ACTG Sales Management Blog

Sales & Sales Management Expertise Blog  

What Recruiting in the “New Normal” Looks and Sounds Like

Posted by Kelly Barcelos on Wed, Jul 29, 2020

people-on-a-video-call-4226262

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about many changes. While some businesses have hit rock bottom, some are thriving and hiring at scale. Businesses in customer care, retail, healthcare, digital marketing, and online training industries are actively hiring because of the new market demands. But unfortunately, recruitment techniques that have been used for years aren’t the same anymore. The need for social distancing has made recruiters and HR professionals work from home, making the shift inevitable. Let’s understand how things have changed.

How has recruitment changed now that COVID-19 is here?

Before the pandemic hit the entire world, recruitment couldn’t be imagined without face-to-face interviews. But considering the criticality of the situation, organizations are adapting to new methods of recruitment to prevent the spread of the virus. Let’s understand how.

Virtual Recruitment: Once a prospective candidate is found, HR professionals are conducting virtual interviews in which the candidates need not visit the corporate office for the interview process. Instead, interviews are happening over video calls.

There are quite a few reliable virtual interview apps that allow scheduling and sending interview invitations, and then interviewing candidates over a video call. Some platforms also allow having virtual job fairs in which several candidates can join a chat room at once and recruiters can get to know them. Moreover, virtual interviews are equally interactive since the HR professional can assess body language, expressions, and gestures, just as they would in an in-person interview.

Candidate Experience: Now that traditional interviews are slowly becoming a thing of the past, HR professionals are going the extra mile to ensure good candidate experience. Here are a few tips that you can also use to deliver good candidate experience if you’re currently hiring:

  • Use consistent content or messaging across all channels to communicate how you’re taking effective measures to ensure the safety of candidates. This will also empower you as a brand.
  • Provide candidate resources that would help them appear in the virtual interview without any hassle. For example, help them get access to the software or give them a simple guide for the interview process.
  • Do not delay interviews hoping that you will soon be able to conduct an in-person interview. Your competitors may take advantage of every minute you lose and it will also have a negative impression on the candidate.
  • Build a landing page to which the candidates can be directed to for answers to questions they may have.

Trial the Highly-Predictive  Pre-Hire Sales Assessment

Applicant Tracking System: Using an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is one of the most important recruitment techniques if you’re hiring at scale. It will allow you to work remotely and also make sure that you have the “right” candidate. During the pandemic, employers are hiring based on their fluctuating requirements. For example, many are hiring for flexible roles that may change post-pandemic and many are also hiring candidates on a contractual basis. And an ATS will help you screen the applications based exactly on your requirements so that you don’t unnecessarily spend time and resources on irrelevant applications. Moreover, you can also leverage its other benefits, such as:

  • One-click job posting
  • Resumes and applications repository
  • Seamless interview scheduling
  • Automated resume parsing
  • Automated emails and follow-ups
  • Analytics for conversion rate

Remote Onboarding: Remote work has become a new trending order to minimize physical interaction as much as possible. And to ensure safety even further, employees are being onboarded digitally without having to even set foot in the workplace. But this isn’t as easy as it sounds. To make onboarding seamless, you must:

  • Make training is available to new employees so that they can adapt well.
  • Give them some time to absorb all the information.
  • Communicate the organization’s culture to the new employee.

How you onboard a new employee can make a lot of difference since it can make or break the employee experience. Without it, you can’t say that you have made a successful hire.

Avoid common mistakes and form a new recruitment strategy that adapts to the changes as quickly as you can, because how you do it will determine the future of your organization.

Sign Up for our Sales Brew

Author Bio:
Kelly Barcelos is a progressive digital marketing manager specializing in HR and is responsible for leading Jobsoid’s content and social media team. When Kelly is not building campaigns, she is busy creating content and preparing PR topics. She started with Jobsoid as a social media strategist and eventually took over the entire digital marketing team with her innovative approach and technical expertise.

Topics: hiring salespeople, key to successful hiring, recruiting sales talent, upgrade your sales force, hiring top salespeople, aquire sales candidates

Be a Rock Among Pillows

Posted by Alex Cole on Fri, Jul 14, 2017

My pup, Rocky, loves to lay on top of pillows. ALL pillows. He doesn’t care if they are round, square, flat, cushy, or even sewn on and attached to the back of the couch- he will find a way to lay on them. And though it irritates me to no end to walk into a room to find all of my decorative pillows haphazardly thrown around, I must appreciate Rocky’s determination. He will do whatever he can to make sure he is on top. He fights, and sometimes literally claws, his way to the peak of that pillow mountain. He epitomizes the great sales candidates you should be looking for- except maybe the dog part.  

Rocky Pillows.png

Great sales candidateswill think the same way Rocky does- they have to be on top. They will do whatever it takes to make sure that they are successful. They will find ways to differentiate themselves amongst their peers. The hardest part, however, is being able to spot those great salespeople without wasting a lot of your, or their, time.

