Selection & Shortlisting Candidates for Sales Vacancies

The implementation of these processes serves two purposes. Firstly, they ensure that only candidates with suitable skills and experience are presented to our clients, and secondly, they ensure that those candidates are not just able to fulfil the requirements of the role, but that they have a genuine desire to be part of the company and sell their products and/or services.

Telephone Vetting – Having generated response from the various sourcing methods all potentially suitable candidates are initially contacted by phone. The object of this call is to identify the candidate's ability to sell themselves, which is assessed through their communication, the information they provide and the level of interest they show. Where a candidate is able to suitably impress us, they are invited for interview. As an average only 5-10% of applicants are successful at this stage. 

Interviewing – All Certus candidates are interviewed by 2 consultants. The process lasts approximately 90 minutes, during which time their background and current situation is fully investigated. We specifically look for significant achievements in work, academia or sport etc. and where they have had previous sales roles we discuss targets, achievements, order values and other relevant points. Where there is no sales experience we look for suitability in their ability to present themselves in a positive and interesting manner.

All candidates are challenged throughout the interview in order to determine their ability to deal with confrontation and pressure, in addition to their ability to think on their feet. We also discuss career objectives and motivators. As well as identifying a candidate's strengths, we spend considerable time looking at areas that require improvement, including their willingness to acknowledge weaknesses. The interview process is designed to enable us to present a candidate to you in a manner that outlines why we believe they are suited to the role, but that also enables us to discuss with you potential training requirements.

Presentation of your company – Where candidates have demonstrated that they could be suitable for a role, they are informed of the position in greater detail and asked to go away and research the company. The candidate is asked to contact us after researching the company, to demonstrate their understanding of the role and to justify why they should be referred for interview. We look for an understanding of the company and the industry in which it operates, as well as an understanding of where the sales role fits in to the organisation.

Further Assessment Criteria - In addition to the processes described above we are able to implement any specific testing or assessment which forms part of your company's recruitment process. This may include Personal Profile Analysis, Psychometric testing or any specific skills based tests which we can implement on your behalf.