Chapter 9

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Sales Force Recruitment and

Selection
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 Learning Objectives
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• Understand the key issues that drive the recruitment and selection of
salespeople.
• Identify who is responsible for the recruitment and selection process.
• Understand a job analysis and how selection criteria are determined.
• Define the sources for new sales recruits.
• Explain the selection procedures.
• Understand the equal opportunity requirements for selecting
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 Key Terms
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• job description
• internal sources
• external sources
• selection tools and procedures
• structured interview
• unstructured interview

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 Key Terms
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• Job description (pg. 281)

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– A detailed description of the job outlines (1) the nature of the
product and/or services to be sold, (2) the types of customers to be
called on (including policies on frequency of calls, contact
personnel), (3) the specific tasks and responsibilities to be carried
out by the salesperson.
• Internal sources (pg. 286)
– Recruits consisting of individuals already employed in other
departments within the firm.
– Other related sales personnel.
– Staff from other departments.
– Engineers from inside the company.
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 Key Terms

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• External sources (pg. 286)
– Recruits consisting of people in other firms (who often identified and
referred by current members of the sales force), educational
institutions, advertisements, employment agencies, and the
internet.
– Referrals from outside sources.
– Advertisements.
– Employment services.
– Educational institutions.
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 Key Terms
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• Selection tools and procedures (pg. 290)
– The tools used by management to evaluate and choose candidates for a particular
position.
– Applications.
– Personal interviews.
– Reference checks.
– Physical examinations.
– Psychological tests.
• Structured Interview (pg. 291)
– Each applicant is asked the same predetermined questions.
• Unstructured Interview (pg. 292)
• Each applicant is asked only a few questions to get him or her talking freely on a variety of
subjects such as the applicants’ work experiences, career objectives, and outside activities

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 Who is Responsible for
Recruiting?
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• Depends on size of sales force and kind of selling involved
• First-level sales managers often handle recruiting for:
– Straightforward sales jobs
– Jobs where new recruits need no special qualifications
– Jobs where turnover rates are high
• When a firm must be selective a recruiting specialist may assist in the recruitment process
• If the sales force prepares individuals to be sales or marketing managers, personnel
executives or top-level managers often assist with recruitment

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 Job Analysis and Selection
Criteria
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• Conduct a job analysis to determine what activities, tasks, responsibilities and
environmental influences are involved
• Write a job description that details the findings of the job analysis
• Develop a statement of job qualifications describing the personal traits and
abilities needed to perform in the job

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 Recruiting Applicants
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• Successful firms depend upon a well-planned and effectively implemented recruiting effort.
• Recruiting should be step one in the selection process.
• Internal sources of candidates consist of employees in other departments within the firm.
• External sources of candidates include:
– people in other firms
– educational institutions
– others attracted through advertising or employment agencies.
• Recruiting issues facing sales managers grow exponentially as companies expand globally and seek
salespeople in new international markets.

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 Who Conducts the Analysis and
Prepares the Description?
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• Current occupants of the job
• Sales managers who supervise people in the job
• Current staff should be observed and interviewed to determine what
they actually do
• Use the job description creation process as a means of reaching
consensus on job content, activities and training needs.

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 Content of the Job Description

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• Nature of the product(s) or service(s) being sold
• Types of customers
• Specific tasks and responsibilities
• Relationship between the sales position and other positions within the
organization
• Mental and physical demands of the job
• Environmental pressures and constraints
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 Determining Job Qualifications
and Selection Criteria
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• This is the most difficult part of the recruitment and selection process
• Need specific criteria to guide the selection
• Methods deciding on criteria include:
– Examining the job description
– Evaluating personal histories of the current sales force to identify
differentiating characteristics among high performers

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 Characteristics of Salespeople who
Fail
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• Instability of residence
• Failure in business within the past two years
• Unexplained gaps in the person’s employment record
• Recent divorce or marital problems
• Excessive personal indebtedness; for example, bills could not be paid within two
years from earnings on the job
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 Inside Recruiting
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• Advantages:
– Company employees have established performance records and present
themselves as a known entity
– Recruits from inside require less orientation and training due to familiarity with
current products, policies and operations
– Recruiting within bolsters company morale because employees see opportunities
for advancement
• Facilitating internal recruiting starts with fully informing human resources of sales staff
needs
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 Selection Tools and Procedures
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• Application blanks
• Personal interviews
• Reference checks
• Physical examinations
• Psychological tests
– intelligence
– personality
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– aptitude/skills
 Selection Tools and Procedures
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• Composites of psychological test scores offer the greatest assessment validity
and predictive value for evaluating a candidate’s potential and possible future
job performance.
• Personal interviews offer the lowest predictive potential but often carry the
greatest weight.

