Hiring
Different sales roles have different responsibilities and require different skill sets. Before you
can develop a hiring strategy, you need to understand what roles you’re looking to hire.
Use this box to list out all the roles you’ll need to hire for within the next year:
Now that you have a list of roles, you need to identify the relevant qualities you want in
candidates for those roles. Being a sales manager gives you an advantage, here: You can
look at your current top performers to look for patterns. If you want to hire a new BDR, look at
your best BDRs and see if you can identify qualities they have in common. Also look at your
worst BDRs and see if you can find commonalities.
For every role you’re going to be hiring, create a list of good qualities you’re seeking and bad
qualities you want to avoid:
Role
Desirable Qualities
Qualities to Avoid
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For each of the qualities you identified, think of something you can do to during the interview
to evaluate whether a candidate has those traits. For example, if you want someone who’s
coachable, try coaching candidates during the interview. Have them do a role play, then give
them feedback and have them repeat the role play. Note how they respond to the feedback.
Do they appreciate it? Do they apply it? This will tell you more than asking them how
coachable they are.
Use this box to brainstorm things you can do during an interview to highlight the qualities
you’re interested in:
Look at the ideas you brainstormed and choose the ones that you think will be most effective.
Then design the interview for a particular role in this table:
Question/Activity
Good Responses
Bad Responses
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The final step is to test out the interview you’ve designed. Do this with someone who
currently holds the role you’re looking to hire for. So if you’re looking to hire a new BDR,
practice the interview on some of your best and worst BDRs and see if it predicts the
outcomes you were hoping. Use the information you get to iterate on the interview. Then
you’ll be ready to use it to interview real candidates.