Cancel the Noise

By Dan Fantasia, Sales Recruiting Thought Leader – Treeline Inc.

Overcoming Q1 Recruiting Distractions and Hiring Sales Reps in 2023

Doesn’t it still feel like 2023 just started? Though it may seem hard to believe, we’re already halfway through Q1.

At Treeline, we closed out January by talking to many of our customers who were looking to get our perspective about what’s happening in the marketplace early in 2023.

Most of these companies have been

• Gathering valuable insight

• In year end planning and kick off meetings

• Confirming sales targets for 2023

• Discussing how to hire sales reps who can hit sales targets

You see, everyone thinks that January starts off very strong on the hiring front, but 22 years as a top-sales executive search firm has shown us, repeatedly, that this piece of common wisdom is actually incorrect. Aggressive hiring starts around the first week of February and companies ask these questions.

1. Has the job market changed?

2. Has compensation gone down?

3. What are other companies experiencing?

First, the market has changed, but not necessarily in the way you would like. Companies are definitely hiring. While the demand is not quite as great as it was this time last year, there is still a tremendous need for talented sales professionals and companies get no relief because the sales hiring landscape is still very competitive. Realize that your competition is certainly not taking a break and instead currently focused on improving their salesforce. They are capitalizing on this market to recruit top producers from the industry.

Meanwhile, compensation for a strong sales professional has not changed. From where we sit, candidates are not sacrificing their compensation structure for a job, a company or the coolest technology in the market. So if you plan to recruit an elite sales athlete from your competitor, it’s critical to realize

• Sales positions cost money.

• Offer a compensation package that is actually competitive.

• A commission plan must be logical and understandable for a top sales professional to accept it.

• Perks and Benefits like unlimited PTO and 100% healthcare coverage are nice to have but do not account for a subpar compensation plan.

Sales recruiting is a hard job and every company experiences the same challenges. The difference between the winners and losers is focus. The successful companies learn from the market. They listen to the job seekers and understand their wants and needs. They gather information and use it to their advantage to outsmart the competition. Then they formulate a focused search strategy and out work their rivals to win talent.

How to Win.

That insurmountable stack of applicants is an endless problem for in-house recruiters. Visualize your inbound lead pipeline, if you will. Your internal sales recruiters are routinely battling the noise and distractions of this enormous wave of unqualified applicants. Unfortunately the sales recruiter is working hard on tasks that will not produce the results needed to find top talent. They get stuck, spending all of their time with unqualified candidates instead of strategically searching for and executive recruiting talent sales professionals that meet the job requirements.

While the interview count is high, the average applicant’s quality is low. We see this repeatedly and the result is a frustrated hiring manager that is behind their number because they are never introduced to top sales talent. Simply put, the application noise is deceiving the recruiting team with low-hanging fruit and busy work.

Cancel the Noise!

We suggest that you identify the tasks that produce the right type of candidates for your organization to avoid an inadequate applicant pipeline. Companies tend to hire the best of the worst when they are ill informed and have only a few candidates to choose from. Please don’t make that same mistake.

What’s needed instead?

• Superior prospecting

• Telephone outreach

• Consistent outbound engagement with top sales talent

• A network of hard to find sales talent

The overwhelming distractions faced by many sales recruiting teams need to be addressed. Managers need to have a laser-focused strategy toward recruiting activities that drive success and functional accountability. These recruiting challenges are visible and can be met with structure and strategy.

If you are struggling with your company executive search sales strategy or have additional questions pertaining to the sales hiring market please call me directly at 781-327-8902 or email [email protected].