We tackle projects of all different shapes and sizes. The most exciting ones revolve around a tech company with under-performing sales, where a recruiting project must not only hire great sales rep but create a culture change on the whole sales team. Anyone who has tried to create large scale change knows how challenging this is (“Who Moved My Cheese?”).
In large companies in particular, matrix organizations create even larger barriers to effecting change. Someone reports to one section of the company, but supports business in another. In a lot of cases there is inconsistent alignment with other parts of the organization and a little consensus on job roles and expectations. Add HR policy vs. sales plan priorities and things can be overwhelmingly confusing. If not properly managed the outcome is a mish-mash of hires and rep types.
Here are four critical steps to ensuring the success of an enterprise sales recruiting project:
- Get internal consensus on the key sales and character traits required to achieve success in each different role
- Make sure the business objectives line up with the hiring objectives and vice versa – ie. does the time-line match to targets, what is contingency plan if the perfect candidates aren’t available
- If you engage external recruiters, leverage them as an extension to your internal recruiting team, making them privy to the intangibles of organizational culture that could affect the success of the hires.
- HR (indispensable) acts as the glue between conflicting priorities, secures cross-team buy-in, set up recruiting processes and procedures, engineer competitive comp plans, and coordinate a comprehensive on-boarding program.
See an more info on this top from an interview with Peak Sales® in Selling Power’s Hiring and Recruiting Newsletter – Strategic Hiring in a Matrix.
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Eliot Burdett
He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.
Latest posts by Eliot Burdett (see all)
- 20 Of Our Favorite Books About Sales Management and Sales Leadership – October 20, 2023
- How To Make Progress On Your Sales Goal Without A Sales Leader – September 15, 2021
- Augment Your Recruiting Strategy During “The Great Resignation” – July 26, 2021