Why Sales Assessment Tests are Becoming More Popular With Hiring Managers
By David Pearce, President, SalesTestOnline.com
A few years ago, you would be hard pressed to find many sales recruiters who had embraced on-line sales assessment tests as part of their hiring process, but today it is a different story. The practice of testing sales candidates on-line has finally come of age, partly due to advances in on-line sales assessment tests that have improved their reliability, validity, usefulness and access, and partly due to the growing appreciation among sales organizations of the advantages that on-line sales assessment tests can offer.
Sales assessment tests have long been a popular component of the recruiting and hiring process, yet the 'hard-copy' tests of the past, delivered 'in-person' to applicants, were costly and time-consuming for hiring managers. Today, on-line availability of sales assessment tests means testing can be done anytime and anywhere, for a fraction of the cost of face-to-face testing.
These advantages have resulted in a paradigm shift in businesses approach to hiring sales people. Recruiters historically used sales assessment tests at the back-end of the hiring process to decide between the final few front-running applicants. Today, hiring managers can cost-effectively deliver sales assessment tests to dozens, or even hundreds, of sales applicants at the very beginning of the hiring process to weed out the bulk of applicants before the interview process has even started. In other words, on-line sales assessment tests are enabling organizations to interview fewer, more qualified sales applicants for their available sales positions. The hiring process is far more effective because interviews are more intensive and targeted-focusing on the most important issues uncovered through the sales assessment.
"It's pointless trying to fit a square peg into a round hole," says Elizabeth Matheson, Vice President, Acuity Psychometrics, a company that develops 'ideal candidate profiles' for companies, as well as creates and administers tests to measure personality, motivation and temperament. "Sales assessments can recognize candidates that fit a company's ideal profile, as well as help identify red flags in candidates that might not be immediately apparent in an interview situation."
Today's sales assessment tests are more easily adapted than ever before to specific businesses or industries and can be customized to meet the unique sales requirements of any company. On-line sales assessments provide the added advantage of database capabilities, for easy archiving, tracking and comparison of candidate profiles and test results.
Linda Finn sings the praises of on-line sales assessments. She is a recruiting manager at a Florida-based media company who has used sales assessments for the past nine years. "Our success rates in terms loyalty and retention of sales staff are far higher when we know the types of traits that comprise the ideal salesperson," says Linda. "On-line testing enhances the value of sales assessment testing as a management information tool even more, because the data can be so easily accessed and analyzed."
Finally, the growing trend to globalization of business has also contributed to the surge in popularity of on-line sales assessments. Today, candidates from anywhere in the world may be applying for a sales position in a company that could be based just about anywhere. On-line sales assessments help companies avoid the expense of flying candidates to Head Office for testing. Why bother, when a candidate can complete the sales assessment on the web from the comfort of his own home?
Given the many advantages of on-line sales assessments, it is apparent that sales assessment testing will continue to gain momentum in the high-pressure world of sales recruiting. Although not to be viewed as a panacea, there is no doubt of their growing appeal with both employers and employees alike.
David Pearce is the President of SalesTestOnline.com. Established in 1986, SalesTestOnline.com is North America's #1 provider of pre employment assessment testing of sales candidates as well as sales profiling tools used to evaluate sales employees for sales competency. SalesTestOnline.com has over 1400 satisfied customers (97% re-order rate) who use our personality sales test to measure sales aptitude when hiring. Our online sales assessment test is customized to your unique criteria, fully automated, instantaneous, extremely accurate and very economical.