Question for sales leaders who have recruited and hired people

How much of your time do you spend recruiting/hiring each week, and do you feel that it is too much or too little?


This is something I've struggled to find a good balance for the past few years. I've hired over 25 salespeople in my career, and there are times when I feel like it's almost all that I do, and I'm over-allocating my time to it. Other times when I feel like I don't do it enough and I feel like we're not bringing in talent fast enough.


I know a lot of this depends on how developed your internal TA team is. Huge difference if you're the one filing through resumes and setting up your own phone screens (been there, it really sucks) -- where recruiting becomes a 4 hr/day part of your job during hiring sprints.


I'm at the point now where I'm taking a solid 7-8 interviews / week, and it's taking up a solid 7-8 hours / week, which feels like a lot. But I get that recruiting is important and arguably the most valuable thing company leaders can do.


Where are you at?

How many hours a week do you spend each week on recruiting

Attached poll
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๐Ÿ‘ฅ Hiring
๐Ÿงข Sales Management
โ˜•๏ธ Workflow and Daily Habits
1
sahil
Notable Contributor
2
Deepak Chopra of Sales
Hiring top talent is the fastest way to improve performance... but you still gotta invest in training and enablement of your existing team.

IMO - most managers only do 1 or the other well
CaneWolf
Politicker
0
Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract
@sahil - What would you say causes that split? Is there a way to fix it?
chillandcloseit
Good Citizen
0
VP of Sales
This!! I want to upvote this 50x. The problem with mass hiring is you will have to keep mass hiring if you arenโ€™t pouring time into them after hire. Many times they take the position because they want to work for YOU. Will you be able to lead them? Balancing developing and hiring and recruiting is the juggle.. if you can do thatโ€ฆ you win!ย 
Bittersweet0326
Politicker
1
Digital Business Associate
You can definitely spend more time than that. The simple answer is it depends on what you need. Are you growing so fast that you can't keep up or are you just not finding the talent in these 8 interviews a day?
GuyBews
Opinionated
0
Director
Mistyped -- meant to say 8 interviews/week **now edited**

Our plan has us adding 5 salespeople / month, up from the 2 / month we were at throughout most of last year.ย  We're also anticipating hiring than normal churn once offices start to re-open in the summer.

The ~8 interviews / week has worked thus far, as we've hired 5 people each of the last 2 months.
Bittersweet0326
Politicker
1
Digital Business Associate
That makes sense. So thatโ€™s roughly 32 interviews to get 5 people. Not terrible odds I guess but it could be better. Where are you getting your candidates from?
GuyBews
Opinionated
0
Director
It's mostly outbound -- not many people know about our company.ย  The other thing I've pushed internally for is to get our base pay more competitive with the market.ย  We consistently come in ~$10k under market in base salary, try to pitch the candidate that we make up for it in our commissions, perks, etc.ย  It's a very uphill battle to win people in the final round when they're getting another offer for $10k more / year.
Bittersweet0326
Politicker
0
Digital Business Associate
Yea especially if they are actively looking it wonโ€™t take long to figure that out.
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