Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.
When Objective Management Group assesses a sales candidate for a client, we also provide an automated reference check. Prior employers answer 11 questions, aren't identified by name and the information is reported aggregately.
A recent assessment produced a recommendation to hire a candidate and the reference report that followed came back with a response from a single previous employer, who provided positive answers to 10 of the questions. However, the prior employer said he wouldn't hire this salesperson again. What is the likely reason for such a response?
There are several reasons why a company would not hire a former salesperson again, even when they answered yes to all of the other questions. The first thing you can take from this is that this employer is being honest – which means that the answers to the other 10 questions, including those about performance, are also likely to be honest. The most obvious reasons for not rehiring a successful salesperson could be:
personality conflict;
betrayal (he may have left for the competition) over the exit;
internal conflicts;
company policy to not rehire former employees;
he was behavior challenged (a jerk);
he was dishonest;
I’d ask the candidate, during the job interview, what would cause a previous employers to say they would not rehire him. You may get the answer you seek directly from your candidate.
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