The Challenge of Hiring in an Uncertain Market

Talent shortages persist in high-demand fields such as technology, healthcare, and skilled trades, where companies are competing for a limited pool of candidates. At the same time, other sectors have seen workforce reductions, leaving a larger number of job seekers vying for fewer positions. This volatility requires organizations to rethink their approach to talent acquisition and development.

Instead of reacting to short-term fluctuations, companies must focus on hiring smarter—ensuring that each new hire is a high-quality, high-impact decision.

Why Smarter Hiring Matters More Than Ever

Regardless of whether the candidate pool is too small or too large, organizations need consistent, science-based methods to ensure they are selecting the right talent. Making the wrong hire can be costly—not only in terms of financial resources but also in lost productivity, team disruption, and cultural misalignment.

Science-based hiring practices, including validated assessments, structured interviews, and data-driven talent insights, help organizations:

• Identify candidates with the right skills and fit: Beyond just qualifications and experience, assessments can help determine cognitive ability, problem-solving skills, emotional intelligence, leadership potential, and cultural alignment.
• Reduce turnover and increase retention: A poor hiring decision often leads to higher attrition. Assessments help organizations ensure they’re selecting candidates who are likely to succeed and stay within their unique environment and culture.
• Make objective, data-backed decisions: In times of uncertainty, gut instinct isn’t enough. A structured, science-based approach reduces bias and increases the likelihood of hiring success.
• Future-proof the workforce: By evaluating enduring leadership skills and potential, organizations can hire people who can adapt, learn, and grow as business needs evolve.

Hiring Success Isn’t About More Candidates—It’s About the Right Candidates

It’s a common misconception that a larger candidate pool makes hiring easier. In reality, more applicants do not necessarily mean better hires. Without the right tools, sorting through hundreds (or thousands) of resumes can lead to wasted time, inconsistent evaluations, and ultimately increased hiring risks.

On the flip side, when talent is scarce, it’s even more critical to make every hire count. The cost of a bad hire increases when the talent pool is smaller, as finding a replacement is even more challenging.

This is why organizations should shift their focus from “more candidates” to better-fit candidates. By leveraging proven assessments and structured hiring processes, organizations can increase their chances of hiring people who will thrive in their roles and contribute to business success.

The Right Hire is Important—No Matter the Economy

Whether companies are growing or downsizing, hiring decisions have a long-term impact. Every employee contributes to company culture, team dynamics, and business performance. Organizations that prioritize data-driven hiring and talent assessment strategies will be better positioned to succeed, no matter the economic landscape.

The bottom line? In an uncertain hiring market, one thing remains certain: making the right hiring decision is always mission-critical. Organizations that invest in smart, science-backed hiring practices will build stronger, more resilient workforces—today and for the future.

Want to learn more about how data-driven assessments can help you hire smarter? Connect with Talogy to explore science-based solutions that improve hiring accuracy and drive long-term success.

During this process, there will undoubtedly be challenges that you must face. But, with the right solutions in place and armed with the right insights, you and your team can work to overcome these obstacles as they arise.  Here are the top five challenges you’ll face and how to overcome them.

Need help overcoming the challenges of a #FutureReady workforce? @CaliperCorp can help you out. Learn how here:
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Challenges Organizations Are Facing Today

Some challenges present themselves regardless of your workforce. Due in large part to the pandemic, many organizations have had a difficult time navigating the changes to the workforce and the lack of talent on the market. Many of the common challenges organizations are facing today include:

A gap between available and desirable skills: Recent data has shown that highly skilled office workers are the first to get back to work after the pandemic compared to less-skilled workers. This has affected workers throughout all types of industries. Those seen as mid-level or senior level experience are less likely to pursue new skills or work towards a new career path if it takes years to attain. This leaves a gap between the available talent on the market and the kind of highly talented individuals organizations are looking for.

Fast fact: By 2028, the skills gap is expected to leave 2.4 million jobs unfilled, with an economic impact of $454 billion.

Creating learning and development opportunities to retain workers: Learning and developing programs are shaping up to be a challenge for many companies. Learning and development are centered around engaging your existing workforce and enhancing their skill sets at a basic level. These programs are also a valuable tool for attracting new talent to your workplace. 

However, when available talent is lacking, and retention is your main goal, finding ways to invest in your employees’ skills and future career is integral for keeping your best workers in-house. Today’s managers need to create opportunities for progression if they hope to retain their top talent. As adults, we have a tendency to avoid learning new skills and exploring new opportunities. While this is natural, it’s also something that you need to work hard at avoiding workplace changes like those experienced during the pandemic. Failure to do so can lead to your top talent seeking out training opportunities elsewhere or searching for a company that makes learning a priority.

A lack of collaboration: New technology is broadening the scope of tasks the workforce needs to engage in on a day-to-day basis. This new generation of work often requires different types of workers to collaborate and communicate with one another. In many workplaces, collaboration has been limited due to geography or time barriers. However, technology is making it easier to stay connected even when you’re separated from your colleagues and employers. Now, work teams are more likely to work together in real-time across the globe due to advancements in technology such as cloud computing, video conferencing tools, and AI chatbots.

