The most experienced salespeople have been through so many ups and downs that they see any problem as a temporary one. Things may change in no time, and if you reject their job application, they are fine and ready to get back on track as if nothing happened. And will you be able to move on with the same ease knowing you missed a great sales candidate, just because the resume was short, you couldn’t read the name properly, or just for no reason? To avoid mistakes and skip unconscious bias in the early stages of candidate selection we have “screening”.
Screening is like getting the right lens on the candidate pool and deciding who is worth it, who has to stay, and who has to go based on better evidence. Screening is also a chance to make sure the applicant is a truly available and active human being. Nowadays smart recruiters “screen in” not out, meaning they are no longer looking for reasons why a person is a bad fit for a position or a company, but rather trying to see the value in each candidate by evaluating the whole skill set of a candidate and analyzing the potential.
Soft skills are the most critical ones for salespeople and are arguably the most difficult to assess, especially in the early stages of the hiring process. How do you spot leadership or the ability to communicate just by looking at hundreds of resumes? Here is our list of 6 methods to screen sales candidates.