Using online Job sites and Job boards for Jobs in Sales in the UK
The majority of businesses regularly need to fill sales Jobs; in a global competitive market the need to hire the best sales people is increasingly critical to business success. In this first article in the series we take a look at the different options, the respective costs, the time involved and the probability of success.
Direct hiring ‘ small and medium sized business managers and owners often take on the recruitment process in an attempt to minimise cost, however without human resource management expertise and qualifications, they are often at risk of failing to make impartial decisions and ultimately being in breach of the plethora of employment laws. Effective assessment of a sales person’s competence and suitability to sell a specific product or service in a specific country and to fit the culture of the organisation is a complicated process and one that management all too often get wrong, unfortunately past performance is no guarantee of future success.
Direct hiring can still be successful provided a few steps are taken, make the process consistent by using a standardised set of questions at each interview. The questions should assess the person’s competence at each stage of the sales process, this is best achieved using situation based questioning and by making sure that the question is fully answered and the answer recorded for comparison against other candidates. The use of psychometric testing can add value to the hiring process, as can tests for numeric and verbal reasoning, this decision is mission critical so why not minimise the risks.
You have chosen to go down the direct hiring route, but in this highly competitive market finding applicants for sales positions is increasingly difficult. The number of unemployed in many western markets is at an all time low and many successful sales people are enjoying high levels of success, how are you going to get you sales job noticed? The alternatives include placing an advert in the local paper, national paper, specialist publications, sadly the response rates can be depressingly low, producing few if any suitable applicants. Print media is still an expensive way of advertising and with such poor response can prove expensive and futile.
Online recruitment has become increasingly popular; a quick search on Google for “sales jobsites” reveals over 5 million results worldwide, so where do you begin in the challenge to find an appropriate online source of sales candidates for your sales vacancy? As with many things referral is a good place to start, but this is not a night out, do you know anyone else with experience of recruiting sales people online? Regardless of whether or not you can get advice on which site or sites to use, there are some important things that you need to do before choosing your online recruitment partners. But don’t be fooled by biggest is best, in the UK the two largest jobsites, Total Jobs and Monster have less than 7% market share, are they going to attract the right selection of sales people to fill your sales position? I doubt it, in my next article I will explain the various means of assessing if a jobsite or website is likely to meet your specific requirements.
Louise G, author and marketing consultant recommends http://salesjobsno1.co.uk/ for sales jobs
Tags: careers, employment, Jobs, sales jobs, work