1.Situation

Sales team’s management is one of the key responsibilities of any Commercial Manager / Sales Manager.

A leading role in ensuring successful management is determined by the sizing and professionalization of the sales team.

2.Task

As Commercial Director I frequently carried out recruitment processes for hiring new sales representatives in the company.

2.Action

The dynamic of the recruitment is facilitated by free access to various tools: recommendations, direct posts on profile sites or social platforms, collaborations with recruitment agency, head hinting.

However, the current realities from the market make recruitment process more difficult and sometimes the results are not as per expectations and the available positions in the company remain unoccupied for a long time.

The latest recruitment process in which I was involved as Sales Marketing Manager at EASYPLAST (company from pharma industry) is a good example.

The recruitment announcement for the position of Sales Representative was launched on a specialized website including clear details about the company and the targeted profile was for a junior sales rep with only one year of experience.

4.Results

There were almost 300 applicants to this announcement, 10 people being selected on short list.

From 10 people we contacted for a face-to-face discussion, 8 were interested in meeting us so they were scheduled for interviews.

From 8 appointments, 2 people informed us that they do not come anymore to the meetings, 3 just did not show up without any prior notice and 3 people came to the interviews.

Finally, following this recruitment process, I did not hire anyone and my position was occupied later based on recommendation.

5.Key Leanings

HR specialists consider that the Romanian labour market is in an acute and difficult to solve crisis.

I have noted that in recent years the crisis in the labour market shifted from the lack of qualified staff to the lack of staff.

Causes are profound and multiple and solving them requires time and macro policies.

What I do not understand is the behaviour of applicants who, after applying to the job posted by company X, in the coming days are no longer interested in that company / job although they knew where they applied. Or even worse, they are not coming to meetings, although they have previously confirmed their appointments. These behaviours are not justified by the crisis in the labour market, but by the crisis of common sense.

If you are engaging in a recruitment process beyond your skills it is important to show respect for those who initiate this process.

Notification: MYPRODUCT reflects my real professional experience and expertise as well as my subjectivity. I do have a profound respect for all the companies I collaborated to and for all the people I worked with. It is not my intention to approach any sensitive, confidential or offending information related to companies, projects or people. If you the reader deduct or recognise companies, projects or people in my examples, I kindly ask you to respect MYPRODUCT and my professional and ethic approach and to not share any detail, information, situation, name, company.