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Digital Panel - February 24, 2021

The State of Sales hiring in 2021

In Q4 of 2020, we partnered with Candidate Labs on The State of Sales Hiring research initiative. With this research and report, we're hoping to share new insights with the Modern Sales Pros community from the lens of hiring for revenue professionals.

Conventional wisdom says revenue leaders use recruiting firms to find the best candidates, however, we’ve heard that nobody is actually satisfied with the firm experience.

Our goal of this research, and the report to follow, was to collect insights and best practices around how revenue organizations source and hire their top sales talent to hit their revenue goals.

A huge thank you to Michael Zhang (Co-Founder, COO @ Candidate Labs) for joining MSP's Richard Sgro (General Manager @ Modern Sales Pros) for this incredibly informative session.


Topics

  • What does the sales hiring landscape look like going into 2021?

  • What components make up a hiring plan that gives sales leaders confidence to hit their revenue targets?

  • Where do revenue leaders and hiring managers have the most confidence in their processes? What are the common pain points?

  • What are some of the pitfalls in sourcing and assessing intrinsic qualities to help see past the paper in hiring the best fit for the role?

  • How to think about the total universe of talent to build more diverse teams?

  • When to bring on a recruiting partner and what qualities to look for in choosing for success?

  • And, so much more

Key Takeaways

  • Entrepreneurialism: You always want someone who has this, if possible.

  • Ask Yourself: How many people do we really think fit into this profile we’ve created?

  • Your revenue hiring playbook should be at least as strict as your sales process.

  • For executive hiring, don't forget to align on what your board is looking for. We often see teams ready to close a candidate and then the board rejects them in the final stage.

  • How do we assess for culture? These are too often binary decisions. Ask yourself, what does this question actually mean? Implement a scorecard on culture and break it down into tangible components.

  • The Role Of References: Always try to backchannel. LinkedIn makes this super easy. Be quick. Shouldn't take more than a couple of days.

  • A tried and true best practice? USE SCORECARDS. Feedback needs to be ultra concrete and tangible.

  • From a high level, it sounds like everyone is proud of their hiring processes. But, when you break it down - they're not closing top-tier talent. The hiring processes are falling apart at the assessment stage.