Narrowing down resumes for a sales district manager position

Resume Review for Sales

Recruitment constitutes practices and activities, carried out within a given organization with the main intention of identifying and attracting a potential workforce. Before starting the recruitment process, the organization should determine the needs of the organization, which will assist in establishing the number of employees they will need. It is also important to approximate the number of applicants needed for each position, but it is more important to review the current workforce to establish an employee who the organization should consider for the opening. After this, the organization can now recruit the position.

The organization decides the targeted applicants. In particular, the organization verifies the applicant to attract to the organization's open positions. When applicants begin applying to the open positions, it is now that the recruiter can provide relevant information concerning the organization. Additionally, the applicants send or submit their application materials responding to the job announcements. However, unsolicited applicants enter the application process randomly, but solicited techniques require pro-active invitations for application through a recruitment source, which include adverts or referral channels.

The organization will also provide application forms to the potential employees to capture personal data, gender, education details, work history, and references. Owing to the nationwide high rates of unemployment, it is likely that today's employer enjoys a "buyer's market." However, one disadvantages of this status is the number of applicants who may show their interest through application. In addition, a higher percentage of the applicants may represent the unqualified lot for the advertised or vacant position. This is what we call employee selection, which comes after developing job descriptions and recruiting applicants. This process sees to the narrowing down the number of applicants, to retain the most suited for the job.

Narrowing Down the Resumes

As the District Manager, Alice Salo's resignation is a big blow to the territorial business because over 15% of the total sales came from her territory. Therefore, this will call for immediate filling of her position, with an individual who will equal the task she had, or be more proficient than she was. A recruiter who was working on my behalf, has already provided 29 resumes, but the resumes are far too many, which further calls for narrowing down to a manageable number, which I will then telephone screen, recommend for interviews, and eventually send the selected candidate for approval at the corporation before making an official appointment.

I will not rely on a subjective criteria and impressions; I will aim to avoid future challenges that result from ineffective hiring techniques. This is because the particular territory is the backbone of our company. This is why I will narrow down the resumes based on an objective criterion to match the most appropriate candidate with the job opening. Foremost, our company sets out to exact certain job requirements, which we do not deviate in any situation. Our recruitment process involves much discipline; therefore, what we outline is what motivates us to set out to find, and nothing less of the requirements.

We do not negotiate on what we set out to find, which makes our recruitment and selection process much simpler. The position required in our company is very specific. Therefore, the outline provided in terms of what the company needed was very detailed. The job posting was clear, and I do not expect any unqualified individual to have applied for the open position. I will use my detailed job posting as a strategy to narrow down the provided resumes. On the job description parameters, we include a short list of filtering "yes" or "no" questions. These questions, which require a "yes" or "no" answer, have worked well to generate a better, small number of candidates, which saves time during the pre-screening.

Most importantly, I am aware that there are many qualified professionals for the job posting. This is apparent in the provided resumes. However, I am looking for a professional to handle an exceptional sales task. This means that the applicants must portray excellence and professionalism when drafting their CVs. Even though some resumes will represent strong backgrounds, I will not struggle to acquire the information, through poorly constructed or inadequately presented resume to find the information. I will scrutinize the overall presentation, formatting and professionalism, which involves checking for spelling and grammatical errors, irrelevant experiences and long descriptions.

It is a consensus that employers are looking for candidates who are aware of listing achievements, actions, and results. However, sales candidates should distinguish themselves by discussing practical achievements, represented by hard numbers instead of using general statements such as "increased profits by a wide margin." Therefore, I will look for definitive numbers in the provided resumes, and any resume utilizing general statements, will not proceed to the next level. On the other hand, I feel that a candidate's experience is more when compared to the sum of their sales numbers and past roles. Although numerous resumes follow such a format, I will be looking for other information that might not be so deep, but significant to my final candidate. The information will include education (both traditional and professional courses), skills, tools, and professional memberships, which show that a candidate has good connections and utilizes professional networks and associations.

Additionally, if I notice any lengthy employment gaps, I will instantly disqualify the applicant. However, I might consider the unemployment rate currently, but this is on the condition that the applicant has relevant educational requirements for further consideration. In the present case, I am looking for a territory representative who has a sales certification. Therefore, I might employ software programs to search for the information, which will automatically eliminate all applications and resumes that lack the required certification. I will use various keywords associated with sales, and the required qualifications. This will help narrow down the resumes, and retain the resumes for qualified people based on the search strategy and the required qualifications.

