1. RECRUITING AND SELECTING PERSONNEL
SALES MANAGEMENT
TOPIC 7

2. AIM: Process involved in recruiting & selecting personnel in sales force.
OBJECTIVES:
7.1 Discuss how to plan for recruiting and selection
7.2 Identify relevant hiring criteria for sales jobs.
7.3 Identify the different sources of recruits.
7.4 Understand the selection and validation process.

3. How to plan for recruiting and selection
Planning process
Recruiting
Selecting prospects
Validating the hiring process

4. Planning Process
Should include a preliminary analysis of personnel needs, job analysis, review of job description & job qualifications.
Based on these results sources of sales recruits & selection procedures should be planned.
Addresses the following:
- personnel needs, company culture, job analysis, job qualifications, legality of job qualifications.

5. Personnel Needs
No. of SP needed will depend on – sales growth targets, distribution strategies, changes sales force org. & sales force turnover.
Understanding reasons for SP turnover is important to assessing personnel needs.
An estimate of the rate at which SP leave can be determined by sales force turnover rate.
Turnover rate = separations per year
average size of sales force
Need to keep turnover rate low due to high cost of recruiting & training.

6. Company Culture
Specific definition of the org’s culture is needed for planning cycles validity.
Aligning co’s recruiting strategies to its core culture should help attract & retain higher performing SP.
Very important to have cultural ‘fit’ between the company & the recruit.

7. Job Analysis
Before recruiting new SP, they must understand activities, tasks & responsibilities of SP.
Is a systematic way to describe how a job is to be performed & the tasks that make up the job.
Methods of JA- interview with mgt & SP & use of questionnaires.
A JA should focus on critical success tasks high performing SP spend time on against those lower performing SP.
Send an observer on the field – good method to do JA.
Written customer ratings are also good.

8. Job description – infor
Job description – infor. From JA should be used to produce JD – a written doc that lists job relationships & requirements that characterize each sales position.
JD explains to whom SP reports, how SP interacts with other staff mkting people, customers to be called on, specific tasks to be carried out, mental & physical demands of the job & types of product to be sold.

9. Job Qualifications
Refer to aptitudes, skills, knowledge & personality to perform a job successfully.
Statement of JQ would include education, previous work experience, technical expertise, aptitudes, interests.
Used as a selection criteria help S.mgrs to choose best prospects.
One of the dilemmas of mgrs is whether to hire technicians & teach them to sell or experienced SP & teach them technical.

10. Recruiting
Goal of recruiting is to find & attract best qualified applicants for sales positions. The number of applicants need can be determined by using formula:
R = H
S * A
H = required no. of hires
S = % of recruits selected
A = % of those selected who accept

11. Example:
A company needs to hire 10 people & expects to select 10% of those applying.
If 50% of those offered a position accept then:
R = H = = 200
S * A (0.10 * 0.50)
Therefore, the firm needs to plan its recruiting process so as to attract 200 applicants.

12. Sources of applicants vary widely, depending on the job to be filled & past hiring success.
Surveys suggest that recruiters have the most success when they have reliable information from trusted sources about a candidate.
EXERCISE: list & discuss the sources of applicants a company can use.

13. Sources of sales applicant:
Classified and on-line advertising
Present employees
Referrals/networking
Employment agencies
Schools & colleges
Customers, suppliers & competitors

14. 1. Classified and on-line advertising
Adverts in newspapers, trade journals, & on the web.
Adv. Their ability to attract a large number of applicants.
Disadv. In attracting job applicants there is a tendency to overburden the selection process with under qualified applicants resulting in costly screening process.

15. 2. Present Employees Often make good candidates for sales jobs
They are familiar with co. policies, procedures & do not require as much training.
Increase moral of workers
Bad feelings may arise.

16. 3. Referrals/Networking
Recommendations by current employees
References from managers & SP are valuable
Statistics show that networking & informational interviewing to be among the top for effective recruiting in today’s world.
Very important to maintain good network

17. 4. Employment Agencies
Are frequently used to help fill vacancies in firms.
They save busy sales mgrs time and money
Agency advertise, screen resumes, interview prospects & present qualified applicants to the client.

18. 5. Schools, Colleges & Tertiary Institutes
One of the best source
Are attractive source of SP
Easily trained & are more poised & mature
They know how to budget their time
Have perseverance needed to get the job done
Lack sales experience
Require considerable training & one-to-one coaching

19. 6. Customers, Suppliers & Competitors
They know the business & are familiar with co
SP can bring with them loyal customers
SP may find hard to adjust their selling styles to fit with co
May create some dissatisfaction among own SP

20. Selecting Prospects
After recruiting a pool of sales candidates, mgrs must screen out candidates who do not meet the hiring criteria.
Next slide portrays a model for selecting salespeople

21. Direct recruit to control location or phone
Hiring criteria for sales jobs used to guide
selection process
Complete application blanks
Conduct screening interviews
Check credit & background
Complete psychological & achievement
tests
Secondary interviews
Make offer for sales position
Physical exam
reject
Modify hiring
criteria tests or
interview
procedures
Measure subsequent success on the job

22. 1. Application Forms
Method to gather personal history data is to have candidates fill out application blanks
Need little time & easy to administer, in standard format
Sales mgr wants infor. On educational background, past employment
Absent infor. On gender, race, handicap, age martial status to avoid discrimination

23. 2. Personal Interviews Requires interpersonal skills
Interviews on two levels.
1st interview is used to inform candidate about the job & look for knockout factors
Followed by main interview, candidates are screened in order to identify people who best match the job’s qualification
Mgrs can follow up on infor. Obtained from application blanks.
Allow mgrs to assess applicants interests & desire for the job
Observe conversation & social skills
May want to assess how easy it would be to manage then on selling

24. Interviews are subjective process thus mistakes may occur
Minimise selection mistakes by training sales mgrs on what questions to ask, how to ask & how to rate applicants
Patterned interviews – the sales mgr asks each prospect a set of questions & records responses on a form. Allows comparison
Semi structured interviews – applicant is expected to take active role
Field observation – taking candidates out to observe a day of field sales

25. 3. Follow Up
Sales mgr should track the timely responses of candidates by their responses in the form of letters, notes

26. 4. Background & Credit Checks
How honest are people about their education & employment history
Assess the financial responsibility of applicants since this goes hand in hand with job responsibility

27. 5. Testing Provide more objective information Three types of test:
- intelligence tests – measure min mental capability
- personality tests – such as team building
- aptitude tests – determine whether a candidate has an interest in certain tasks & activities.
- recommendations – should use tailor made tests

28. 7. Physical Examination
Routine physical examination
Some companies are using additional tools such as internship programs and assessment centres.

29. Nine Mistakes & How to Avoid
Relying solely on interviews to evaluate a candidate
Using a generalised ‘success’ model for selection
Too many criteria
Evaluating ‘personality’ instead of job skills
Using yourself as an example
Failure to use statistically validated testing to predict job skills most critical to success
Not researching why people have failed in a job
Relying on general ‘good guy’ criteria
Bypassing the reference check

30. Validating The Hiring Process
Last step in hiring process, information is collected on the progress of sales personnel & used to adjust the hiring process.