How to Hire A-Players: Finding the Top People for ... - GIT home page

170 How to Hire A-Players
whatever he or she wants about Tom James and the products and
service it provides. This approach:
Is a great recruiting tool. Tom’s confidence in his client relationships
shines as he gives sales candidates access to these
people.
Provides candidates with the chance to get to know the
company and understand the unique opportunities that Tom
James provides to its people.
Allows Tom to see people in action over the course of two days.
As he says, ‘‘It’s hard for candidates to keep their game faces on
for that long.’’
A-Player Principle: Companies that do the best job of
hiring A-players do so slowly. They know that the more time
you spend with someone, the harder it is for that person to
fool you.
Have Candidates Make a Sales Call
A medical products sales manager I know actually sends final candidates
out on sales calls by themselves before he hires them. He
arranges to have them call on doctors he knows well. Each potential
salesperson makes a presentation and tries to close a sale, or at least
move the sales process forward. After each appointment, the manager
calls the doctor and asks for feedback. If he hears that a candidate
was overly nervous, lacked confidence, or was unable to lead
the doctor to make a buying decision, that counts negatively against
the person.
This is an admittedly high-intensity hiring test that not every
company would or should use. But consider this: if you avoid hiring
just one bad salesperson through this kind of process, how much
money, aggravation, and lost opportunity have you saved?