Streamlining Recruitment with Pre-Employment Sales Aptitude Tests

Business leaders prioritize recruiting top sales talent because revenue generation is the key to meeting growth goals. As a result, U.S. companies spend $800 billion yearly to pay sales salaries and commissions and invest $15 billion in sales training.

It is challenging to recruit good sales representatives, and many do not meet expectations—even with the amount companies invest. According to a Hubspot study, over 66% of sales representatives do not meet their quotas and have a closing rate of less than 50%. Around 40% do not understand customers’ needs.

This is why organizations in every industry sector implement assessment solutions and use pre-employment sales aptitude tests to recruit top sales talent. If they hire high-performing sales representatives who stay with their company, they can concentrate on increasing revenue and meeting growth goals instead of replacing and training new hires.

How Pre-Employment Sales Aptitude Tests Streamline Recruiting

Sales managers use pre-employment sales aptitude tests to work more efficiently. Instead of wasting hours reviewing resumes, they can instantly screen applicants and review their sales skills and experience. This decreases time-to-hire and improves productivity, which ultimately generates higher profits.

When we ask sales managers what they see as the key advantages of aptitude tests for sales and marketing, this is what they tell us.

• Minimize Hiring Errors: Hiring mistakes are a sales manager’s worst nightmare because they are expensive, negatively affect productivity, and lower team morale. A bad hire can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars when you factor in hiring and onboarding expenses, potential litigation costs, and loss of customer goodwill. Pre-employment sales aptitude tests minimize hiring errors by showing which applicants have proven sales skills and experience.

• Streamline Applicant Screening: It takes hours to review resumes manually, and the information may be inaccurate. HR teams need an easy and efficient way to instantly identify top candidates. When they can review the results of candidates’ aptitude tests for sales and marketing, they can eliminate unqualified candidates and focus on the best ones.

• Customize Pre-Employment Sales Aptitude Tests: Leading assessment solutions give clients access to a library of validated job- and subject-based aptitude tests for sales and marketing. Hiring teams can use the pre-prepared versions as-is, modify them by adding and deleting questions, or create custom assessments using questions from multiple skills tests. For example, if you are hiring a sales engineer for an information technology company, you can build a pre-employment sales aptitude test with questions from the eSkill Sales Representative and Sales Concepts, Negotiation Skills, and Emotional Intelligence tests and add questions from the eSkill Networking Essentials and General IT Infrastructure Skills assessments to evaluate technical knowledge.
  
  
• Simulations: Assessment results show whether candidates have sales experience and aptitude but not whether they can apply those skills. So, many sales managers include simulations in aptitude tests for sales and marketing. Simulations replicate problems candidates will encounter on the job. A simulation question in a pre-employment sales aptitude test could require applicants to sell the value of a product or service, overcome objections, or solve a problem for a difficult client. Then, hiring team members observe candidates’ performances and add ratings and comments.

How Pre-Employment Sales Aptitude Tests Work

We are often asked if aptitude tests for sales and marketing really work. There is no magic solution, but there is plenty of proof that customized assessments that measure sales abilities and aptitudes do work. This company used them to improve hiring, increase revenue, and reduce turnover.

The organization was screening sales representatives using personality assessments but was not pleased with the results. The hiring process took too long, and turnover was excessively high. Only half of the sales representatives hired still worked for the company a year later.

Managers decided they could improve the quality of hire if they recruited sales representative candidates similar to top sales representatives hired during the past two years. So, they compared their successful sales representatives’ traits with salespeople who had left the company or were about to leave. Then, they developed a pre-employment sales aptitude test that focused on successful sales representatives’ traits and used it to recruit similar candidates.

Their instinct was correct. The new hires they brought on board began producing revenue faster–within 33 days versus 58 days. They also had a higher average order value—$2,275/month compared to $1,550/month—and improved retention. After 12 months, 90% of the new hires still worked for the company.

Get Started with Pre-Employment Sales Aptitude Tests

Aptitude tests for sales and marketing help companies recruit sales stars who are experts at developing new business, building customer relationships, and closing business. The best assessment solutions also help organizations reduce recruiting costs and decrease time-to-hire. Companies that use the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform^TM have decreased hiring costs by about 70% and time-to-hire by around 60%.

Are you ready to use pre-employment sales aptitude tests and take sales hiring to the next level? Contact eSkill to request a demo.