Finding excellent sales talent is not easy
If you ask most sales leaders how effective they have been in hiring the best sales talent, most will admit they struggle to get it right all the time. Some will even admit it’s more like a 50/50 chance.
For the past 32 years, I’ve been a strong advocate of using objective, scientifically validated sales specific assessments to add objectivity to the process of interviewing and vetting sales candidates. After all, sales candidates are some of the best interviewers in the business. And, when it comes to being hired, talking a good talk is much easier than doing the hard work of achieving consistent top-level sales results. It takes drive, determination, skills and willingness to put in the hard work – consistently.
A subtle enemy of identifying strong sales talent: Yes, it’s bias
But there is another factor that I’ve observed over the years that interferes with sales leader’s ability to hire the best talent. Bias. Unconscious (and sometimes conscious) bias.
How does it show up? The first way it shows up is in the belief that their customer base will not be open to a person of color or minority group selling to them. The sales leader’s own bias and fear predicts their customer’s racism and bias cannot be overcome by the skills of a strong candidate who is not of the same racial background.
However, the most common and subtle way it shows up is very early on in the process when a recruiter sees the name of a person of color [POC] that does not appear traditionally white on a resume. Research shows those resumes are rejected at much higher rates than those of white appearing names even when experience and past success is the same. Bias. Racism.
Here are 6 things you can do
If your company claims to be committed to fair and equal, non-biased hiring practices and is committed to building cultures of equity and inclusion, we need to address our unconscious and conscious biases when interviewing and hiring sales personnel. If it’s not committed to these values, ask yourself (and your leadership) why not and if you want to be working for a company without these stated values.
How you can take action:
- Hold leadership accountable for the presence of a racial mix of sales leaders and salespeople in your sales organization. Set measurable goals and tie compensation to meeting these goals. Time to put your values to the test and walk what we talk. Compensation and money are a great way to hold ourselves accountable. Learn that equity does not always mean equality. It is important to put intention behind achieving diverse leadership and sales organizations.
- Provide training to your recruiting and sales leadership team so that they become aware of their biases – both unconscious and conscious and learn ways to begin to eliminate bias in the interview process. Provide diversity and inclusion training that begins to awaken employees to the need for equal opportunity in your culture and the value of diversity in your workforce. Awareness is the first step.
- Listen to POC who are currently working in your firm. Listen to what it’s like for them to be working in your culture. They will tell you how inclusive your culture really is and where harm is still taking place. Then do something about it.
- Cover names of candidates on resumes before reviewing them.
- Administer objective sales specific assessments that have predictive validity and have been shown not to have adverse impact (Objective Management Group’s Candidate Assessment is one example) early in the hiring process so that strong candidates of any cultural or racial background receive strong consideration BEFORE you interview (phone or in person). Do not allow racial bias to interfere with objectively strong candidates who are applying. Allow objectively measured selling skills and competencies to dictate who you consider you will hire.
- Be willing to support and stand by POC you hire. They may face subtle, passive, or open hostility from others within your company or from your customers or prospects. You must be willing to listen to them, stand by them, support them, confront the bias or hostility they are pointing out, and it may cost you something. Are you ready to lead and stand by your stated values even when it may cost you a long-standing customer or even missing a sales goal until they have the chance to sell to more equality minded customers?
Finding the best sales talent means being willing to examine our biases and assumptions, educating ourselves and confronting our own fears, then taking concrete steps to ensure we truly are fair and intentional as we build sales cultures of equity, inclusivity and diversity.