyze and assess yourself as a hiring manager/recruiter and your organization. To make sure you are hiring the best candidate for the job, do some soul-searching and see if you do possess these traits to hire the best candidate. Then go and breakdown your candidates: These are three things your candidates should always possess to be an A Player: analysis, creative, grit. “Experience Doesn’t Matter- If Your Sales Candidates Don’t Have These 3 Things” gives you a detailed look at what to look for in an “A Player”. Another thing to consider is Social Recruiting- recruiting and hiring in the context of today’s world of social media. Social sales is a relatively new, industry that’s really leading the world of sales, now apply that to recruiting sales people and you have a whole ‘nother complex animal. Jim Keenan, CEO of A Sales Guy, Inc. partnered with Sean Burke @ Kitedesk, a social sales platform to create a webinar called “The Voyeur, The Hermit & the Social Sales Stars: Using Social to Recruit the Winners and Scrap the Losers”. It’s an in-depth analysis on the importance of social today, what social experts are doing to hire A Players. Insights from the experts on hiring A Players and build your social sales dream team. 
Another great resource: Our ebook: “How to Hire A Players“. Now you’re armed with the resources, go hire that badass A Player sales person you need!