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 Personal Interviews
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• Structured interview
– applicants are asked the same predetermined questions
– potential weakness is that interviewer may fail to identify or probe a
candidate’s unique qualities or limitations
• Unstructured interview
– induces free discussion on wide ranging topics
– afford the applicant opportunity to talk freely with minimal direction and may
yield unexpected insight
– requires experienced interviewers with interpretative skills 18
 Physical Examinations
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• Sales jobs require sound basic health, stamina and the physical ability to
withstand stress
• Caution should be exercised in requiring medical examinations and other
specific tests for such things as drug use or the HIV virus
• A physical exam can be performed only after extending a job offer
• Managers deem using a standard physical examination for all positions ill-
advised

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 Tests

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• Well designed, validated and administered tests provide a valid selection tool
– Intelligence
– Aptitude
– Personality
• Possible reasons to use test cautiously
– Tests may no validly predict future success in a specific firm
– Some creative and talented people may deviation from expected norms
– Intelligent and “test-wise” individuals may be able to manipulate results
– Some tests may discriminate against people of different races, genders, et
al – thus becoming illegal
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 Guidelines for the Appropriate
Use of Tests
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• Test scores should be considered only a single input of several in the selection
process
• Applicants should be tested only when abilities and traits tested hold relevance
to the job
• When possible, tests with internal checks for validity should be used
• The firm should conduct comparative, longitudinal studies to validate the
predictive value in their setting
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 Illegal/Sensitive Questions
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• Nationality or race
• Religion
• Sex and marital status
• Age
• Physical characteristics
• Height and weight
• Financial situation
• Arrests and convictions
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 Summary
This chapter reviewed the issues that surround
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and selection of new salespeople.
tasks to the impact of federal legislation barring
job discrimination on selection The issue
discussed ranged from who is responsible for

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these procedures.

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Two factors are primary in determining who
has the responsibility for recruiting and selecting

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salespeople: (1) the size of the sales force and (2)
the kind of selling involved. In general, the
smaller the sales force, the more sophisticated
the selling task; and the more the sales force is
used as a training ground for marketing and sales
managers, the more likely it is that higher-level
people, including the sales manager, will be
directly involved in the recruitment and selection
effort. To ensure that recruits have the aptitude
for the job, it is useful to look at the recruitment
and selection procedures as a three-step process.
The steps are (1) a job analysis and description,
(2) the recruitment of a pool of applicants, and 24
(3) the selection of the best applicants from the
 Summary
The job analysis and description phase
includes a detailed examination of the job to
0011 0010determine
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activities, tasks, responsibilities,
and environmental influences are involved. This
analysis may be conducted by someone in the
sales management ranks or by a job analysis

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specialist. Regardless of who does it, it is

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important for that person to prepare a job
description that details the findings of the job

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analysis. Finally, the job description is used to
develop a statement of job qualifications, which
lists and describes the personal traits and
abilities a person should have to perform the
tasks and responsibilities involved.
The pool of recruits from which the firm
finally selects can be generated from a number of
sources, including (1) people within the company,
(2) people in other firms, (3) educational
institutions, (4) advertisements, and (5)
employment agencies. Each source has its own
advantages and disadvantages. Some, such as
advertisements, typically produce a large pool. 25
The key question the sales manager needs to
 Summary
Once the qualifications necessary to fill a job
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recruited, the final task is to determine which
applicant best meets the qualifications and has
the greatest aptitude for the job. To make this

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determination, firms often use most, and in some

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cases all, of the following tools and
procedures:(1) application blanks, (2) face-to-
face interviews, (3) reference checks, (4) physical

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examinations and (5) intelligence, aptitude, and
personality tests. Although most employers find
the interview and then the application blank most
helpful, each device seems to perform some
functions better than the other alternatives. This
may explain why most firms use a combination of
selection tools.
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act forbids
discrimination in employment on the basis of
race, sex, color, religion, or national origin. A firm
must be careful, therefore, about how it uses
tests, how it structures its application form, and26
the questions it asks during personal interviews