It happened again!

Just 6 months after hiring, you have another sales team member walk out the door. Turnover is a back breaker in business, isn’t it?

A CaeerBuilder survey says more than half of the 6,000 hiring professionals survey made a bad hire. And 27% of US employers said at least one of their bad hires cost them at least $50,000.

Hiring is definitely its own skill. One that many businesses undervalue.

So what should your sales managers look to avoid when hiring? These things:

1. You Haven’t Identified the Top 3-5 Strengths Your Candidate Needs to Succeed at Your Company

Your candidate may be a nice guy. They may even seem like they’ll fit in well with your team. Good qualities to have.

Better than hiring someone who’s difficult to be around and tends to do their own thing. But that doesn’t mean they’ll succeed at your company.

You need to know your company and exactly what your candidate must have to succeed first.

2. You Spot an Issue and Decide Not to Hire the Candidate Because of It

Better to know when something’s an issue up front, isn’t it? The question shouldn’t be so much that your candidate has an issue, but how correctable do you think it is?

Don’t immediately discard a solid candidate because of a known issue. Instead, consider how big the issue is, and how likely the candidate will be to correct it. Weigh that in with all your other considerations, and then make your decision.

3. Asking How Your Candidate Will Act in a Hypothetical Situation

When you present a scenario and ask your candidate what they’ll do, you’re likely to get the answer they think you want to hear.

Instead, ask your candidate how they have reacted to the same scenario in the past. Then, you get an accurate picture of how you can expect them to behave.

Remember, employee behavior stays relatively the same over time.

4. Not Probing Deeply Enough

Do you ever ask a question and then move right on to the next one? Big mistake!

Instead, probe deeply into each question. “Why’d you respond that way? What’s your thought process with that? Interesting. Tell me more about that.”

You’ll learn more about your candidate by covering a few experiences with in-depth questioning than you will by scraping the surface with a few broader questions.

5. Treating the Interview like an Interrogation, Not a Conversation

It’s tempting to think that since you’re the employer and the candidate wants a job, they’re present for you. But really, it should be a conversation between equals.

You’re both trying to find out if this relationship works for both of you. If your employee doesn’t get what they want, they’ll do lousy work. Or they’ll call in sick all the time. Or they’ll be a pain to work with.

You don’t know how they’ll react. But it’s guaranteed it won’t be good. And you won’t get high performance out of them.

Talk to the candidate just like you would any other person – as an equal in a conversation. A side benefit is they’ll feel more comfortable and reveal more information that can help you judge how well they fit your company.

Follow those tips, and I can’t promise you a great hire every time. But I can promise you more better quality hires.

');