Vanilla interviews just don't cut it when assessing talent!

Continuing our discussion on effective sales management, let's examine the front end of the "sales management ecosystem" - recruiting. Actually, we will assume that candidates have been identified and find themselves sitting in front of you. So what do you do?

This all comes down to planning. You first must think about the role, the accountabilities and, most importantly, the critical behaviors that will, if nothing else, facilitate success. Assessing these traits and characteristics can not be achieved through traditional "Sit-down" style interviews. Granted these are important and necessary - for no other reason than determining whether you will be able to stomach repeated interactions with the candidate - or not (if it matters).

Let's think about what a truly effective method could be to understand behaviors? Why don't we consider seeing them in the action. I know what some of you are thinking - "he's about to ask the candidate to sell him a pen". Not quite - but not too far off - just a little more sophisticated and effective. Instead, let's create situations that allow us to observe some real-life behaviors the candidate will face in the field - if an account manager - let's contrive a relationship management scenario and play it out with the candidate. If the candidate is a senior-level candidate - let's see how he/she fares with an executive discussion or meeting.

Let's pair this with the interview - but rather than a dandy discussion where we ask the candidate to tell us about him/herself, let's seek to uncover evidence of behaviors - ask the candidate to provide examples of how he/she achieved specific results. It sounds easy doesn't it. And once you get into the habit and develop the process, it is.

Develop a quantitative scoring system that eliminates subjective analysis and apply it rigorously.

Resist the urge to bypass the process - particularly when under pressure to make hiring decisions.

Constantly review your case studies, metrics and selection criteria.

Have fun!

Cheers,

Steve