The need for flexible talent: Companies have always desired workers who apply their skills and talent in different ways. But, in a post-pandemic world, this desire is quickly becoming a need. As organizations fight over the top talent on the market, workplaces need the support of cross-talented and skilled employees to help keep operations running smoothly. 

With upskilling and reskilling opportunities, workplaces can create a resilient workforce equipped to help pick up the slack in other departments when needed. What does this mean for today’s leaders? They need to work to find and create a workforce that is willing to go above and beyond the duties outlined in their job description. 

Hiring and retaining top talent: Retaining your best workers is a challenge for many companies. There are several resources that you can use to find the right talent, but finding individuals with skill sets that align with your company’s goals takes time and effort. Don’t waste any more time in your recruitment process by looking at outdated job descriptions. Instead, work with the right HR partner to find employees who have skills that are aligned with your company’s goals for growth and expansion. If you can provide these individuals with the training they need, there is no reason why this talent should walk away from a job opportunity at your organization.

Steps For Building A Future-Ready Workforce

For quite some time now, organizations have placed a hearty focus on preparing themselves for the future. Whether this is done through market forecasting, creating succession plans, or developing their employees to better perform in their given roles, being proactive is always a better move than waiting around to react to new challenges. With a rise in the competition for new talent, building out a future-ready workforce can mean the difference between an organization equipped for sudden change and one that falters. But, the question stands: what can you and your company do to create a future-ready workforce?

While each organization is unique in its structure, there are a few common things that can be done to create a workforce that is built to take on potential future challenges:

Define your skill gaps: A huge part of defining skills gaps is knowing what skill sets are missing from an organization. Part of this has to be predicting the skills needed for the roles for this changing landscape. Without taking the time to understand and clearly dictate the skills and kinds of workers your organization needs to succeed, your recruiters will struggle to find the right kind of talent for your open roles. 

Give your team the information they need to do their jobs successfully; be honest and straightforward with your expectations.  If there are skills that you or your team members wish to develop but have yet to do so, take the time to understand what it is about these specific skill sets that appeal and align with your goals. If you begin to explore ideas for developing new skill sets within the organization, this will only help solidify a future-ready workforce.

Did you know? 60% of organizations say they will not meet their strategic goals due to external skills shortages. Furthermore, 62% of employers say they experience skill gaps in their current workforce. 

Develop soft skills: We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: hiring for soft skills is the best move you can make. Currently, soft skills are in high demand. While technical skills can always be taught on the job, finding workers who excel at necessary skills, such as teamwork and time management, will help you to source workers prepared to take on more responsibilities. These skills are often tied to how flexible an employee can be within a changing environment. 

Research has shown the toughest soft skills to find in candidates are leadership, communication, and listening. Additionally, the higher ranking roles require employees to have a higher percentage of soft skills in order to be successful in that role. By working on developing these soft skills in your existing workers and finding candidates with these skills in the job market, you can build out a workforce that is better equipped to handle disruptions. 

Work on developing your existing employees: Work on developing your existing employees: According to HLC’s research, the best way to close the skills gap is to develop current employees. This means investing in the workers already employed at your company versus trying to find a new employee with the desired skills. Not only will this save your bottom line and also save your recruiting team precious time, but it showcases to your employees that you care about their career and professional development.

Did you know?  The State of Human Capital Management survey shows that 45% of organizations lack the necessary workforce to compete today, and 36% say a skills gap is their number one challenge.

Taking the time to brainstorm potential future challenges for your organization, as well as defining exactly what new soft skills will help you move forward, will be the best way to source your next future-ready employees. 

Fast fact: Nearly 80% of companies are filling their skill gaps internally.

This is why developing soft skills is critical: 51% of employers say their top challenge as an employer is the changing nature of work. When we talk about future-ready employees, it’s important to know what makes your organization unique and how you will face disruption best.

How Can You Get Started?

Identifying the process needed to build a future-ready workforce is the first step towards creating a productive and proactive workplace. As job markets shift and the war for top talent wages on, managers and leaders need to identify solutions that can be implemented to better set their teams up for success down the road. 

One such solution is placing a strong emphasis on the skills in your organization. Whether this means developing the soft skill of your existing workforce or finding ways to close your existing skills gaps, managers would be remiss not to take time to refine the skills in their organization. 

The workforce is going through a significant transformation, with people now holding multiple roles over their lifetime. Understanding what millennials value and looking for candidates who align with these values will also prove to be a valuable skill when you are competing for top talent. Millennials look for companies that invest in them as individuals and show potential for growth.

Did you know? 65% of millennials want to learn soft skills in order to advance within their organization.

