Hiring a salesperson is one of those decisions that looks easier from the outside than it really is.
You post the position. Review some resumes. Interview the strongest candidates. Find someone with relevant experience, a good personality and a history of hitting their numbers.
Sounds reasonable.
Then six months later, you're wondering why the person who interviewed so well isn't producing.
I've seen variations of this throughout my career, and the problem isn't always that the company hired a bad salesperson. Sometimes they hired a perfectly capable salesperson for the wrong sales job.
That's an important distinction.
The person who can grow an established book of business may not be the person who can build a territory from scratch. Someone who thrives in a short transactional sales cycle may struggle in a complex B2B environment involving multiple decision-makers. A great account manager isn't automatically a great hunter, and your top salesperson isn't automatically the right person to become your next sales manager.
Before you start asking, "Where do we find a great salesperson?" I think there's a more important question:
What does a great salesperson need to look like for this specific role?
What Should You Look for When Hiring a B2B Salesperson?
The right B2B salesperson needs more than industry experience and a strong resume. The best candidate is someone whose behaviors, skills, attitudes and selling characteristics align with the actual demands of the role.
That sounds obvious, but many companies reverse the process.
They meet a candidate they like and start figuring out how that person might fit.
A better hiring process starts by defining the role before evaluating the people.
What does this salesperson actually need to accomplish?
Will they generate their own leads?
Will they inherit existing accounts?
How long is the sales cycle?
How much prospecting is required?
Who are they selling to?
How many decision-makers are typically involved?
Will they need to discuss money early in the sales process?
How much rejection will they encounter?
How independently will they work?
What does success look like after 90 days, six months and one year?
Until you can answer those questions, you're not really ready to evaluate candidates.
You're hiring against a job description instead of a success profile.
Why Is Hiring Salespeople So Difficult?
Sales hiring is difficult because many of the qualities that make someone effective in an interview don't necessarily predict how they'll behave in a sales role.
Think about it from the candidate's perspective.
They've researched your company. They've prepared answers to common questions. They know their accomplishments. They understand that their job in the interview is to create enough interest to move to the next step.
In other words, they're selling.
A polished salesperson should be pretty good at that.
That's why an interview alone can give you a false sense of confidence.
The candidate is showing you how they perform in a hiring process. You need to understand how they'll perform when a prospect doesn't return their call for the fifth time, when the pipeline is thin, when they're behind target, when a buyer pushes back on price or when they need to prospect even though nobody is making them do it.
Those are very different situations.
Start With the Role, Not the Resume
One of the most common hiring mistakes I see is starting with a resume and working backward.
"This person has ten years of experience in our industry."
Great.
But ten years doing what?
Were they responsible for creating new opportunities, or did the company provide leads?
Did they build their own book of business, or inherit one?
Were they selling into existing relationships?
Were they selling a well-known brand?
How much support did marketing provide?
What was their average deal size?
How long was the sales cycle?
Were they calling on the same type of decision-maker they'll encounter in your organization?
Two candidates can both have ten years of sales experience and have almost nothing in common when it comes to how they've actually sold.
Experience matters.
Context matters more.
Are You Hiring a Hunter, Farmer or Something in Between?
The terms "hunter" and "farmer" get thrown around a lot in sales, but the underlying distinction is important.
Some sales roles require a person to create opportunities where none currently exist.
Others require someone to develop relationships, expand accounts and identify opportunities within an established customer base.
Many require some combination of both.
The problem occurs when leadership says they need a hunter, then designs a job that rewards account management. Or they hire a relationship-oriented salesperson and expect that person to spend every morning creating new conversations with strangers.
Neither person is necessarily wrong for sales.
The fit is wrong.
What makes someone successful in a new-business sales role?
A true business-development role usually requires someone who can consistently initiate conversations, tolerate rejection, recover quickly, ask difficult questions and maintain prospecting behaviors without needing constant encouragement from a manager.
They also need the discipline to qualify.
That's an important point because aggressive prospecting alone doesn't create a strong salesperson.
Generating twenty opportunities that shouldn't be in your pipeline isn't necessarily better than generating ten that should.
In Sandler, we want salespeople who are comfortable both creating opportunities and disqualifying them when there isn't a fit.
That's a very different mindset from "close everybody."
Sales Hiring Should Consider Attitude, Behavior and Technique
One of the Sandler frameworks I come back to frequently is the Success Triangle: Attitude, Behavior and Technique.
