Hiring software sales managers

We have an average IT company, we sell software. One of the tasks that we solve every month is hiring sales managers. The article is not in the spirit of IT - but it will be useful for someone to know.

I'll tell you how we get hired managers in the sales department. We will consider employment as a complex task that needs to be addressed. The easiest way to break it into stages, at each stage is solved its own local problem. Obviously, the global task of recruitment to the sales department is to hire employees in the required number who will professionally perform their task - to sell.

So, let's go:
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Stage 1. Vacancy placement
The task at this stage: as many people as possible should “respond” to our vacancy.

We place vacancy on all free resources like rabota.ru, zarplata.ru, vshtate.ru. If you have money we pay superjob.ru.

Stage 2. Inviting candidates for an interview
The task at this stage is to invite as many people as possible to the interview without screening them out.

Making it very simple. We take all those who responded, and call them. In a telephone conversation, simply denote:
"Your resume suited us, we invite you to an interview tomorrow at 17-00." We send him an e-mail and a job description again.

Do not waste your time reading a resume - 25% of people will come anyway.

Stage 3. Interview
The task at this stage is to sell the vacancy to the candidate and “persuade” him to come for training

At the interview, we exclude only the most miserable - for whom the study schedule does not suit us or who has problems with speech or appearance. We do not pay any attention to everything else (crookedly filled in questionnaire, vocational schools, no work experience, etc.). At the interview, it is important to tell about your vacancy so that the candidate is on fire and wants to come to the training. Naturally it is important not to shake it up with self-praise The candidate may think that this is some kind of pyramid and will be afraid that he will be deceived.

Stage 4. Training
The task at this stage: weed out the poor, leave able

Only in the fourth stage, we begin to screen out.

Training with us lasts 5 days (from 9-00 to 18-00). In the morning, the lecture - in the evening offset. Who passed - stayed, who did not pass - went home. Training ends with an exam. If the candidate has passed the exam - we arrange for work.

Stage 5. Getting Started
The challenge at this stage: not to lose a new employee

Here it is important to understand that an employee who has just arrived can be frightened by something, be upset if he cannot sell, or something else. It is important in the first 2-3 months very carefully refers to the new employee in your team.

Here are the numbers we have:
responded to the vacancy - 300 people
promised to come for an interview - 250 people
came to the interview - 60 people
promised to come for training - 55 people
came to training - 30 people
passed the exam and began to work - 5-6 people
stayed to work (did not quit after 2-3 months) - 3 people

We get 1% (3 out of 300 responded).

PS I don’t know if well-known companies a la Yandex or Microsoft have no such problems, maybe very responsible people come to work who are not late for an interview, who can answer the question “what are your strengths and weaknesses” who do not make mistakes when writing their name and date of birth, but we (small companies) have such problems with employees.

It is important to remember that there are no ideal (and even similar to ideal) employees in nature. It is necessary to select three out of 300 people and educate those you need.