Case study: scientific recruitment for SDR

Is recruitment an art? Or a science?

Whilst never totally exact, recruitment is a science, especially when it comes to sales people.

Here's a case study from one of my clients who recruits SDRs (an international client, so English content).

Why is sales recruitment tough and too often failing?

As we know, the number one problem in recruitment is human bias. The majority of companies recruit with interviews that are led by feeling, interviews that aren't robust enough, where recruitment managers focus on technical skills or even on the 'cultural fit' - important but what do you want? Results or people who speak 'culture' - etc....

As a result, many recruitments fail or sales professionals are not in the right job and quotas are not reached (if you've had situations where you hired the wrong sales person, there could be many reasons for this. We help build robust, predictive sales hiring processes, let us know if you want to talk these through).

Can any assessment do the job in sales?

To avoid these errors of decision-making bias and to take a scientific and rigorous approach, it is important to profile candidates - SDR in this case or others - with an assessment dedicated purely to sales to put their skills under the microscope, of course, but above all their attitude and willingness to sell. An assessment used in the recruitment of other functions does not allow us to assess the unique skills required for a successful salesperson. Salespeople are unlike other professionals, far from it, and have to deal with unique dynamics on a day-to-day basis that no other function encounters.

Following an assessment, three types of recommendation emerge. "An example of profiling can be downloaded here or contact us for an example in the language of your choice but in short:

"Do not meet": when the candidate does not meet the requirements of the platform and/or those of the client. If hired nonetheless, there is a 70% chance that this candidate will be fired within the first 6 months.

"Worth meeting": when the candidate is marginal, lacking one or two key skills

"Recommended": meets all the requirements of the position. When a recommended candidate passes the other stages of the recruitment process and is well-boarded, there is a 71% chance that they will be an A-Player within 12 months.

In short, the result for one of these SDR is that it is worth meeting (worth of consideration). Its sales percentile is 67, which means that out of 100 SDR assessed, it is in the top 33, which is a good score.

Digging in the data

As the assessment is of course personalised to the specificities of our client, we can see that this evaluation has a score of 69 required. So, it's 2 points short to be "Recommended". Which is marginal.

So where is the problem that means this candidate is only "Worth meeting" and not "Recommended"? On closer analysis, a number of areas for improvement stand out:

• Low morale: 55/100. Having good morale is key in sales. However, looking for work affects our morale. So that's not a big concern here.

• Consultative selling: 46/100. Few people know how to implement consultative selling. With a willingness to sell, it will be possible to upskill a robust candidate.

• Staying on the moment: 67/100. This ability is important in sales. It enables active listening. It is a low score and therefore, if hired, this SDR will need to work on it.

• A number of self limiting beliefs to work on, such as accepting push back from prospects: "I'll think about it".

Client recommendation

What was the recommendation to the client. The candidate is solid and worth interviewing - not recruited yet, he needs to be interviewed in a rigorous and score carded way - but if the decision is taken to bring the candidate into the team, they will need to invest time and coach him on these points during onboarding in order to guarantee his success.