It’s far too easy for a candidate to tell you that he’s comfortable using software such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. And then, after you’ve hired him, you find that the person can’t do what you want done. Sure you can train him… maybe. Some older candidates just can’t seem to get their mind around…
Category Archives: Candidate Testing
Evaluating Your Current Sales Team
I’m feathering my own nest here, but you may want to consider using our online sales assessment to get a better handle on your sales team. The results may explain why some people are doing so well while others are budding also-rans. The Sales Temperament Assessment (STA) is easy to complete. While it’s primarily used…
Can Your Candidate Communicate Effectively in Writing?
If your salespeople do a lot of communicating with prospects and customers by email, make sure the person you want to hire can string a bunch of words together into a cohesive, understandable sentence. You can’t count on the candidate’s resume or thank you letter as being any indication of his writing skills. Someone else…
Test the Candidate’s Objection-Handling Abilities
The best way to see how the candidate handles objections is to give the person one to handle. Here’s a technique I picked up somewhere that will do the job for you. Find something about the position that is particularly hard or difficult and then challenge the candidate to convince you that she’s up to…
Using Sales Simulations
A lot of hiring managers shy away from doing a sales simulation because they think it’s a bit contrived and somewhat corny, while others fall back on the old “sell me this pen” technique, which is better than nothing. In an earlier post titled How to Find Out If They Can Sell, I gave an…
How to Find Out If They Can Sell
No sales candidate is going to tell you that he doesn’t know how to sell, even when he doesn’t know how. That’s because he thinks he does know. So it’s up to you to figure out if he really does. I know that it sounds a bit corny to ask a sales candidate to sell…
Two Critical Tests for Sales Candidates (Part 2)
In part one I expressed my despair that companies don’t do a more thorough job of selecting salespeople. My concerns stem from my years in the sales training business where I was too often brought into a company and asked to basically train pigs to fly. They wanted to train salespeople who, at best, should…
Two Critical Tests for Sales Candidates (Part 1)
When hiring for a position as critical as sales, I’m always surprised that companies don’t take the time to test candidates better than they do. I recognize that the HR department is ill equipped to test salespeople beyond the standard personality or temperament assessment but, even then, most seem loath to use these tools. It’s as…
How Much Weight Should You Give to Sales Assessment Results?
There have been situations where possibly good performing sales candidates have gotten knocked out of the hiring process early in the game because they “failed” a personality test or temperament assessment. This usually happens when HR uses a pre-hiring tool to make a go/no-go decision instead of considering the assessment results as just one part…
Assess Candidates Early in Your Hiring Process
As a sales management consultant, I find it frustrating when a company spends a lot of time and money hiring someone. And then when he or she doesn’t work out well, the company has the person do our assessment to see if the person is suitable for sales. Guess what? In many cases, the sales…
