People are different – their brains work differently. Some are mechanical engineers like my oldest son. Others find they have a great compassion for nursing, or carpentry or financial management. There are also a multitude of character, attitude and motivational factors that make a difference in a person’s effectiveness in a work position.
You can see the personality and life role tendencies in the mannerisms of small children or in the various skills of players on a football team. Human beings are gifted with innate abilities to do some things better. In your industry, we want people to take on the jobs they find the easiest in which to excel.
For that reason, SalesManage Solutions completed validation studies to isolate the primary traits most important in top salespeople (who hunt for client companies) and for recruiters (who look for candidates to place). We now help companies know if a person is best suited to sell or recruit for them.
The genetic makeup of a person may account for 20-40% of a person’s job capacity. Here are five primary traits (deadline motivation, independent spirit, analytical, optimism, assertiveness) and how they affect the performance of top performers and new candidates for salespeople and recruiters.
Both salespeople and recruiters have a high deadline motivation – a sense of urgency, drive or intensity to get things done. The best are not process-oriented. They do not prefer a step-by-step orderly approach. They want to get to the end result in a short period of time. This is because the fiscal needs of companies depends on the continual push to find people or prospect companies or people for new clients each month. The culture requires high-activity and fast-moving individuals.
High-performing salespeople have a stronger independence in their spirit than that of a recruiter. They use this to control prospects in the sales process. They make better decisions by themselves and have an entrepreneurial tendency when pursuing quota. Recruiters have a greater participatory spirit and can better take in and consider the input of others. As a result, they are more collaborative with job candidates than salespeople are with the companies or prospects they pursue.
Recruiters tend to be a little more analytical than fast moving salespeople. However neither recruiters or salespeople are extreme in their need for details at a level that slows them down. While both recruiters and salespeople tend to be optimistic, this trait is magnified in strength within a sales rep. As salespeople, they must believe they can get around obstacles in their way to securing new client companies and sales goal achievement.
Salespeople are also more assertive than recruiters. The demand is greater on salespeople to ask sensitive questions, assert with self-confidence and to present benefits that differentiate their company’s services. Recruiters have a balance approach between asking questions and telling others what to do. Both keep assertion from being pushy by mitigating the effect with a compassion or service approach toward the needs of others.
Look for people who are compassionate in their desire to help others with solving problems and filling needs. Make sure they will not be stressed by a high-activity environment and that they will enjoy its fast pace. Be sure to place people in the roles most suited for their giftedness Screen and interview and use a validated assessment that checks for a high amount job compatibility within a candidate’s personality. Finally, even if people have the right genetic leanings, make sure they have the appropriate levels of character and motivation required for success in your industry.