Qualified candidates that emerge from the initial pool of interviewees should then participate in an additional test or series of tests to determine the finalist(s) for the role. These “tests”, for lack of a better term, should primarily focus on the Technical, Business, and Interpersonal skills categories from the Job Analysis phase.

Quite simply, candidates should be required to give a presentation that demonstrates a technical solution to a business problem. The presentation should be given in person to the hiring manager and, if possible, selected peer managers. This exercise will create a realistic simulation and estimate of on-the-job performance as well as a demonstration of the candidate’s capabilities in a selling environment. Preferably, the candidate would provide a solution overview of something that the company currently sells or at least something from a comparable technology or business domain. However, if the candidate has an extensive background in other business technology domains, they could pull from those experiences as well. The management team participating in the presentation should “role play” and ask questions typical of their customers.

Although admittedly very subjective, the candidates will be graded by the management team on a three point scale in the areas of:

• Business Applicability – what business problem was the customer trying to solve? How is the technical solution going to help them make money, save money, or mitigate risk for their business? Is there a particular broad industry-specific trend addressed by the solution?
• Technical Clarity – what products, components, and technologies are utilized in the solution? How do these elements interact with each other? How do they integrate and/or fit into the customer’s existing information technology environment? What does the customer need to do in order to take responsibility for the successful implementation of the solution?
• Audience Engagement – how well did the candidate engage the audience in the discussion? Were they able to expand the solution to include additional technologies (and therefore increase the size of the sales opportunity) in response to questions from the audience?
• Overall Presentation Style – candidate appearance, speaking ability, professional mannerisms.
• Would You Buy This Solution (or Anything, for that Matter) From This Candidate? – likely the ultimate question that provides a simple yes/no answer to the audience’s evaluation of the four previously mentioned criteria.

An “audition” of this nature is a reliable and valid method for determining the most qualified candidates for technical sales positions. The pressure of performing a significant part of the role in front of their potential management team will create an environment similar to what the candidate will face when interacting with customers.

A second test for should be the hiring manager’s simple evaluation of some form of technical writing or customer “deliverable quality” document developed by the candidate. Again, although somewhat subjective, this will at minimum measure the candidate’s abilitu to and experience in communicating the business merits and technical specifications of a solution to a customer in order to favorably influence the purchase decision.

Finally, hiring managers may want to consider having candidates construct a personality profile such as DiSC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiSC). The candidate’s DiSC profile will provide an estimation of the candidate’s Interpersonal and, to some extent, Lifestyle skills cateogories. Such personality testing has proven to be reliable across languages and cultures. For technical sales positions, an individual with strengths in the Dominance and Influence DiSC quadrants has the most potential for success. These strengths are typically exhibited by those with extroverted personalities who are driven to emerge as visible leaders and are more responsive to incentives. Such individuals typically thrive best in sales environments.

Once candidates pass initial screening for an open role, the next step is an initial personal interview with the hiring manager. Managers should make these meetings a mix of informal discussion as well as specific questions that will enable a comparison of candidates (and obviously within all legal and HR guidelines). The most effective managers will go into the discussion having given some thought to specific questions that they intend to ask and some idea of the optimal answers they would expect from the candidate. Most managers have their own standard or favorite questions and there are hundreds of sources of additional ideas. Below are even more, including what those questions seek to measure and the type of answer that the hiring manager should be looking for. Many of the questions do not necessarily measure specific attributes of the position (see the Hiring: Job Analysis post of this blog), but rather provide insight into the candidate’s personality, experiences, motivation, and how well they will fit into the organization.

Question: What is your greatest strength and how will you use it to benefit this organization?

Measure: Interpersonal; Business; Gives the candidate permission to sell themselves and their best attributes. Also enables the interviewer to get a better understanding of how much research the candidate has done into the company, organization, etc.

Preferred Answer: Specific examples of what they are good at and how that applies to selling the supplier’s solutions or products, including some specific knowledge of those solutions.

Question: What brings you the most professional joy? Name a specific instance and why.

Measure: Interpersonal; Lifestyle; Technical; Business; Understanding what motivates and drives the candidate to be successful.