It applies just as well to hiring as it does to developing an existing salesperson.
Attitude
How does this person think about themselves, their role and the sales profession?
How do they respond to rejection?
Can they separate their personal identity from what happens in a sales call?
Are they comfortable discussing money?
Do they believe in the value they provide?
How do they respond when things aren't going well?
Behavior
Will they consistently do the things the job requires?
That's different from asking whether they know those activities are important.
Most salespeople know they should prospect.
The question is whether they'll actually prospect on Tuesday morning when they don't feel like it.
Will they make the calls?
Ask for referrals?
Follow the sales process?
Prepare for meetings?
Keep commitments?
Maintain CRM discipline?
Follow up when they say they will?
Behavior is where good intentions either become results or disappear.
Technique
Does the candidate have the skills necessary to execute the role?
Can they ask effective questions?
Can they uncover the real business problem?
Can they qualify an opportunity?
Can they discuss budget?
Can they navigate multiple decision-makers?
Can they establish clear next steps?
Can they prospect effectively?
Technique can often be developed through training and coaching. But you need to understand the starting point.
Hiring someone without evaluating all three sides of the triangle leaves a lot to chance.
Should You Hire a Salesperson Based on Industry Experience?
Industry experience can be valuable, but I wouldn't make it the automatic deciding factor.
This is especially important in specialized B2B industries, where companies often start a search by saying:
"We need someone who knows our industry."
Maybe you do.
But ask yourself why.
Is technical knowledge genuinely required to sell the product or service? Does the person need existing relationships? Is there specialized terminology or regulatory knowledge that would take years to develop?
Or are you using industry experience as a shortcut because it's easier to identify than sales competency?
I've seen companies pass over potentially strong salespeople because they didn't come from the industry, while hiring experienced candidates who brought along the same habits that made them mediocre somewhere else.
Product and industry knowledge can be taught in many situations.
Changing someone's deeply established behavior can be much harder.
The right balance depends on the role.
Why Sales Assessments Matter in the Hiring Process
This is where assessments can become extremely useful.
A good assessment shouldn't make the hiring decision for you.
It should give you information you can't reliably get from a resume or traditional interview.
At Sandler Atlantic, we've used assessment tools as part of a broader approach to understanding candidates and building stronger sales organizations. The objective isn't to put someone into a box or say that one personality type makes a great salesperson.
It's to add another layer of evidence.
An assessment may help identify areas worth exploring further:
How naturally does this person fit the demands of the role?
Where are their strengths?
Where might they require coaching?
How do they communicate?
How might they respond under pressure?
Does the assessment reinforce what you observed in the interview, or does it raise questions you need to investigate?
That's where the value is.
You aren't replacing human judgment.
You're giving your judgment better information.
How Should You Interview a Sales Candidate?
A good sales interview shouldn't simply confirm what's on the resume.
It should help you understand how the candidate thinks and behaves.
That means moving beyond questions like:
"Tell me about your biggest sale."
Of course they have a good answer prepared for that.
Instead, dig into the process.
How did they get the opportunity?
Who initiated the first conversation?
What did they do when the prospect initially wasn't interested?
Who else was involved in the decision?
How did they determine budget?
What almost caused them to lose the deal?
What would they do differently today?
Then ask about the losses.
Tell me about an opportunity you thought you were going to win but didn't.
Why did you lose it?
When did you first realize it was in trouble?
What did you learn?
What did you change afterward?
I'm often more interested in how someone explains a loss than how they describe a win.
Don't Sell the Candidate on the Job Too Early
Sales leaders can make the same mistake in recruiting that salespeople make with prospects.
They start presenting too soon.
You meet a candidate you like and suddenly you're selling them on the opportunity.
You tell them about the culture, compensation, growth potential, great clients and everything else that's wonderful about working for the company.
Now you've given the candidate the answers.
They know what you value. They know what you're looking for. And because they're a salesperson, they can begin positioning themselves accordingly.
This is where Sandler's selling methodology provides a useful lesson for hiring.
Qualify before you present.
Learn about the candidate first.
What are they looking for?
Why are they considering leaving their current role?
What aren't they getting today?
What kind of environment helps them perform?
What does success mean to them?
What type of manager brings out their best?
What are they unwilling to tolerate?
Why this role?
Why now?
If there's a mutual fit, you'll have plenty of time to talk about the opportunity.
What Is the Biggest Mistake Companies Make After Hiring a Salesperson?
