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Selling in practice

screening process. Even professional recruiters cannot claim reliability and validity in
their selection criteria for salespeople. To reduce costs, improve selectivity and be more
effective, sales managers should follow a planned recruitment procedure, enlisting pro-
fessional help as appropriate. A planned approach will increase your success rate in
selection, build a reputation as a desirable, progressive employer and sharpen your com-
petitive edge, thus improving effectiveness and efficiency in your sales operations. As the
sales job becomes more complex and strategic the demand for more professional
recruitment and selection in sales management will become obligatory.

Questions
1 Explain what steps might be taken to reduce the failure rate in selecting candidates for sales
positions.
2 Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of recruiting graduates for selling jobs in fast-moving consumer
goods companies.
3 Relatively new to recruiting salespeople, suggest how you would minimise your own personal bias
and prejudices.
4 Put up an argument for or against the use of psychometric testing in recruiting salespeople.
5 Forecast in what ways the recruitment process might change over the next decade.

Case study The Car Phone Warehouse

The Car Phone Warehouse (www.carphone.com) has been in business since 1989 and has
grown in size and now has over 1400 stores in 10 countries with the aim of achieving FTSE
100 status by 2007. In the United Kingdom alone there are now some 600 branches. The
founder of the company, Charles Dunson, originally worked for NEC and set up his business
when he realised how difficult it was to buy a mobile phone. At that time, you could not go
in to a shop and select but had to call a supplier who would send a salesperson to visit. The
first retail outlet was set up in London and within weeks became highly successful.
Today, branches sell mobile phones, pagers, accessories, personal organisers, MP3 players,
car satellite navigation systems and services for the telecommunications sector. In effect, they
sell almost anything involved with mobile telecommunications. They mostly sell from their
premises, although personal visits to companies are also part of their customer portfolio and
their B2B interests continue to expand. They do not favour cold calling or prospecting, rely-
ing on prospects to contact them through telephone, Internet or using their retail outlets. The
company regard the personal selling of their products as requiring direct contact with the
customer, in-depth product knowledge and personal adaptability and flexibility to respond
to customers’ needs in order to provide ‘the right phone for the right person’. When recruiting,
the company is looking for self-confident people who are able to make decisions and think
for themselves. They must be able to show that they are capable of expressing technical
knowledge in a language the customer will understand. Their policy is to promote retail and
sales managers from within.
In the ‘early days’, the company recruited through word-of-mouth, basically recruiting friends
of the original staff. As they expanded and moved away from London, this was no longer

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10 ■ Recruitment and selection

possible. They now recruit from a variety of sources, including recent graduates, although
they prefer someone with a track record in sales and then to train them in mobile phone prod-
ucts. They are currently using advertisements, personal contacts, recruitment agencies and
educational institutions but rely more and more today on their website as a source of recruits.
1 Called in as a sales recruitment consultant, what sources you would recommend the
company should use to recruit new salespeople?
2 Go to www.careersatcarphone.com and critically evaluate their approach.
3 What advice would you give to the company about assessing potential applicants?
Explain the selection procedure you would employ.

Key terms
■ aptitude tests ■ recruitment
■ assessment centres ■ reliability
■ employment agencies ■ sales activity
■ intelligence tests ■ analysis
■ job analysis ■ screening
■ job description ■ selection tools
■ job specification ■ staff turnover
■ manpower planning ■ validity
■ psychometric tests

References
Avlonitis, C.J., Boyle, K.A. and Kouremenos, A.G. (1986) ‘Matching salesmen to the selling job’
Industrial Marketing Management 15 (1): 45–54
Darmon, R. (1993) ‘Sales force recruiting and training policies for minimising turnover costs’
Marketing for the New Europe: dealing with complexity. Proceedings of the 22nd EMAC
Conference Barcelona pp. 27–44
Donaldson, B. and Thomson, C. (1991) ‘Recruiting graduates into sales. Preparing marketing for
the new millennium’ Proceedings of the 1991 Marketing Education Group Cardiff pp. 340–53
Futrell, C. (2001) Fundamentals of Selling: customer for life McGraw-Hill: New York
Maxwell, S., Reed, G., Sakar, J. and Story, V. (2005) ‘The two faces of playfulness: a new tool to select
potentially successful sales reps’ Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management 25 (3): 215–29
Stevens, C.D. and Macintosh, G. (2003) ‘Personality and attractiveness of activities within sales
jobs’ Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management 23 (1): 23–37
Taylor, S. (2005) People Resourcing 3rd edition CIPD/McGraw-Hill: Maidenhead
Wiles, M.A. and Spiro, R.L. (2004) ‘Attracting graduates to sales positions and the role of recruiter
knowledge: a reexamination’ Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management 24 (1): 39–48

Answers
Answer: More knowledgeable 3:1
Answer: Unanimously, businesslike.
Answer: 40 out of 43, the latter.

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