Hiring the most effective sales engineers requires that many other elements be considered outside of mere technical skills with a company’s products and/or aptitude to acquire those skills. There is a balance that has to be found between depth of technical knowledge and the attributes of the best enterprise sales professionals. For example, the overall strategy of human resources must be aligned with the business strategy of the technology provider.

The competitive business strategies of enterprise IT providers typically focus on differentiation from the competition. By offering a variety of business technology solutions to customers, these professional sales organizations engage directly with their customers as both strategic trusted business advisors as well as technology industry leaders. Business value is provided to customers via a breadth of products as well as knowledge of how the technology is applied to those customers’ businesses.

To align with their competitive business strategy, the human resources strategy for enterprise IT providers must focus on the recruitment and retention of “committed experts”. Enterprise technology sales opportunities are by their very definition complex, which requires the sort of employee that can adapt to many types of often challenging customer situations. They involve selling advanced technology to address core business requirements into customer environments that typically already include substantial information technology investments. Sales cycles are often measured in multiple quarters and post-sale implementation support can become challenging if the customer is not fully prepared to take responsibility for implementing their investment. Therefore, the technology supplier requires adaptable employees who can dedicate themselves to the rigors of working in a rapidly changing technology field while also keeping up with changes in their customers’ business. These long-term employees develop long-term, profitable, symbiotic relationships with customers that lead to future sales and trusted expertise to drive value for the customer’s business. Low and non-performing employees are typically removed from the business after relatively short periods in order to avoid any long-term damage to customer relationships and to constantly encourage and reward high performance by all. HR policies and practices must be aligned to support this sort of technical sales professional.