The health crisis and the development of teleworking have only accentuated an already well-established trend: soft skills are now an integral part of recruitment processes. These human skills even take precedence over more technical qualities, particularly in the commercial sector. Why recruit salespeople based on their soft skills? Which ones to prioritize?
Soft Skills: What Are We Talking About?
Slowly but surely, the notion of soft skills has made its way into business, to the point of becoming almost every day in the professional environment. These are behavioral skills relating more to “soft skills.” The term is often opposed to hard skills, these more technical skills associated, conversely, with knowledge and “know-how.” Soft skills are, therefore, non-technical skills linked to the personality of each employee. An exciting parameter during a recruitment process is that it is almost impossible for candidates to “lie” about these very personal qualities. Among the most sought-after soft skills today, we can cite organizational skills, rigor, autonomy, resilience, and even reliability.
Three Good Reasons To Recruit Sales People Based On Their Soft Skills
From now on, recruiting a candidate solely on the basis of their expertise and in-depth knowledge in a field is no longer sufficient. Soft skills have become essential in recruitment processes, especially in the commercial sector.
Combat The Shortage Of Candidates
The sales profession has suffered a decline in attractiveness in recent years, linked in particular to pressure on numbers, highly variable salaries, and the constraint of frequent travel. The priority when recruiting salespeople now lies in finding motivated, flexible, dynamic, and, above all, willing candidates to learn continually.
Adapt To Continuous Changes
Between the development of teleworking, the digitalization of organizational processes, and even the automation of tasks, employees must be able to reinvent themselves and constantly adapt to changes. By focusing recruitment on the qualities of resilience, learning, or even flexibility, sales teams will, in fact, be more able to evolve over the long term within the company while maintaining a specific employability.
Optimize Internal Cohesion
Employees recruited based on certain specific human skills can promote good internal cohesion and form high-performance teams. These include listening skills, empathy, and even teamwork. So many factors that make it possible to maintain a good working atmosphere within the company, and thus gain in competitiveness.
The Top 5 Essential Soft Skills For Salespeople
Recruiting salespeople based on their “soft skills” is therefore the key to finding the best candidates, but which soft skills should you prioritize? Here are the top 5 behavioral qualities to look for as a priority when hiring in the commercial sector.
- Motivation, allowing a certain constant optimism that can be transmitted to customers, as well as increased performance.
- Listening to fully understand customer needs and offer them the right products and services.
- Autonomy is an essential quality of the salesperson who is often on the move and must organize his meetings with complete independence.
- Oral fluency and empathy in order to build a climate of trust with customers.
- Adaptability to be able to deal with different types of clients and environments, in particular.
This list is, of course, not exhaustive and allows us to reveal the extent to which the sales profession has changed: the ability to negotiate and the ability to manage pressure, once favored, are now placed much lower on the value scale—commercial profiles.
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