Over the years, I’ve seen even great sales leaders stumble when it comes to hiring. The cost isn’t just a mis-hire, it’s months of lost pipeline and wasted time spent onboarding.
Here are the most common mistakes I’ve seen sales leaders make when hiring salespeople:
- Hiring the Resume, Not the Person
Past titles or company names don’t guarantee performance. Leaders often overvalue well-known brands and fail to dig into whether the candidate truly drove revenue or simply benefited from a strong product or team.
- Prioritising Charisma Over Substance
Great communicators often impress in interviews, but that doesn’t mean they can sell. Without a structured and competency-based interview process, teams risk hiring the most likeable candidate instead of the most capable.
- Ignoring Sales Motion Fit
An enterprise rep may struggle in a fast-paced SMB model, and vice versa. Many leaders assume strong sellers can adapt to any environment, but deal size, cycle length, and buyer persona need to match the candidate’s experience.
- Rushing to Fill Seats
Pressure to hire quickly can lead to overlooking red flags. A bad hire costs far more than waiting a little longer to find the right one.
- Not Testing for Coachability
Skills can be developed but mindset is harder to shift. Top long-term performers tend to be coachable, self-aware, and open to growth.
If this is an area where you need help, we would be delighted to have a short discovery call with you to understand your challenges and see if we are the right recruitment agency to help.
About Indigo
We are SaaS GTM recruitment specialists with extensive experience recruiting professionals across sales, marketing, and sales engineering for US, UK, and Israel-based tech companies. Our start-up and scale-up customers rely on us to find the best people for their businesses, and we take pride in knowing our work helps companies scale quickly.