Sales Candidate Shortage – More Proof That Sales Isn’t Dead Yet

Death Of SellingAs you probably know, many people have been writing premature obituaries about the impending death of selling.  Of course, that’s been going on since at least 2006 when I posted my first rebuttal to this silly claim, and as recently as last month when I posted my latest rebuttal.  It’s being perpetuated by extremist marketers who are claiming that inbound will become the be-all end-all.

It’s simply not true.

The latest proof can be found in this July 2013 USA Today article.  I’ll give you the important facts, but you should shoot over there and read the entire article.

The article said that in June, “the number of jobs in sales and related occupations jumped a whopping 445,000 to a four-year-high of 15.8 million.”  That’s in the USA alone.  Those numbers are trending the wrong way for the pro-death-of-selling folks.  Not only that, our company, Objective Management Group, will need to change it’s BHAG from 14 million to 16 million salespeople evaluated!

The article also said that “Thirty-five percent of sales managers couldn’t find qualified candidates for open positions.”  That’s consistent with what clients have been seeing.

Another important point from the article was that it is now taking three months to fill a sales position.  I should add that that’s when standard quality sales managers look for standard quality salespeople.  If we raise the bar and look for high quality salespeople, the timeline can extend to six months!

These developments place an even bigger emphasis on the importance of using a best-in-class, sales-specific, accurate and predictive sales candidate assessment early in your sales recruiting process.  When there is urgency to fill positions and most of the candidates aren’t very good, even your hiring managers will have to deal with the case of happy ears.  Consistent use of the assessment will alleviate that.

While this is all disappointing and frustrating news for companies that need to hire salespeople, and especially for those who want to hire great salespeople, it’s really bad news for the people who have been holding those messed-up crystal balls!