If you work in sales, you know that retaining a strong sales force in the long term is not easy. Almost a third of all sales representatives employed right now have only been working at their respective companies for at most one year. Usually, the annual turn over rate for a sales force is two fifths of the current group. When you consider the amount of money it takes to recruit and hire sales representatives, that is an incredible waste of capital.

Bringing on and holding onto a great sales force is a challenging but financially beneficial goal for sales organizations. Hiring and training brand news sales and marketing workers costs a great deal. Thus, getting it right the first time around is imperative. Executive recruitment firms have terrific sales and marketing headhunters working for them. These headhunters will vet prospective candidates for your open sales positions so that you do not have to. Your recruitment firm will manage the entire process from beginning to end, and she will be able to draw on an extensive list of contacts through the recruitment firms by which she is employed.

If your organization uses any type of contact management software, working with recruitment firms can help you learn whether candidates have the computer skills you need. Headhunters working at recruitment firms test job candidates on a number of computer programs. For example, executive recruitment firms can give candidates a timed computer test on any software program they must know how to use in order to perform the job correctly.

The vast majority of the job a sales rep performs is dependent upon intangible qualities rather than hard skills. In order to be a good sales rep, a person must have patience and perseverance. After all, 20 percent of sales calls are never followed up on! Confidence is also a very important quality for successful sales reps. It is true that confidence can be built over time as the salesperson becomes more comfortable with and knowledgeable about the product he is selling.

Determining whether a sales candidate has the goods succeed requires a highly developed intuition of the sort sales headhunters working at recruitment firms are known for having. Because they have placed a lot of sales reps in roles at which they have done well, the headhunters at recruitment firms can spot a bad candidate from a good one, and a good one from a great one. This intuitive understanding takes a long time to develop, which is why it is a good idea to work with recruitment firms that hire experienced headhunters. Find out more at this site.