{"id":5947,"date":"2017-02-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/5-soft-skills-employers-look-for-when-hiring-sales-reps\/"},"modified":"2023-02-16T17:21:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T06:21:54","slug":"5-soft-skills-employers-look-for-when-hiring-sales-reps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/5-soft-skills-employers-look-for-when-hiring-sales-reps\/","title":{"rendered":"Job Seekers Hub | 5 soft skills employers look for when hiring sales reps"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you love hitting targets, have zero fear of rejection, you\u2019re great at building relationships, and you constantly push the boundaries to break records and drive home results \u2013 chances are you\u2019re a good salesperson. However, to be a great<\/em> salesperson, it\u2019s often the soft skills that really separate the good from the great.<\/span><\/p>\n

After learning from The Wall Street Journal that 58% of employees who stated they had \u2018excellent communication skills\u2019 on their LinkedIn profile were successfully hired over the process of the year, well, it\u2019s safe to say this got us thinking. As such, we asked our clients what they cared about most when hiring for their sales team. While some of these may not come as a surprise, it\u2019s important to highlight these five skills to help you build up your soft skills and outshine your competition.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the interview stages, employers care about these five qualities when hiring new sales talent:<\/span><\/p>\n

1 \u2013 Strong communication<\/u><\/strong> \u2013 cold calling, social selling, email etiquette, you name it \u2013 these are all part of the communication umbrella that employers want to know you can excel at<\/span><\/p>\n

2 \u2013 Professionalism<\/u><\/strong> \u2013 whether it\u2019s a phone based or client facing role, being polished and professional will allow clients and prospects to take you seriously to ultimately build trust.<\/span><\/p>\n

3 \u2013 Adaptability<\/u><\/strong> \u2013 sales environments are constantly changing. Employers want to know if you\u2019ll be able to adjust to new situations \u2013 both internally and externally.<\/span><\/p>\n

4 \u2013 Leadership\/management skills<\/u><\/strong> \u2013 employers are always thinking long-term. They don\u2019t want to have to hire again in six months if the candidate wasn\u2019t the right fit. Hiring a candidate with long-term leadership and management potential to help the team grow is a huge aspect, especially in those junior and mid-market roles.<\/span><\/p>\n

5 \u2013 Passion and enthusiasm<\/u><\/strong> \u2013 no one likes an un-enthusiastic salesperson. Excitement, passion and a positive attitude is much more likely to stand out and leave a lasting impression.<\/span><\/p>\n

With regards to specific interview questions, Lisa Dougherty (Editor at Content Marketing Institute) always asks candidates; \u201cIf money wasn\u2019t a factor and you could do whatever you wanted in any industry, what would you do?\u201d Lisa asks this because she \u201cwants to find out what they are passionate about and if they are enthusiastic when talking about it. If they struggle to answer, that\u2019s a huge clue into their personality. A hustler will have plenty to say and will light up like a Christmas tree\u201d. This is Lisa\u2019s way of digging into their soft skills without directly asking how \u201cpassionate\u201d they are.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our biggest suggestion is to be genuine and to present your soft skills in a non-forced way. Be confident, be real, and most importantly \u2013 be you<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you love hitting targets, have zero fear of rejection, you\u2019re great at building relationships, and you constantly push the boundaries to break records and drive home results \u2013 chances are you\u2019re a good salesperson. However, to be a great salesperson, it\u2019s often the soft skills that really separate the good from the great. After…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-job-seekers-hub"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5947"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9699,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5947\/revisions\/9699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/6910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulserecruitment.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}