Donna
Siegel

Using The Internet To Screen Sales Rep Applicants

Identifying the best sales rep applicants can be a challenge. Even face-to-face interviews often won't let you detect some characteristics of real sales winners. Before you start interviewing, try Using The Internet To Screen Sales Rep Applicants.

• How can you tell how effective applicants can be in transferring their experience to your product and market?
  
  
• How sharp are those all-important consultative selling skills?
  
  
• Can the person you hire become a valued member of your team?

And a further challenge for many sales managers putting together a national or even international sales team: How will this applicant handle his or her job when working alone in a territory?

Much is made of the ability of the Internet to post jobs that will be viewed by a wide variety of potential applicants. Similarly, the Internet is noted for its ability to serve as the major tool for gathering up resumes, giving you a greater number of potential candidates to choose from. But after you've gotten your job description out there and gathered a stack of resumes, how can the Internet help you narrow your selection so you don't have to talk to all 439 candidates?

Several companies are now taking advantage of the Internet as a screening tool. It works like this:

1. Narrow the field to the most promising applicants
There is no way around it. You have to start by going through that large stack of resumes to find the people who best qualify for your sales position. Look through the resumes not only for relevant sales experience in your industry or market, but also examine how well each person uses language skills.

The most telling part of the information applicants send you is their resume cover letters. In this free-form correspondence, each applicant tells you why he or she is the best fit for the position. These cover letters tell you not only how applicants sell to you, but how they're apt to sell to your customers.

Continue to narrow the field until you have found the ones you want to take to the next step: the pre-interview screen. In most cases, you want to have between six and 10 candidates at this point.

2. Design your Internet pre-interview screen
Next, you want to set up a screen that will help you evaluate which of the candidates you want to interview. The screen is a questionnaire on your Web site where you will direct each of your qualified applicants to go and answer the questions. You want to design a questionnaire that will require your applicants to tell you as much as possible about how they approach their sales responsibilities.

• Limit the length of your questionnaire to no more than five questions.
  
  
• Make each question a brief case study that requires the applicant to answer about the next step in the case.
  
  
• Require the applicant to give you a detailed answer.

If you're looking for sources of good case-study questions for your questionnaire, the best place to look is some of the current challenges your staff members are now facing with their prospects. Write a brief description of the situation.

For example:

The prospect is a large insurance company that has to reevaluate its current accounting software. We're calling on the CFO, who was very enthusiastic about our product's Web interface and some of the training we offer as part of our standard installation. The CFO has postponed the next meeting several times because of crises at his office. What would you do to ensure that the next meeting takes place?

3. Set up your Internet screen
Once you have your series of questions written, it's time to set up the questionnaire. Have your Webmaster:

• Develop a unique Web address for posting the questionnaire.
  
  
• Give the list of questions to your Webmaster, who will have someone design a form using your questions.
  
  
• Get a date from your Webmaster as to when the questionnaire will be ready for use.

4. E-mail your remaining candidates about the pre-interview screen
Send each of the qualified applicants an e-mail that describes the Internet pre-interview questionnaire. Ask each one to respond within a specified time frame.

As a result of this process, you should have a set of responses from qualified applicants. It's likely some of the applicants won't respond. Not everyone will want to go through this step on the way to the job. However, the ones you're most likely to want to hire will take this step seriously and will give you their best responses.

5. Evaluate the responses
As you look over the responses from each of the applicants, you want to evaluate which ones are most likely to succeed on your sales team. Some of the ways you want to evaluate the responses by are:

• Language: Does the response demonstrate effective use of grammar and word usage? The same person who wrote these responses may be sending letters or talking to your prospects. You want people who write effective, clear answers to your screen questions.
  
  
• Strategy: Does this person have an idea on how to proceed in this situation? Does he or she understand exactly what the plan is?
  
  
• Creativity: Does this person come up with a unique approach to the situation -- something that might appeal to the prospect and give your company an edge?
  
  
• Sales skills: Does the answer conform to your ideas of good sales practices? Could you see yourself or one of your top team members following this approach?

Through your Internet screen, you will learn much about each selected applicant. Even more, you will be making productive use of your time. And you will have narrowed the field even further to the top three candidates, the people you really want to interview. 

SeaBird Associates Inc
3011 NE 7th Drive
Boca Raton, FL 33431
Phone: 561-750-9233
E-mail: Donna Siegel

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