Hiring Salespeople: Why Data Beats Gut Instinct Every Time

The average sales organization is hiring salespeople on a dangerously wide margin of error.

Only one in four new sales hires becomes an above-average performer in their first year. The rest either struggle to hit quota or churn out entirely – draining revenue, consuming management time, and stalling growth.

This is the hidden cost of “hire and pray.”

When a sales seat is filled by someone without the “Will to Sell” or the resilience to bounce back after rejection, no product, process, or training program can compensate. The problem isn’t effort—it’s fit. But hiring managers and sales leaders continue to overlook the key underlying distinctions between those who will rise to the top fourth and those who will sink with the majority.

In a recent Rocks to Revenue webinar, Kate Norton, Steve Heroux, and Tabitha Cavanagh broke down why traditional, personality-driven hiring continues to fail—and what leading organizations are doing instead. Drawing from deep experience across sales leadership, recruiting, and data-driven hiring assessments, the conversation unpacked what actually separates consistent producers from everyone else – and how to build a sales hiring process that finds them before it’s too late.

Hire for Character, Train for Skill: The Story of Employee Number One

Most founders start their hiring journey with a “gut feeling.” While intuition is a superpower for building a business, it is often a liability when evaluating sales talent. Steve Heroux’s first hire, Janae, is a case study in why character must precede tactical ability — and why being completely honest about your company’s imperfections is the best way to find a long-term partner.

Kate: Steve, you started The Sales Collective as an idea that eventually grew to the point where you realized you couldn’t do it all yourself. You were successful, and like many entrepreneurs, you started thinking about hiring your first salesperson. Can you talk us through how you got to that spot?

Steve: When I started, I knew the type of character I wanted in somebody. And that’s really the advice I could give y’all — you’ve got to hire for character, not skill. If they happen to have great skills and great character, that’s great. If they have great skills and low character, that is bad. Character comes first. I can teach the rest.

Kate: It’s so interesting because you framed the role by saying, “I don’t have anything. We don’t have sales. We don’t have leads.” A lot of people miss that because they want to sound perfectly polished. But those imperfections are actually what a certain type of person wants to run towards.

Steve: Completely. When I met Janae, I told her: We have no sales, no money, no leads. Do you want to do this? And she said, I thought you’d never ask.

No promises. Just vision.

Kate: And she’s still here five years later.

Steve: That’s what happens when you get the person right on the front end.

Writing a Sales Job Ad That Actually Attracts Top Talent

Attracting top talent requires a shift in perspective. Most companies treat their sales hiring process as an administrative task rather than a marketing exercise. To find a high-performing seller, you have to move away from bulleted lists of requirements and toward a narrative that highlights the truth about the role and the company.

Kate: Tab, if someone’s writing a job ad on their own, where do they start?

Tab: Defining the role — and telling the truth.

Most companies skip that. But if you’re not honest internally about what the role actually is, you won’t attract the right person externally.

Steve: This is the bottleneck. Most companies don’t generate enough interest, so they end up choosing the “least bad” option.

A job ad isn’t a job description. Job descriptions are internal — requirements, responsibilities. No one gets excited about that.

A job ad should describe the person you want so the right candidates see themselves in it.

Tab: It’s a story. If you’re struggling, record yourself talking through the role. The way you say it out loud is almost always more compelling than a list of bullet points.

Bullet points attract average candidates. Stories attract the right ones.

Kate: So the shift is from listing tasks to selling impact. If you’re hiring sales reps right now, start by becoming a storyteller.

The Attract-and-Repel Strategy: Screening Out Bad Sales Hires

A great job ad should do two things simultaneously: attract the “hell-yes” candidates and repel everyone else. By using radical honesty and rigorous screening tools like the Sales DNA assessment, companies can save hundreds of hours of wasted interview time by letting the wrong candidates disqualify themselves.

Kate: The goal is to both attract and repel, right?

Tab: 100%. If someone reads your ad and says “hell no,” that’s a win. Better that than realizing it after three interviews.

You’re looking for “hell yes.”

Steve: This is where most companies waste time. They talk to too many wrong candidates.

That’s why we use assessments early. If 50 people apply, some won’t even complete it. Good — that’s the filter working.

We had a candidate respond: “My time is worth $350 an hour. I’m not taking this [test].” The job paid $90K. The client said it saved her hours — because on paper, he looked perfect.

Tab: Resumes are easy to fake now. People rely on ChatGPT and AI to write what they think is this perfectly polished resume, but it actually doesn’t say anything. I’m looking for transferable competencies. I want to see benchmarking — where was the company before you, and where are they now because of your “magic”?

I’m also looking for salespeople that come to find me. If they apply and never follow up, I wonder how they’re going to do in a sales role where they’re required to follow up with prospects. The top salespeople are reaching out and trying to find a decision-maker. I always have in the back of my mind: why didn’t they take that extra step?

