Hiring for Sales Graduates: Why this pre-hire assessment process should be adopted
So your company is growing, and you’re looking to hire a Sales Graduate? Whether this is through a Sales Graduate Programme or an entry-level position, assessing skills, competencies, and behaviors is an important part of the recruitment process to ensure you select well-rounded and best-fit candidates. In this short piece, we share our recommended selection methods and pre-employment assessments to help you hire the right Sales Graduate for your company.
Contents:
- What is a Sales Graduate and what do they do?
- What is the best assessment process to hire the right Sales Graduate?
- Concluding remarks
1. What is a Sales Graduate and what do they do?
What is a Sales Graduate?
A Sales Graduate is a professional entry-level role, often recruited as part of a structured graduate scheme. It involves intensive training in selling and customer relationship management with the aim of building businesses’ future sales leaders. Hiring Sales Graduates with the relevant skills and potential is crucial to helping your business grow and develop.
What would be the roles and responsibilities of a Sales Graduate for my organization?
Sales Graduates are primarily expected to assist in helping the company grow by winning new business as well as managing and further developing relationships with existing clients.
Common responsibilities for a Sales Graduate include:
- Sales revenue planning and analysis
- Customer and market research
- Promoting sales strategies
- Relationship-building with existing and potential clients
- Strategic client management – understanding clients’ needs and working with them to reach their goals
- Collaborating with experienced colleagues on sales and management projects
- Driving marketing-led sales
- Presenting sales pitches to colleagues and clients
What skills and competencies are important for a Sales Graduate role?
There are numerous sales skills and competencies which are fundamental to business growth and should, therefore, be considered in candidates. Here are some essential traits and abilities we recommend assessing in your Sales Graduate recruitment process:
- Relationship-building and interpersonal skills
- Written and verbal communication skills
- Negotiation and persuasion skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Analytical thinking skills
- Attention to detail
- Project management skills
- Presentation skills
- Passion to learn
- Agility
- Resilience
- Planning and organizational skills
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2. What is the ideal assessment process to hire the right Sales Graduate?
Implementing an assessment process that tests candidates against the wide range of skills and competencies required for sales can be a difficult task. That is why we have outlined step-by-step the different assessments you should include in your Sales Graduate recruitment plan. This robust and systematic structure will present you with a well-rounded view of candidates so you can make the most informed hiring decisions first time.
1. A Pre-employment Situational Judgement Test
At the first assessment stage for a Sales Graduate, we recommend asking candidates to take a pre-employment situational judgement test, where they will be asked to rank different possible responses to work-based challenges. Candidate responses provide reliable objective insight into their authentic behavioral competencies and indicate how they might actually behave in the role.
What’s more, the Sales Graduate situational judgement test can be customized to reflect work-based scenarios and challenges commonly faced in sales roles or the competency framework of your organization. It can also be tailored to assess the set of specific competencies that are essential for a Sales Graduate.
What competencies should I assess in my Sales Graduate pre-hire situational judgement test?
Sales Graduate competencies you should assess include:
- Communication
- Customer-focus
- Networking
- Problem-solving
- Critical thinking
- Resilience
- Decision-making
The Sales Graduate situational judgement test is a versatile and adaptable assessment that will accurately predict candidates’ future job performance and suitability for the role.
2. Pre-employment Aptitude Tests
At the initial sifting stage, it is best practice to combine the situational judgement test with other cognitive aptitude tests to also provide an in-depth overview of candidates’ technical skills and abilities. This information can be difficult to assess from CVs or cover letters alone.
What aptitude tests should I include at the initial stage of recruitment for my Sales Graduate role?
For the Sales Graduate role, these skill-based assessments could be the following:
- A pre-employment verbal reasoning assessment: Sales Graduates in the workplace will be constantly required to communicate with existing and potential clients and develop these relationships. Deep-diving into candidates’ communication skills through a verbal reasoning test is thus crucial to help you assess whether they have the necessary skills for the role.
- A critical thinking test, such as a pre-employment logical reasoning test: Sales Graduates will also be required to strategically plan, find solutions to complex customer needs and challenges, and identify new leads and opportunities for the business. A critical reasoning test is designed to assess these critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, and analytical reasoning skills.
Including skills-based aptitude assessments at the sifting stage of your Sales Graduate recruitment, will accurately paint a well-rounded picture of candidates and help you shortlist only the most qualified to invite to the interview stage.
Did you know that combining aptitude tests at the initial stage of Sales Graduate recruitment can reduce your candidate pool by 50%? This is particularly beneficial for graduate scheme hiring to quickly and efficiently screen high volumes of applications.
3. A Work-style Personality Questionnaire
If having a common work-style and work culture are priorities for your company, it might be a good idea to consider adding a work-style personality questionnaire to your Sales Graduate recruitment process. We recommend a questionnaire that measures personality traits and work preferences based on The Big 5 personalities.
How should I use the results from a work-style personality questionnaire?
Rather than being used for sifting applicants, this personality questionnaire should be used to give you a more in-depth idea of a candidate’s natural work-style preferences which you may delve further into at later interview and assessment center stages of recruitment.
For example, for your Sales Graduates, you may prefer candidates’ personality to be more naturally extroverted, however, you should not discount those who may show up as more introverted but rather ask them questions around this at later face-to-face stages of recruitment.
Similarly to the pre-employment situational judgement test, your Sales Graduate personality questionnaire can be customized to fit your organization’s culture and behavioral preferences for the sales team.
4. A Pre-hire Video Interview
For the next stage in hiring your Sales Graduate, we advise asking your shortlisted candidates to take a timed video interview with a series of pre-recorded questions. The purpose of this interview is to get to know your candidates better and learn more about their skills, capabilities, sales experience, and fit for the role.
As a recruiter, how should I build my Sales Graduate video interview?
This Sales Graduate video interview could be competency-based, situational and/or related to who they are, what they have achieved, what motivates them etc. Candidate responses will help you determine whether their work-style would suit your organization and whether they have the overall strengths and attributes to succeed there.
5. An Assessment Center
The final assessment stage for your Sales Graduate role, especially if you are recruiting through a Sales Graduate Programme, should be a virtual or in-person assessment center. This final selection day is designed to give you the clearest possible picture of the top candidates and their abilities.
How should I set up an assessment center day for my Sales Graduate role?
During this assessment day, candidates should be assessed in a series of exercises that measure their natural strengths and weaknesses. These could consist of a group exercise, case-study, presentation, and/or interview based on the results of candidates’ personality questionnaires (if you chose this assessment).
As assessors, you will be able to observe how candidates interact and work with others, analyze information, deal with time pressures and complex issues, and persuade and influence others. From these exercises, you will be able to make informed decisions regarding which candidates are the best-fit for your sales role, team, and company culture and finally select those you would like to hire.
Keep in mind that assessment centers are also designed to give candidates a taster of your company culture and the daily situations they might face so they can determine if you are the right employer for them.
3. Concluding remarks
By incorporating these 4 assessment stages into your Sales Graduate hiring process, you will build a well-rounded picture of each candidate with comprehensive insight into their skills, competencies, and overall fit for the role and your organization. This insight will enable you, as recruiters, to shortlist top talent and, ultimately, hire the right Sales Graduate first time.
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