I firmly believe that recruiting is something that is in your blood. You cannot be a halfhearted recruiter and be successful in the role. If you are passionate about recruitment and love to help others, you will be successful in this career by default. I firmly believe that I fall into the latter category. I love working in recruitment EXCEPT when I am tasked to recruit sales reps, or any sales professionals, for that matter.

My reasons for this pet hate of mine are as follows:

• Sales reps always oversell themselves during the interview: As good as sales reps are at selling their products, they are equally as good at marketing themselves. This can result in salespeople overselling themselves during the interview process and then underdelivering during their probation period. Even though seasoned recruiters have a well-developed “balderdash” filter, some sales reps still manage to sneak through our radars. I try to circumvent this situation by doing thorough referencing from the candidate’s previous sales managers; this regularly goes a long way to undercover the truth about a sales reps’ past performance.

Read the full article here