Hiring for your growing company can be challenging. This is especially the case if the sales leader doing the hiring does not have much experience in sales management. Compounding this further is the fact that many growing firms cannot afford an experienced sales person.

Hiring these early sales people can be challenging. However, there are many strategies and tactics that can be used to help find the right person for you company. There are many startups that have had great success hiring junior sales people. I have used the same strategy both here at VA Partners and with previous companies.

Here are a few tips that can be used to help you through the interview process when hiring a junior B2B sales rep.

Make sure their expectation of the sales position matches theirs

Recently, I was working with a client examining resumes of candidates. My client needs a salesperson that will hustle for business and not be afraid of networking, outbound emails, and even cold calls. One of the candidates had many jobs that were listed as sales, account management and marketing. While these are excellent skills to have, they may not be the right skills for a B2B sales rep role.

Do they have a strong profile on Linkedin?

Linkedin is an essential tool for a B2B sales person. It is also an indicator of someone not being afraid to connect with new people, classmates, and colleagues. I now regularly see people leaving school with several hundred, if not 500+, connections.

How did they sell themselves?

The interview process is an example of your candidate selling themselves. Ask yourself, did they tailor their cover letter to your company, view your Linkedin profile, research your company and incorporate it into their answers, and did they have well thought out questions? These are all examples of B2B skills and best practices needed to sell.

Situational questions

Hiring a sales person can be difficult as they should be good at selling themselves. Using situational questions you should be able to identify their actual experience and skills. Questions like, “Tell me about the sales win you are most proud of,” or “tell me about your worst sales loss,” can tell you a lot about their approach and their sales smarts.

What if they don’t have sales experience?

You may only be able to afford sales people that are recent grads or have no sales experience. These candidates can still make for great sales people. Look for experience in customer service, successful projects, leadership within groups, and if they were not afraid to make presentations.

Look for red flags

I have written blogs before on red flags as part of the interview process. These could be far-ranging but include things like, very short stays, a few months at each job or no former managers as references.

Hiring the right candidate for your team is the first step in a successful sales person. For more information on sales plans, on-boarding, and communications plans check-out our white paper on growing your sales team.