If a candidate applies and never follows up, what does that tell you about how they’ll sell? Top salespeople don’t wait. They pursue.

Why Employment Gaps Don’t Tell You What You Think

Sales leaders often fall into the trap of making snap judgments based on a candidate’s history. Whether it is an 11-month gap in employment or a lack of industry-specific experience, these assumptions often lead to missing out on elite talent who simply had life happen to them. When hiring salespeople, the data tells a more complete story than a resume ever will.

Steve: There are companies who do not even interview someone if they have a gap in their employment history. I really want to caution everybody to not assume.

We had this one gentleman — amazing human, amazing guy — who killed it on the Sales DNA test. We were going to place him at a company, but they said, “We don’t even want to talk to this guy.” I asked why, because you just don’t find people with his level of skill in their industry. They said, “The guy’s been out of work for 11 months.”

Kate: And what was the reality?

Steve: I told them, “This is the last time I’m ever going to talk to you, but just so you know, he’s been trying not to die.” Colon cancer. Single dad. Three girls. You do not deserve to talk to him. You have to have a level of grace. You don’t know the story – please be careful of what you assume by looking at a resume.

Tab: That’s why I focus on the proof behind the claims on a resume. Every buzzword on a resume should have a story behind it. If it doesn’t, it’s just noise.

Steve: Buyer beware. You can’t trust your eyes. You can’t just hire people because you like them, which is the single biggest factor in why companies hire one candidate over another. Trust the data. It’s really hard to trust data after you’ve already let bias seep in. If you’re falling in love with a candidate before they do the DNA test, you will ignore the data because you’re already in love. Get the data first — that’s unbiased. You are biased.

Why Most Sales Assessment Tests Miss the Mark

In a world where 96% of assessments are not predictively valid, sales leaders must choose tools that are actually credible. Most sound sound credible. Few actually are.

Kate: Steve, why is it this one? Why Sales DNA over the thousands of other sales assessment tests out there?

Steve: There are roughly 2,500 assessments you could buy. The challenge is the overwhelming majority are not what’s known as “predictively valid” — meaning, they can’t back up the claims they made about their data.

I use the “poutine test.” Every restaurant in Quebec claims they have “Canada’s greatest poutine.”  That doesn’t make it true.

Same with assessments. 96% are just claims. Sales DNA is one of the 4% that is predictively valid. You can look at their technical manual and see the outside study done to corroborate the data.

Kate: So it’s about measuring the right things for the specific role?

Steve: Exactly. If you’re hiring a quarterback, you test their ability to throw.

Most assessments tell you what someone’s like at a party. That’s irrelevant.

Sales requires specific behaviors under pressure. That’s what needs to be measured.

Tab: In terms of GWC (Get it, Want it, Capacity), I see the DNA in three buckets. The first and most important is the Will to Sell.

Do they want it? Are they committed? Will they do hard things consistently?

You’re not training that into someone.

Steve: For context — companies in the U.S. that hire using traditional methods see 23% of those hires become above-average performers. Companies that hire using Sales DNA — when that Will to Sell is above a certain level — see 72% of those folks become top performers. It’s not 100%, but it’s three times better than hoping they do good.

Tab: Split your hiring between what is ingrained character attributes and what are tactical skills. The tactical, trainable areas are where you can bring someone up to speed. But if you can get someone with the ingrained behaviors you want and then train them where they need support — that’s the approach.

Kate: Hire for ingrained traits. Train the rest.

Ready to Fix Your Sales Hiring Process?

Fixing sales hiring isn’t about better interviews.

It’s about a better system.

Define the role with honesty. Write job ads that sell impact. Filter aggressively. Measure what actually drives performance — before bias takes over.

The difference between a 23% and 72% success rate isn’t luck.

It’s whether you assess before you guess.

To take the next step:

• Watch the full webinar
• Explore our sales recruiting and hiring solutions
• See the 21 competencies Sales DNA measures — download a sample to see what drives revenue

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you hire salespeople who actually perform?

Hiring salespeople who perform starts with measuring character and motivation before evaluating tactical skills. Companies using predictively valid sales assessment tests like Sales DNA see 72% of hires become top performers, compared to just 23% with traditional interview-based methods. The key is to get assessment data before you fall in love with a resume.

What should a sales job ad include?

A sales job ad should tell a story about impact, not list requirements. Focus on why the role matters, be honest about the company’s current stage (including its imperfections), and describe the type of person you want — not the duties they’ll perform. The best ads attract “hell-yes” candidates and repel the wrong ones simultaneously.

What is the Will to Sell in sales assessments?

The Will to Sell is the most predictive component of the Sales DNA assessment. It measures ingrained character attributes — commitment, motivation, and personal accountability — that determine whether a salesperson will do the hard things required to succeed. Unlike tactical selling skills, the Will to Sell cannot be trained. It must be identified during the hiring process.