In this article:
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Common skills tested:
Resilience
Results-driven
Motivation
Persuasion
Time Management
Business Acumen
Communication
Active Listening
Adaptability
How to test for these skills:
Sales professionals drive business to your organization. Their goal is to educate people on how your service is the best one to solve their needs. Salesmen/women are often responsible for prospecting, responding to leads, conducting discovery calls, and product demonstrations. To do these things effectively, they must be active listeners, persuasive, results-driven, adaptable, and know how to communicate effectively.
To hire the right Sales Representative you need to do more than just ask behavioral or experience questions. Rather than just asking questions based on previous situations, it’s best to test for skills that they will use while executing on the job. Luckily, you can use Vervoe to assess the skills mentioned above. We recommend setting up scenario specific skills assessment questions that are relevant to your organization.
If your sales representatives will be expected to attend events to sell your product; you can include a question with a scenario that asks the candidate to record an audio clip of how they would bring up your product in casual conversation. You could even include a Google Slides immersive question with sample presentation data that asks the candidate to include their speaker notes. Their response would then give you a good indication of their communication skills and business acumen.
When creating an assessment, consider what skills are most important for your organization and type these out in our skills assessment builder to create a bespoke assessment.
Read this article that explains how to use our skills assessment builder.
You can also start from one of our premade assessments titled Sales Skills under the expert section in our library. You can choose to customize the template or use it as-is.
Follow Best practices for higher completion rates and AI accuracy:
- Include a mix question types
- Include no more than 10 questions
- Include an intro about your company and the job role. This would be a great use of any company video.
- Start with an easy question and build up to the more difficult ones later in the assessment
- Restrict the use of timers, only use them in scenarios where an employee would be required to react in a limited amount of time
Where in the funnel should I use an assessment?
Sales representative jobs tend to have a high volume of candidates especially roles that are virtual.
You can start out with a short assessment that evaluates the nonnegotiable skills (e.g., can they use Salesforce, do they speak more than one language, etc.). From there you can progress candidates that pass that stage to a second assessment that assesses additional skill requirements.
We recommend allowing all candidates who apply to complete the assessment. Make sure to include details of the process in your job description. This way candidates are prepared and know what to expect.
Read more about how to craft the perfect job description to attract quality candidates here.