The equation for finding a seasoned Account Executive is fairly straightforward
Usually, it makes sense to start by looking at someone’s track record - if you are selling a product into CFO types, with an annual contract value of $25k and you’re running a startup of 40 people, it’s a logical next step to speak with candidates who’ve got a similar background.
Turns out there are a lot of them in the US (I can help you find them).
The sales rep who’s spent the last 6 years selling multimillion dollar software implementations into giant healthcare systems is probably out of your budget. The odds are pretty high that they aren’t interested in your company either. The contracting firm that builds hospitals is probably not interested in your kitchen renovation for similar reasons.
But when it comes to hiring people straight out of college, or very early in their career, we’ve got a lot less to go on.
We’re hiring based on potential.
I have probably hired 60+ SDRs over the years.
Here’s the 80/20 to hire better junior talent, faster:
1: Run job ads
Junior sales roles are the one time that I advocate using job ads
This is for 2 reasons:
1: If you go “outbound” to college kids, you’ll find a significant number of them do NOT want to work in sales. Having someone apply shows a level of interest that will save you a lot of time.
2: Some of the hardest expectations you will ever have to manage are those of an SDR with 6 months of experience. They have the entire sales game figured out, they are ready for a promotion tomorrow into an Account Executive seat, and they won’t take anything less. This dynamic is reduced by 95% when they have applied to a role.
2: Do not handhold people in this process
You will get a lot of applications with job ads
You’ll be able to discard half without trying too hard. People who haven’t bothered filling out their profiles. People with an incoherent patchwork of experience. And so on.
But you’ll also find that a lot of people you message about setting up a first interview will not reply to you. Don’t chase these people.
A lot of people will cancel on you. Again, there's no point chasing these people.
When it comes to rescheduling, I have a rule: everyone gets one free reschedule in the process. Sometimes things do come up.
But someone who reschedules twice will reschedule for a third and then a fourth time.
3: First interviews should be via Zoom or in person
A lot of people will be bizarrely unprepared and unprofessional when you have a first call with them.
You need to have these first conversations with someone via Zoom or even better - in person.
The phone is a much lower fidelity tool. It’s great when you’re further down the funnel.
But you need to start with a video (at the minimum).
The end result
These tips are easy to implement
And, if you have 100 applicants at the start
You’ll probably be down to 5-8 by the end of this
Which is a manageable enough number of people to move into a more detailed phase of the process
If you want all of this work done for you - and you’d like a selection of the best candidates scheduled directly on your calendar, you can book a time to speak with me here​