Preferred Answer: Specific examples pertaining to the candidate taking responsibility for closing new business (driving revenue) or successfully solving customer business problems via technology.

Question: What was your favorite job and what did you like about it? Describe a good day at one of your previous positions.

Measure: Interpersonal; Lifestyle; Technical; Business; Understanding the candidate’s perception of “work” and the sort of tasks that they enjoy the most.

Preferred Answer: Examples of the candidate engaging in activities that drive business results with customers as opposed to less difficult and/or solitary “desk executed” activities. Demonstration of the candidate’s control over the type of day they had.

Question: What brings you the most professional frustration and how do you get through it? Name a specific instance and how.

Measure: Interpersonal; Understanding how the candidate deals with the frustrations that will inevitably arise. Paying extra attention to any shift in attitude, as it provides insight into professional maturity of the candidate.

Preferred Answer: Any activities related to the execution of a previous role that, although challenging, are necessary in order for the organization to perform its function. Candidate must demonstrate an understanding of the business necessity of the activity.

Question: Tell me about a business technology solution that you implemented? What was its business purpose? What tasks did you perform?

Measure: Technical; Business

Preferred Answer: Demonstrated understanding of the business reason for investing in the solution (make money, save money, mitigate risk) and the technical solution that was implemented. Possibly including a graphic representation of the solution (whiteboard, napkin, etc.).

Question: What decision do you wish you could do over? Name something that you really messed up and how did you rectify it?

Measure: Interpersonal; Professional maturity and introspection. Willingness to evaluate their own performance and adjust their behavior.

Preferred Answer: Specific examples of both the negative outcome of the decision and the specific actions that the candidate would perform differently. A professional decision do-over, rather than a personal one, is preferred.

Question: What do you think people like about you? Why? Can you provide examples of others’ feedback regarding these traits?

Measure: Interpersonal; Lifestyle; Self-awareness, ability to interpret other’s perceptions.

Preferred Answer: Personality traits that are most applicable to success in the sales organization that serves our customers. Examples include outgoing, courteous, interested in others, knowledgeable, charitable, etc.

Question: When have you ever disagreed with your management and how did you handle it?

Measure: Interpersonal; Business; Professional maturity.

Preferred Answer: Example of an incident related to the operation of the business and specific actions on the part of the candidate. Demonstration either of the acceptance and understanding of management’s position or if/how the candidate was able to influence change to the practice, policy, opinion, etc. in question.

Question: If you joined our organization and it works out, where do you see yourself going from there?

Measure: Lifestyle; Career aspirations, professional maturity.

Preferred Answer: Anything that would lead the interviewer to believe that the candidate has spent time thinking about their professional future and why they are interested in a particular path.

Question: What business or management book are you reading right now? What business or management magazine or newspaper do you read most often?

Measure: Business; Lifestyle; Anyone involved in the sale of enterprise-class business technology solutions needs a firm grasp on the business climate, industry-specific issues, etc.

Preferred Answer: Any specific examples will do. Follow up with additional questions about content, authors, columnists, recent articles, etc.

Question: What do you think are the key components in the enterprise business technology solution sales process?

Measure: Business; Provides insight into the candidate’s understanding of a typical enterprise sales process and what it takes to move through the cycle.

Preferred Answer: Components such as validating the realities of the opportunity and key business drivers; developing a plan for working the opportunity; leading the team in engaging with the customer; determining the steps to closure; communicating them to the team and customer; and engagement.

Question: How would you respond if one of your customers said in your first meeting, “we dislike your company and “will not be using any of your solutions anytime soon”?

Measure: Business; Interpersonal; Professional maturity

Preferred Answer: Inquiring the customer about specific experiences that have colored the customer’s opinion. Asking the customer what the ideal relationship would look like.

Question: Give an example of how you were able to develop a business relationship and what was the result?

Measure: Business; Interpersonal

Preferred Answer: Description of specific networking activities that the candidate has performed, how they found common ground, how they developed the relationship and how it was mutually beneficial.

These are obviously just some ideas for managers to add to their repetoire. Effective technical sales managers should consider a similar mapping in their preparation for initial screening of qualified candidates.