Thinking the hiring process is over.
It's not.
Finding the right person is only one part of building a high-performing sales organization.
I've seen companies spend months recruiting someone and then give that person a laptop, CRM login, product training and a territory and say, essentially, "Go sell."
Then they're disappointed when the new hire doesn't ramp quickly enough.
A successful hiring strategy needs to connect directly to onboarding, training, coaching and management.
The expectations you established during hiring should become the foundation of the person's development plan.
What behaviors are expected?
What should happen in the first 30 days?
What skills need to be developed?
What prospecting activity should begin and when?
How will performance be measured?
How frequently will the manager coach them?
What sales process are they expected to follow?
A great candidate placed into a poor system can still fail.
That's why recruiting can't be separated from sales leadership.
How Do You Know Whether You Hired the Right Salesperson?
Don't wait until the end of the year to find out.
Revenue takes time, particularly in B2B environments with longer sales cycles.
Look for leading indicators.
Is the salesperson executing the agreed-upon behaviors?
Are they creating conversations?
Are they applying what they're learning?
Are they coachable?
Are they asking for feedback?
Are they improving?
Are they using the sales process?
Are qualified opportunities beginning to appear?
Are they demonstrating the Attitude, Behavior and Technique you identified as important when you created the role profile?
You should have evidence long before the annual revenue number tells you whether the hire is working.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hiring Salespeople
What should you look for when hiring a salesperson?
Look for alignment between the candidate and the specific demands of the sales role. Evaluate attitude, behaviors, selling skills, prospecting ability, coachability and relevant experience. The strongest candidate on paper isn't necessarily the candidate most likely to succeed in your sales environment.
What makes a good B2B salesperson?
Strong B2B salespeople typically combine consistent prospecting behaviors with effective questioning, qualification, communication and relationship-building skills. They also need the ability to handle rejection, discuss difficult subjects such as budget, navigate complex decisions and follow a repeatable sales process.
Should you hire a salesperson with industry experience?
Industry experience can be valuable, but it shouldn't automatically outweigh sales competency, behavior and fit. Companies should determine how important existing industry knowledge is to the specific role and whether that knowledge can be taught after hiring.
Should you use assessments when hiring salespeople?
Assessments can provide useful information that may not surface during resumes and interviews. They are most effective when used as one part of a structured hiring process rather than as the sole basis for making a hiring decision.
How can you tell if a sales candidate is a hunter?
Don't rely solely on the candidate describing themselves as a hunter. Examine their past behaviors. Ask how they generated opportunities, how much of their pipeline was self-created, how they approached prospecting and what they did when business slowed. Where appropriate, assessments can provide another source of evidence.
How important is coachability when hiring a salesperson?
Coachability is particularly important when the organization has a defined sales process and ongoing development program. Even experienced salespeople need to adapt, learn and respond to feedback. A candidate with strong existing skills who is unwilling to change may be more difficult to develop than someone with less experience but greater willingness to learn.
What causes new sales hires to fail?
New sales hires can fail for many reasons, including poor role fit, unclear expectations, inconsistent onboarding, insufficient coaching, weak prospecting behaviors and a lack of alignment between the salesperson's strengths and the demands of the position. Hiring and sales management should therefore be treated as connected processes.
How long should it take a new salesperson to become productive?
There is no universal ramp-up period. It depends on factors including sales-cycle length, market complexity, existing pipeline, product knowledge requirements and the amount of prospecting required. Companies should establish realistic 30-, 60- and 90-day behavioral expectations rather than judging a new salesperson solely on early revenue.
Better Sales Hiring Starts Before the Interview
If there's one thing I'd encourage sales leaders to change about hiring, it's this:
Stop beginning with the candidate.
Begin with the role.
Define what success requires. Identify the behaviors that will produce it. Understand which competencies can be taught and which characteristics will be harder to change. Build an interview process that tests your assumptions. Use assessments where they add useful information. Then connect the hiring process directly to onboarding, training and coaching.
At Sandler Atlantic, we work with business owners, executives and sales leaders in Halifax, throughout Nova Scotia and across Atlantic Canada to take a more systematic approach to hiring, developing and managing salespeople.
Because the goal isn't simply to find someone who looks like a great salesperson.
It's to build a sales organization where the right people can succeed.
Not sure whether your hiring process is helping you identify the right salespeople or just the best interviewers? Let’s take a look at the role, the profile and the process you’re using today.
