Elevate Your Hiring Process with Behavioral-Based Interview Questions

Job postings for sales positions tend to range between wishful and delusional thinking. The list of demands could read something like: “Aggressive, competitive self-starter that can close business and be customer-service focused. Must be a deadline-driven multitasker who is also highly detail-focused and organized.”

Posting a list of unrealistic demands creates at least three immediate problems:

• Job seekers may think, “That’s not me!” and move on—which means you risk eliminating potential top performers.
• The post doesn’t give weight to different job demands, so the list may accidentally attract weaker applicants who are only strong in supporting competencies—not the critical ones.
• The post puts the onus on the job seeker to explain away any alleged shortcomings, instead of on the company to determine what actually works best in the role it is looking to fill.

Discovering the qualities necessary for sales success in specific roles increases revenue, reduces turnover and ensures a profitable bottom line. But not every company has the resources to perform a comprehensive analysis on key job competencies associated with sales roles. This is where Caliper’s job models come in.

Caliper builds its job models from mixtures of performance competencies that scientific verification has identified as critical success factors, including:

Sales manager: dynamics necessary for balancing leadership with managing one’s own book of business

New business development: attributes associated with cold calling, lead generation, negotiating and reeling in accounts, often in a territory-based setting

Account development: roles that deal with relationship building and account retention

Account service specialist: blending client-services activities with up-selling and cross-selling duties

Consultative selling: roles that require a deep exploration of client needs and partnering with them to find solutions

Strategic selling: complex understanding of a client’s business, relative to industry trends and market changes, is necessary to address long-range or ongoing needs

Technical sales: subject-matter expertise and analyses of complex technical needs are paramount to success

General sales: basic essentials for sales positions, or new roles that have yet to be fully defined

The best part? Hiring managers can use the designated job model again and again as the sales operation expands, knowing they are hiring high-potential employees each time.

Caliper is a leading talent management company that, for more than 50 years, has helped businesses align their talent with strategy, acquire the right talent, develop strong people, develop key people, and improve individual and team performance. Caliper is the industry leader in successfully predicting and improving workplace performance for thousands of companies around the world.

Visit Caliper online to learn more about Caliper’s job models.