I know, sometimes it seems that applicants for salesmen just seem to fall from the sky. It becomes especially noticeable during hard times—people lose their job due to downsizing or whatever, and they think, “I’ll try sales; anyone can do that.”

What makes them think this way? It’s probably their own attitude toward salesmen. All they can see is a person who’s good at schmoozing; they don’t know what’s behind the smile. All they know is that sales-oriented companies need to try a little harder to stay afloat during difficult economic times, so they are likely interested in adding to their sales forces. That’s when they fall from the sky.

The problem is, most of these sky-fallers make the worst  salesmen. They don’t have the qualities that make a person a top performer, an A player. That’s why you need to brush off most of these possibilities and focus aggressively on your sales recruiting. To do that, you need to get the word out that you’re looking, and you need to get it out consistently, and to as broad an audience as possible.

Fortunately, we live in a time where it’s easy to reach masses of people through the internet. Sure, you can do all your sales recruiting locally if you want to, but there may be top salesmen out there who are dying to work in your area, and since most of today’s job applicants begin their search online,  why limit your possibilities?

First off, how’s your website landing page? Does it tell all of the top salesmen out there that your company is the one that they should work for? Do you have a page for applicants to contact you? That should be your first step.

Next, you can go through the different web opportunities for recruitment: the social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can give you a lot of exposure that you might not get by going through the “normal” channels. You can position your company on these sites to establish yourself as a viable employer and give yourself the kind of credibility and appeal that will attract exactly the type of salesmen you want to have working for you.

After you’ve established your presence on the social networks, it’s time to go ahead and post your job offerings on one or more of the internet job boards. The best-known are CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, Indeed.com, and SimplyHired.com; but there are many more out there that you might want to investigate.

Here’s where you want to shine: don’t fall into the old routine of just ticking off the qualifications of the person you’re looking to hire. That’s about as appealing as a limp handshake. Of course you want to mention what you’re looking for, but you also want your prospects to know that you have what they are looking for.

That’s the first thing that the Advanced Hiring System does to help you. It not only takes you through the step-by-step process of designing the perfect ads for your sales recruiting, but it also gives you the opportunity to have your ads reviewed and get suggestions on how to improve them. After all, if you miss the first step, it’s a long way down.

There is more to hiring employees than testing and many managers believe they have what it takes to hire the right ones. However, being a self-proclaimed people person does not mean you know how to hire employees.  You have probably heard people claim, or have done so yourself, that they are really good at reading people and in some instances that may be true. While that may work in some cases, they may not completely understand how to conduct an interview to get the most out of the answers.

Some people seem to have a natural ability when it comes to reading people but if they don’t know how to conduct an interview some of the best salesmen may slip through their fingers. It takes more than knowing what makes a good salesman when conducting interviews and in order to choose the best you need a means of evaluating them both on their ability to do the job you are hiring for as well as how they compare to other candidates for the same position.

When hiring you need to have more than one person interviewed. In fact, three should be the minimum number of interviews conducted for the position in order to compare all of the factors of the personalities for what makes a good salesman. Since you don’t want to have a panel discussion with all of the candidates at the same, which is not how to hire employees, you will need to ask them all the exact same questions in the same order to be able to accurately judge and compare their responses.

One of the best methods used by those who know how to hire employees is to take notes during the interview. You aren’t going to remember their answers and you will need to have something on which to base your final decision.

The one in charge of first interview should know as much about how to hire employees as the one conducting the second, third and hopefully the fourth interview. Don’t be afraid to look at current employees as part of your sales recruiting as you may find some hidden talent in your current ranks. In fact, there is nothing wrong with continuously sales recruiting as you talk with your employees on a daily basis. If you really know how to hire employees you might be surprised what you can learn during casual conversation with people that already work for you.

The concept of personality tests has been around for centuries, but it wasn’t until the 20^th century that they became part of mainstream business testing. Some believe that it requires a certain type of person to be successful and the results of a sales personality test can provide a good indication that your candidate basically has what it takes to be good salesmen.

By using a Marston sales personality test often called a DISC test even those without any sales experience may show up as being a qualified candidate. The results of a quality test will reveal two distinct personality traits and the two styles they reveal:

• Natural style, which is their inner personality and what is natural for them;
• Adaptive style, which is how they adapt to fit their current situation

To better understand the traits it can be simplified by saying the person with a natural style is going to act how they would act and say what they will say regardless of their circumstance. A person with an adaptive style will act or say what they believe someone around them wants them to say or do. This sales personality test is often included in recruitment management software packages and should be one of the top choices when identifying potential top performers with the right salesperson profile.

The DISC test looks at the four basic aspects of a person’s personality including drive, influence, steadiness and compliance. Drive, often considered the ego drive, is usually presented with the can do attitude, such as ‘I can do this’ or ‘It’s up to me to get this done.’ Influence is the ability to convince others that something needs to be done by communicating in a way the other person is comfortable with.

A person’s steadiness is their willingness to work late, or arrive early to get the job done. Basically not willing to leave until the job is done and done right. Compliance is the person’s willingness to follow direction. Do they see directions as carved in stone and to be followed without question or do they see direction more as a guideline that is open for interpretation?

The results of a sales personality test can be very revealing and before you get started using them during job interviews it is important to understand how to interpret the outcome. Above all, if you want to hire the best salespeople you need to use this test to ensure you hire the right personality type for the position.