Hiring the most qualified technical sellers requires the hiring organization to perform some analysis of the position prior to posting, recruiting, and hiring. Technical sellers use consultative tools and techniques to assist their current and prospective customers in the design and deployment of enterprise-class business solutions based on the suppliers’ offerings. Therefore, this responsibility can usually be broken into the three following objectives:

1) Influence the stakeholders and sponsors at customers in favor of purchasing the supplier’s offered solutions and technology.

2) Own personal relationships at customers in order to advise them on the optimal use of of the supplier’s technology to run their business.

3) Ensure that customers are fully enabled to take responsibility for the successful implementation of the solutions and the realization of value for their business.

With these objectives in mind, the hiring manager can explore what sort of skills, abilities, and experience that they should look for in the most qualified candidates. These attributes might be divided into the four categories below, each with their associated attributes.:

Technical Skills

• Experience implementing multiple types of enterprise-class technology solutions and products across several solution domains
• Understanding of customers’ enterprise-class information technology environments and deployment practices
• Understanding of new developments in the supplier’s own business technology domain (business analytics, CRM, cloud computing, etc.)

Business Skills

• Understanding of business models, customer practices, and industry trends in specific business and industry segments
• Understanding of customers’ buying behaviors
• Ability to tie customers’ investments in technology to specific customer business outcomes (make money, save money, mitigate risk)

Interpersonal Skills

• Ability to lead and/or influence a sales team in the planning and execution of opportunity pursuits
• Ability to effectively engage with customer business & technology leadership as well as rank and file information technology professionals
• Ability to effectively work with product development teams to improve offerings based on customer requirements and real world usage scenarios

Lifestyle

• Ability to travel by air or auto, often at short notice, up to 50% of a typical work week
• Ability to put in the required effort outside normal working hours to take responsibility for business results

Although often requiring coordination and teamwork in pursuit of sales opportunities, this position is largely based on the concept of pooled interdependence. This is to say that the qualified candidate must be internally motivated as an individual performer and not reliant on others to contribute substantially to his or her success. Typically, incentive compensation (i.e. commissions) is based on the individual’s specific contributions in driving revenue. These contributions may come in the form of customer technical deliverables, customer implementation readiness assessments & advice, key customer relationships, and opportunity prospecting. A full analysis such as the above will help the hiring manager arrive at the most accurate profile of the ideal candidate.

The recruiting of candidates for technical sales positions is best accomplished by combining both traditional “official” and unofficial methods. The traditional, corporate human resources led methods will leverage a company’s web site, external recruiters, and any internal or external job posting web sites that the company uses. The unofficial methods used by the hiring manager should include professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, the managers’ network of technology sales professionals both within and outside the company, and contacts and recommendations from customers. Althought the latter method is typically more effective in finding qualified candidates, combining the two will provide the broadest coverage and ensure the deepest pool.

The traditional methods mentioned above enable the gathering of candidates who are not already known by the hiring managers or the managers’ network. These methods can be effective, but often run the risk of excluding very qualified (and sometimes preferred) candidates because, although the recruiting organization is provided with all of the desired qualifications for the role, their evaluation of the candidates may be limited to resume searches for key terms. The fact that the recruiters may not be directly involved in the business for which they are recruiting also makes it challenging for them to discern truly qualified candidates. This is common in large organizations and underscores the need for well constructed job descriptions based on knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) resulting from analysis such as the approach recommended by Rosse & Levin in their “High Impact Hiring”. The unofficial recruiting method, driven directly by the hiring manager, can often be much more effective in not only getting qualified candidates in a more timely fashion, but getting candidates who are the right fit for the organization.

A recommended best practice for any manager is to always maintain a pool of contacts and candidates in case positions come available. This is often referred to as the “flow” method of recruiting and should be addressed as an element of succession planning. This is particularly true in technical sales, as very well qualified candidates typically come from former colleagues, customers, and “friends of friends”. These relationships enable the hiring manager to always have a few candidates in mind who understand the business and who may be looking to make a move. Customers can also be excellent sources of candidates and, if asked, will often provide names of individuals (some even from competitors) whom they enjoy working with and trust. Occasionally they will even recommend some of their current and former employees. The more trusted sources the hiring manager has for candidates, the better the candidate pool.

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.