Here are the top three mistakes recruitment agencies make when hiring trainee recruiters: taking on a fresh grad over an experienced sales person; focusing on skillsets instead of performance; rejecting a candidate’s CV without listening to them speak. Allow me to elaborate.

1. Taking on a fresh grad over an experienced sales person

Just because a candidate has a degree, sat through three years of home economics lessons and can rustle up a mean three-egg omelette, doesn’t mean they can sell!

It’s staggering the number of companies who make a degree a prerequisite, and make a direct correlation between a degree and sales prowess. There isn’t one! There are big billers without a degree and big billers with a degree, which just further demonstrates the sheer irrelevance of having one.

Using the words ’graduate-calibre candidate’ on your ads is fatal. With a grad, you’ve got nothing; you have no idea if you knock them down on the mat right now if they’ll get back up or stay down. When your new recruits get up on the wrong side of the bed or have a bad week, can they still get on the pitch and play? With a fresh graduate, not only are you going to have to train them on how to recruit, you are going to have to teach them how to sell. I don’t think recruitment agencies realise what a feat that is.

Taking on grads with no sales experience is an unbelievable risk, when there are more than enough high quality salespeople out there.

2. Focusing on skillsets instead of performance

Say that you have two sales people work for the same company, selling door-to-door double glazing. Out of a team of 30, Johnny BeGood consistently sells more double glazing than anyone else every month. He’s a target smasher, but has no degree.

Ed works consistently within the bottom five sellers. By the time they’ve paid Ed’s salary the company loses money on him. But he has a degree. You’d rather take on Ed than John?

With a fresh graduate, not only are you going to have to train them on how to recruit, you are going to have to teach them how to sell. I don’t think recruitment agencies realise what a feat that is

Focus on a candidate’s performance track record, irrelevant of what market or sector, recruitment or otherwise they’ve worked in. As long as it’s sales. Is your candidate a Johnny BeGood or an Ed? That’s all you need to know. Not only will someone with a winning track record carry your business to new heights, they’ll inspire the team around them.

Hesitate for a moment if presented with a candidate who consistently outsells his or her peers, and your competitor will steal that candidate from you. You can’t train a ’fight to win’ urge into someone, but you can train recruitment skills.

3. Rejecting a candidate’s CV without listening to them speak

Most of our work is over the telephone. Agencies on occasion won’t invest the time in a phone interview because they don’t like the look of the CV. Sales is about personality, ability to build rapport, likeability, it’s your voice, how you carry yourself, how you interact it’s a wonderful medley of attributes, which shines from the individual. You can’t possibly get a sense of that in a CV you can’t demonstrate likeability in a CV.

Making an assessment based on a CV is like deciding who is going to win the Eurovision song contest by looking at their CV you’ve got to hear these people sing!
So just as you’re noticing your bottom line sinking faster than Titanic 2, wondering what’s going wrong, ready to whack out another ad think twice before you include those doomed three words ’graduate-calibre candidate’!

Vicki Brassington, director, Wen Recruitment