At Hire Better Salespeople, we believe that you should be able to learn everything you need to know within the first 5 minutes of any interview. If you are asking the right questions, you should know how well this person handles themselves on the phone, if they have the strong will and determination you need and if they are a fit for your opportunity. The point of the first interview is not to review a resume or sell them on the details of the position. Instead, it is to drill down on their capability of doing the job you need them to do. If your organization needs a hunter, you must say, “We need someone that is going to hunt and close new business. How do we know this is you?” A great sales candidate will give you a concise answer with facts to support their position. They won’t be flustered by the direct questioning and will have the ability to answer your questions with little hesitation or "word fluff”. You should only have to ask 3 or 4 questions to determine if individuals should move forward in the interviewing process.

Even more importantly, a great salesperson will attempt to close for the next step at the end of the call. Any candidate who asks robust follow-up questions, wants specific details pertaining to the next step or directly states why they are the right fit should immediately advance to the next stage. If a sales candidate doesn’t attempt to close you at the end of the interview, it is very unlikely they will do so with a prospect.

The number one question I ask myself after any interview is this: “Would I like to compete with them in the marketplace?” If the answer is no, strongly consider this individual for a position within your organization. What if they don’t have the specific experience you are looking for? Don’t worry! You can train someone on the technical parts of being a banker or insurance rep, but it’s a lot harder to train them to be a great salesperson. 

So, next time you’re interviewing a sales candidate, remember Rocky and his quest for higher, softer ground and his grit to get there. If you are interested in learning more about how to Hire Better Salespeople, sign up for our free webinar—“Ruff” Realities About Recruiting. During this webinar, you will learn how to hire your next “top dog” using our proven process for searching, evaluating skills using a sales assessment, interviewing, hiring and onboarding new hires.

Webinar Details

Thursday, July 27th, 12-1 pm EST

REGISTER NOW

REGISTER HERE for "Ruff" Realities Recruiting Webinar

 

Topics: 5 minute interview, aquire sales candidates

Guests, Fish and Job Candidates

Posted by Chuck Smith on Mon, Jun 26, 2017

As the owner of Hire Better Salespeople, one thing I hear consistently from my clients in regards to hiring is “I’m tired of looking through the same set of resumes over and over again.” If you have had the same thought, trust me, you’re not alone. Resume sites are flooded daily with recycled candidates. So, how do you go about finding the new, fresh candidates out in the market place? This week, our guest blogger and one of HBSP partner’s, Chuck Smith, President of NewHire, explains why fresh is best and how to eliminate the rest.-- Tony Cole

I thought it was my mother-in-law, but it turns out to be Benjamin Franklin who said, “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” If you’ve had house guests who’ve overstayed their welcome, I know you will relate. But did you know that the same rule, more or less, applies to candidates for work?

How so?

When we are recruiting to fill an open position, our primary goal is always to find the right person for the job. In fact, we often mean “the right person for the job, RIGHT NOW!” It’s not so helpful if that right person were to be available six months before or six months after.

This is why so many people get frustrated searching for resumes online using LinkedIn, Indeed and Careerbuilder. These sites and others have built businesses based on the idea of aggregating candidate resumes. The sites claim that the ability to search 20, 30 or 100 million resumes is a benefit. I call it a bug. We shouldn’t care about everyone who ever placed a matching keyword on their resume.

We should only care about the actual people interested in our actual job right now. This is what makes the NewHire™ system of recruiting so powerful. Rather than asking you to spend your valuable, limited time going from site to site (at great expense for access) searching for matching candidates among millions and millions of non-matching candidates, NewHire™ brings the candidates to you. Small databases of candidates who have expressed interest in your job. These candidates are prescreened, pre-qualified candidates who have already answered many of the key questions you have for them.

NewHire was invented to help employers recruit and screen candidates for very specific, time-bound open positions. Stop searching resumes and start getting matching candidates with Hire Better Salespeople and NewHire.

Sourcing great, qualified candidates is only a piece of the very complicated puzzle. At Hire Better Salespeople, we work with our clients to: learn the intimate details of the position, build a compelling job attraction post, call on active as well as passive job seekers, assess applicants based on the specific job criteria, disqualify and vet candidates, provide initial interviewing support and administer onboarding and coaching for your new hire. Visit our site TODAY to learn more! 

DOWNLOAD FREE eBook -  How to Hire Advisors Who Will Sell More

Topics: New hires, hire better salespeople, aquire sales candidates


    textunder

    Subscribe Here


    Most Read


    Follow #ACTG

     

    About our Blog

    Anthony Cole Training Group has been working with financial firms for close to 30 years helping them become more effective in their markets and closing their sales opportunity gap.  ACTG has mastered the art of using science-based data and finely honed coaching strategies to help build effective sales teams.  Don’t miss our weekly sales management blog insights from our team of expert contributors.

     

    Recent Blogs