Candidates for Personal Interview

Carrying out personal interviews is a complex task for most employers. This is because most sales representatives have the knowhow to express themselves, and making their thoughts known to their potential employers. However, an employer should recognize the red flags and formulate appropriate questions to avoid risking their companies into declining. It is further hard to recruit a sales professional because it takes around 30 hours of my efforts, 15 hours of time trying to screen and interview, plus an additional 40 hours productivity loss by the other portion of sales employees.

Owing to this, I will include objective fact-based questions to establish whether the candidate has the necessary proficiency, experience, and knowledge, which will assist the company in growing further. I will use the candidates past performances because it is the most accurate and appropriate predictor of the candidate's future achievement and overall behavior. Although most employers attempt to approach interviewing by setting specific job requirements, they end up bypassing talented and qualified candidates because of utilizing this narrow approach. Additionally, I will employ two questions, which will require the candidate to tell me more about themselves, and their perceptions regarding the position, if it will fit their expertise.

When I ask the candidate to tell me more about them, some of them may discuss their families, hobbies, others may talk about their lives. Either way, I will learn a lot concerning the particular candidate. On the second query, I expect the candidate to discuss their reasons why they show interest in the job posting, while also returning the conversation into elements and statements concerning what they can do for my company. If they do this, I will be in a position to gauge their capacity to return a conversation into a sales conversation by offering features and potential benefits.

I had earlier chosen eight potential candidates for the telephone screening, central to their qualifications in the areas required or deemed fit for the job posting. In this personal interview, I will still narrow down the resumes and potential candidates to another manageable number. This process will utilize candidates who show proficiency in both primary care sales representative and territorial sales representative, and any other skill, both a combination of the two, or an addition on the already two. Therefore, in this process I will use five resumes and refer the chosen candidates for further scrutiny in the corporate level.

Candidates for corporate approval

After the personal interview, I still felt that five candidates showed potential skills in the required area, to fit for the job posting. Therefore, I will recommend the five candidates for corporate approval. The corporate approval will be the final judge, which will scrutinize the candidates further and make their decision on, which candidate to select for the ultimate position. The five candidates, according to my scrutiny, possess specific qualifications, which the company provided details. In addition, their resumes portray correct formatting, show relevant information and present achievements in definitive numbers. Therefore, I felt that among the five, the corporate will be in a position to select the final candidate for the job.

Candidates in the phases

The following candidates stood out as the most appropriate for the recruitment process, they include the owners of Resume 1, Resume 3, Resume 6, Resume 18, Resume 24, Resume 26, Resume 27, Resume 28, and Resume 29.

Candidates for Telephone Screening

This phase meant to clarify important information, which primarily concerned the building rapport between the candidate and my company. In addition, it is in the same step that I opted to verify through the phone what was on paper and the knowledge of the candidates. This stage also set the pace for me to establish the experiences of the various candidates, and the candidates used in the stage in an ascending order including the owners of Resume 1, Resume 3, Resume 6, Resume 18, Resume 24, Resume 26, Resume 27, Resume 28, and Resume 29.

Candidates for personal interviews

The personal interviews utilized candidates who portrayed better qualifications, owing to experience, and achievements in definitive numbers. These are the candidates who I would offer the positions if the positions were five. However, due to the limitation, I refer the five candidates to the corporate level for further scrutiny and subsequent approval. The candidates for this phase in an ascending order include the owners of Resume 1, Resume 27, Resume 28, Resume 6 and Resume 18. The owners of the resumes have portrayed relevant experience in both primary care sales representatives and territory sales representative. This is the main criteria used to establish the potential employees.

Focus of the interview and questions asked

Owing to the fact that the territory requiring an immediate representative serves as the backbone of the company, I will focus to establish the strategies the potential employee seeks to employ to achieve the current figures, or the thought of strategies to achieve improved figures. In addition, I will utilize their achievements and experience to formulate the questions.

Relevant Questions for the Candidates

1. What is the highest revenue did you achieve in your past company?

2. How many sales closed per year, per quarter, per month did you manage to make or realize?

3. What business managers, topmost executives were called on and closed?

4. What are the standard milestones in the selling phase do you track?

5. Does the skill you have match how you will conduct the tasks outlined on the current job posting for the sales of my company?

6. Is your sales phases conducted through phone or does it require face to- face visits to the client?

7. Do you require any exceptional skills to sell our product?

Reference

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