Today's post comes from Dave Kurlan of OMG. As you wrap up your reading of this post contact us to learn more about OMG or share your story about using OMG assessments.
Apparently, Duracell 9 volt batteries are the picture of consistency.
Last night, all 7 of our upstairs smoke detectors starting squawking within about 30 minutes of each other to indicate that their batteries needed to be replaced. Given that the Duracells were installed in those units on the same day 4 years ago, one would hope that there are more things that we could rely upon to be as consistent and predictable.
One of those things is Objective Management Group's sales candidate assessments.
What could bring more peace of mind to the sales hiring process than knowing that it's already been used on 1,853,859 salespeople, from 27,860 companies, in 200 industries, and in 119 countries to hire 78,628 salespeople. Of the sales candidates who were not recommended by the assessment, but were hired despite the warning, 75% of them failed within the first six months. That's predictive!
Statistics are great, but what you really want to know is, how hard is it to use, how complicated will it make my sales hiring process, what if a candidate I like isn't recommended, what if a candidate I don't like is recommended, and how do you make it fit my world?
The only people that don't love OMG's sales candidate assessments are recruiters - because the assessment makes recruiters work a lot harder to deliver quality sales candidates. And today, with so few sales candidates proactively looking for work, it's even more important that you get it right. After all, you're working from a position of weakness.
Sales leaders, HR directors, CEO's and COO's love the OMG assessments because they are sales specific in that they measure the 21 Sales Core Competencies instead of personality traits and behavioral styles. Traits and styles are nice to know, fun to have, warm and fuzzy, but they are not predictive of success in sales, and especially not any specific sales role.
Because the assessment measures 21 Sales Core Competencies, there is nothing to interpret making it very easy to use. And since you'll assess all of your candidates, not just the ones you like, you can focus your time on the candidates who are most likely to succeed in the sales role for which you are hiring. When it comes to those sales roles, there are 30 variables you can customize to help the assessment identify the right salespeople for the role, and another optional layer of customization allows you to fine-tune another 15-20 requirements.
In companies today, those who hire salespeople using their gut, other assessments, or desperation, tend to get it right about half the time and the cost of getting it wrong has skyrocketed. Companies that use OMG's sales candidate assessments have found that of the candidates who are recommended for the role and eventually hired, 92% move to the top half of the sales force within 12 months.
If you aren't already using OMG, what's holding you back? It's not expensive, it's not difficult, it's not scary, and it's not risky. You'll easily be able to hire better salespeople!
You can checkout a sample sales candidate assessment here.
And if you like stats and data, checkout some of the datasets in the 21 Sales Core Competencies here.
