We Proved That Hiring for the Right Skills Can Increase Sales

Early this year HiringBranch published its first-ever performance report, featuring hiring outcomes from over 5000 candidates in 16 countries. One of the most interesting and advantageous findings from the report was that skills-based hiring can increase sales and subsequently company revenue.

The implications of these findings are significant for any enterprise dealing with high-volume hiring mandates for sales reps. Before we get into the report data, let’s look at how the report was structured.

Analyzing Skilled Sales Hires

Over a 17-month period, we analysed 5722 hires from customer-facing roles like service and sales that were hired using the HiringBranch skills-based assessment. Those new employees were then divided into their respective roles including customer service and sales. 

The sales employees were categorised by top and bottom performers with the help of our customers, based on their unique KPIs. Sales scenarios included situations like cold calling, loyalty programs, upselling, closing a deal, and more. It is important to note that the soft skills that made up the top performers for the companies included in our report may not be uniform across all companies. Sales performance can vary by role specialty, industry, audience country, products, etc. 

Our data science team analysed the top and bottom performer data to see if there were any differences in the scores from their pre-hire skill assessments. Spoiler alert, there certainly was! 

Proving Hiring for the Right Skills Can Increase Performance 

When our team sat down to dig into the sales data they found the results were conclusive. The candidates who had the lowest skill scores were the bottom performers and those with the highest skill scores were top salespeople.

“companies can determine who will be a top salesperson during the pre-hire assessment phase, just by screening for the right skills!...top salespeople by skills attrited 10x less”

That means that companies can determine who will be a top salesperson during the pre-hire assessment phase, just by screening for the right skills! Just that alone can decrease a company’s bad hire rate.

The team also observed that the top salespeople by skills attrited ten times less than those who were bottom performers.

Increasing Revenue with Skilled Salespeople

While it was encouraging for our team to see such conclusive results around the performance of highly skilled sales reps, as determined by the HiringBranch assessment, our research team wanted to see if they could see the impact on revenue. To do so, they zoomed in on one organisation with an outsourced fundraising call centre employing 200 phone agents. This organization implemented the HiringBranch assessment and followed its recommendations of which sales reps to hire based on their skills. After six months, the sales reps who were hired with the HiringBranch assessment actually sold 10% more than the reps who had been hired with traditional methods. Not only does hiring for the right sales skills lead to top-performing employees, but it can also generate more revenue for the company.

To learn more about these results and learn what the top soft skills for sales professionals were, download the full 2023 performance report on our website. 

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Image Credits

Feature Image: Unsplash/Cytonn Photography

Image 1: Property of HiringBranch. Not to be reproduced without permission.

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