Want to Hire Challengers? Redesign Your Job Postings First!

In previous posts, we have written about how sales organizations are increasingly implementing Insight Selling to equip their sales force to sell in today’s complex selling environment. That said, in a recent survey most sales leaders reported that only two-thirds of sellers in their organizations have the potential to adopt insight selling behaviors. When you couple this with the issue of an aging sales force, hiring quality sales talent has become a pressing issue for most organizations.

However, before you even get started on hiring Challengers, you first need to encourage them to apply. Most sales organizations’ job postings today fail to attract Challengers as they do not reflect the right skillsets or employee value propositions that attract candidates with Challenger potential.

Below are three key reasons why traditional sales job postings fail to attract candidates with Challenger potential and how you can make them more appealing:

Highlight Traditional Selling Techniques: Most job postings focus on traditional selling skills such as building customer relations, selling business solutions to customers, following sales processes – which might appeal to core sellers but not Challengers. Challengers want to work in an environment that empowers them to make their own decisions, and helps them understand how their work may contribute to the overall growth of the organization.What You Should Do: Include statements that emphasize how your organization provides a high judgment-oriented environment that empowers sellers to make decisions.
Make Sales and Industry Work Experience Mandatory: Most companies mention mandatory sales or industry-specific experience, narrowing the pool of candidates who can apply. CEB research has found that a large number of Challenger candidates in fact lie outside of sales jobs in other industries, and can be discouraged by mandatory sales experience and industry requirements.What You Should Do: Broaden the scope of candidates who can apply by excluding industry- or sales-specific experience requirements. Use our Sample Job Posting tool to learn which keywords will resonate with Challenger potential candidates and create your own custom job posting.
Focus on Emotional Quotient Competencies: While emotional quotient such as negotiation, interpersonal and communication skills are important, they alone cannot help reps succeed in an Insight Selling environment. Insight Selling requires an equal combination of intellectual quotient (strategic thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills) and emotional quotient for reps to be successful. Challengers themselves love to debate and challenge customer thinking, which is why sales organizations should mention these competencies equally in their job postings.

What You Should Do: For job competencies, highlight critical thinking skills (IQ) such as creative problem solving along with traditional EQ skills such as communication and interpersonal influence.

  Related Blog Posts:

Increase Your Chances of Hiring a Challenger
Is Your New Hire a High Performer?
How to Make a Good First Impression with New Hires

Related CEB Sales Resources:

Challenger Job Posting Kit
Attracting Talent and EVP
Challenger Competency Grid