8 Secrets of Mastering The Art Of Recruiting Sales & Marketing Professionals

Sales and marketing are the two departments of a company that need the most creative minds. And, in today’s job market, such creative minds are harder to find through traditional routes of recruiting. Plus, the traditional recruiting methods cannot help to truly assess the potential of the candidate, especially for sales and marketing jobs. So, what can you do differently then?

Using creative and innovative recruitment tactics are the only means to find the right talent for your sales and marketing jobs openings. You will have to proactively find and engage candidates before hiring them. The typical advertising tactics of ‘spray and pray’ no longer yield rich dividends.

Results have become highly inconclusive. To stay competitive, and to recruit staff that’s right, the human resource department should think like their sales and marketing counterparts who regularly use innovative methods to attract the attention of the customers to close the sale.

Let us, thus, look at the eight secrets that can help crack the code for sales and marketing recruitment. Whether you belong to the company’s human resource department or are an independent staffing firm, this will come handy.

1. Advertise

The foremost secret to great sales and marketing recruiting is great advertising. Think creatively and be unique in your outreach activity. It is not enough to just advertise your vacancy, you should know where and how to advertise your vacancy. After all, you want the maximum leads generation out of this activity.

To attract better candidates, check out their online networking activities. Review their social media activity and find out where they hang out the most. Find out about their networking group. Once you have the information, pursue them with relevant and engaging information about the job vacancy.

Additionally, design a compelling job description to draw their attention towards your organization. This kind of proactive outreach advertising will fetch you better results than other traditional non-invasive forms of advertising.

If you don’t know how to do it, reach out to a professional staffing firm that deals with marketing recruitment and sales recruitment all the time.

2. Identifying the true potential of the candidates

It is said that put someone in a challenging situation and see how they respond. This will reveal the true character of the person. The same philosophy works while recruiting for sales and marketing jobs. Generic Q&As don’t conclusively demonstrate the true skills of the candidate.

Therefore, to test their quick thinking and problem-solving skills, put them in a virtual, challenging situation and assess their response. This will help you examine their objection handling ability and skills of navigating through difficult scenarios, which are common with sales. It will also show if they can find creative solutions to mundane problems, highlighting their marketing edge.

Ask them about innovative techniques that they might apply to help sell or market your product and/or service more efficiently. The essence lies in taking the candidates out of the comfort zone into unknown territory, to understand their true calibre. This is an important step unless you want to end up recruiting the right employee in the wrong job role.

3. Employee referrals

Never underestimate the power of your employees, they are your biggest marketing assets. Their ‘word of mouth’ holds more value than the massive budgets spent on attracting quality candidates.

Whenever you plan to recruit staff for your sales and marketing teams, ask for employee referrals; they could be sitting on a goldmine of peer referrals. You can add a few perks and incentives to make the employee referral scheme more lucrative for your workforce.

Chances are that these referrals will be leads of genuine, ideal and qualified candidates, which you can then collate and shortlist as per the job openings identified by the company’s human resource department or staffing firm.

4. Highlighting the positives

While recruiting, don’t just focus on the job role and the salary. You must also highlight the positive aspects of the company and what will the candidate benefit if they choose to join the company. Most of the time, top candidates look for much more than monetary compensation to join a company.

Therefore, inform your prospective employee about your attractive leave policies. If you have a convenient transportation facility, highlight it to the candidate. Introduce them to the various sales incentives on achieving their targets. Talk also about the energetic and engaging work culture.

This will positively impact the candidates and help them make a favourable decision.

5. Immediate joining

Any human resource department uses this as a trump card to pull in on-the-fence candidates. Most of the time, candidates applying for sales and marketing jobs are already employed with another company and are either looking for options passively or is serving a notice period.

Such candidates come with a wealth of knowledge and experience, but their limitation is that they are currently employed. Few companies prefer to give them a few days before joining. But you can insist on immediate joining, and more often than not, candidates prefer to join immediately as well when they find a better opportunity at hand.

Therefore, don’t let the candidate’s excitement fizzle out. As soon as you select them, ask to join immediately, and the candidates might just comply.

6. Prepare your waitlist

According to sales recruitment experts, recruiting should be proactive and not just a reaction to the requirement. Even though you are satisfied with your current set of employees, don’t get complacent and halt your sourcing efforts.

Your current recruitment drive has enabled access to various candidates who can be ideal or other job roles within the company. Though you don’t have the necessity now, you cannot predict the future.

Therefore, keep an active list of candidates that are ready to pursue when the need arises. This leads to more efficiency and better marketing recruitment results.

7. Monitor your performance

Yes, it is important to monitor the performance for better recruiting. During the hiring process, monitor the performance of the staffing firm or your HR department as well, to find out what’s working and what’s not.

No hiring process is foolproof. You’re bound to find loopholes in every process. Regular monitoring will help you identify the issues and fix them to generate better results. It is extremely important, especially in this competitive market.

8. Emphasis on a good company culture

Company culture is the key that completes the puzzle. Do not underestimate the far-reaching benefits of good company culture. It will take your brand places and make your company irresistible for your future employees.

Some of the best companies around the world have a great work culture. Top candidates make a beeline for such companies just to be a part of such a vibrant work environment. So, attract, engage and motivate your employees to build a great work culture.

You should focus on your long term objectives while undertaking sales and marketing recruitment activities. Because these departments play an instrumental role in the growth of your business, the more focused and creative you are with recruiting, the better candidates you will attract to your business.