When researching all the subject experts in recruiting, a best practice recruitment funnel emerges. After sourcing well to develop five or more recruiting channels, the three stages of recruiting are: – Screening – Profiling – Interviewing.  (Note: This recruiting funnel also presumes that you have analyzed the sales position well enough to isolate the top five (5) personality characteristics of a great salesperson.)

Stage One:  There are several ways to screen a candidate for your top traits.  They are by: resume, phone (5-7 min), face-to-face, references, email, etc.  An interesting way to screen by email is to ask the candidate to email you how they plan to approach their first ninety days as a new rep.

Stage Two:  After screening each candidate, a few make it to the personality profiling stage which increases predictability by as much as thirty percent (30%).  A profile also provides an objective look at your candidate.  We use Craftsystems CPQ (Craft Personality Questionnaire) with 30+ years of sales recruiting research and 2 million+ administered tests (see craftprofiles.com).  From the profile, you will receive a high, moderate, or low job match and the personality trait scores within or outside of the acceptable range.  You will also know the type and amount of coaching that each rep will require.  Biodata information and learning style testing can continue to add strength and predictability points to the profiling stage.

Stage Three:  A “Structured and Scored Interview” continues to up the odds of a great hire (16%), as well as involving others in the interview process. It will contain customized questions that you will ask of every candidate.  The questions will be structured to discover fits and mismatches with your top five required traits.  (Note: traditional methods of reference checking, unstructured interviews, and resume checking are worth less than 6% in predictability for making a great hire.)

For those heavy in recruiting, an online recruitment funnel is helpful as well – kinda like a CRM of recruiting or a sales funnel of recruits. With this tool you can work candidate through your recruitment funnel with an interview to recruit goal of at least 3:1 … ratio of new recruits vs. those making it to the interview stage.

If your rigorous recruitment system is successful, the technologies you use will improve retention and productivity of new reps – provided your sales managers also provide a healthy working environment.  Now, go and make things better.  We believe you can do it.  Lance

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