Employers who have invested in training for their workers show higher levels of engagement and satisfaction with senior management. As millennials continue to grow as a percentage of the workforce, businesses can no longer look at soft skills as something that is nice to have but instead must be developed into hard skills needed for future success. Think about why you have your current soft skills and determine where they fall short, where the gaps are, and where opportunities for development exist within your organization. Remember that as a leader or manager you can nurture change by offering opportunities for learning.

Did you know?  On average, developing a new competency takes 2 years and costs $30,000.

Additionally, workplaces can start building out a future-ready workforce by redefining their expectations and qualifications. It’s no surprise that getting a degree is a very expensive and time-consuming process. However, there are alternatives to this. Apprenticeships and developing competencies and skills are alternatives to getting a degree. By reducing the barrier to applying, you can expand your talent pool in a short amount of time. 

Did you know? 72% of employers want to develop leadership skills in their workers.

You don’t have to do everything at once, but if you start small and think strategically about the soft skill development needs within your organization, you’ll be on track for creating a future-ready workforce.

Finally, embracing technologies in your workplace and recruitment pipeline will help you to build more effective and efficient processes. Using technology is one of the top ways to mold a future-ready workforce. With many traditional business practices moving to a digital landscape, having a team that understands how to use technology to interact with one another and conduct business will help you to create a resilient workforce.

@CaliperCorp discusses the key #competencies needed to build a #FutureReady workforce. Read more here:
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Companies must also take advantage of digital communication tools such as video and instant messaging to enable the use of soft skills in both daily interactions and business processes. By doing so, you can refocus your workforce on outcomes instead of individual tasks.

As we start to see signs of recovery from the previous year, finding ways to capitalize on growth and better prepare for future disruptions will set your team up for success. The key lies in building out a team that is highly skilled, adaptable, and ambitious for personal and professional growth. The workforce of today is reversing the trend of lifetime employment and long-term career development. People are no longer looking to climb a ladder, but rather switch jobs multiple times throughout their lives. The workforce will need to become agile and be ready to learn new skills at any time if they wish to stay relevant. 

We are in an increasingly competitive landscape, where innovations happen more quickly and the pace of change is faster than ever before. If you want to build a workforce that can last for decades, it will require investment in developing leaders and promoting individuals who have soft skills like leadership, personal growth, collaboration, etc.

Caliper can help you to identify the best fit before you hire for an open role. With our science-backed assessments, you can quickly gauge the cultural fit of any given candidate, and see whether their skills and competencies are the ones you need in your workplace. And, with our precision series, you can work to develop the skills of your leaders and individual workers, creating a more talented and flexible workforce. Reach out to our team of experts and see how we can help you transform your workforce today!

But what does a healthy work environment look like during quarantine?

How can you build a better #WorkFromHome program during #quarantine? @CaliperCorp shows you with their new crisis competency job models:
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What Makes An Ideal Remote Work Environment

A well-balanced team goes a long way in creating a healthy environment while working remotely. When workload is divided in such a way that leans on individual strengths, while supporting each other’s weaknesses together, the stress of feeling overwhelmed and overworked is reduced. The Caliper Four Box is a great way to structure your teams in a way that assigns all the right personalities to a role where they’ll thrive and meld together into a cohesive unit. Key personalities are needed in order to prop up the team from within, and the Caliper Four Box ensures that the right person is placed in the right role for a sound foundation.

Managers also need to ensure that they facilitate communication and transparency. Poor communication costs the average organization more than 62 million dollars per year in productivity. But beyond productivity, it’s just frustrating. It becomes easier to  properly manage team communications and lead with the appropriate level of transparency by exercising emotional intelligence, which can be leveraged amongst individual team members, too. Encouraging teammates to key into each other’s needs, do their part, and reach out for help when needed will create an environment of support, strength, and productivity growth.

How the Caliper Profile Makes it Possible

Well-balanced teams are ones that leverage the innate strengths of individuals and place people in roles that lean on those strengths. The Caliper Profile helps managers better understand the strengths, inclinations, and competencies of their team members. Using the assessment reports, managers can align, develop, and coach to specific skills that will build more robust, well-rounded teams.

Our new Remote Worker job model uses the Caliper Essentials Competency Reports and helps managers understand 4 key aspects behind managing remote workers: Description of their core competencies, how to coach them based on those competencies, how they can best work on their own professional development, and how to hire remote workers.

Understanding Remote Worker Competencies

The Caliper Remote Worker Job Model helps frame the key personality traits necessary to be successful in that setting, while allowing managers to get a well-rounded view of the strengths and weaknesses that exist within the team dynamic. Through clear communication, proper support, and a solid team structure, your remote teams will have a more sound environment that promotes job satisfaction and productivity.

Before managers can effectively lead their teams, they need to understand who they have on their team and how they like to work and communicate. The Selection report for our new Remote Worker job model details how an individual aligns with the core competencies required for success in a remote role. Competencies like:

• Composure
• Learning Agility
• Information Seeking
• Accountability
• Adaptability
• Time Management

Coaching Remote Workers

The coaching report puts the manager’s job into context. They can see what behaviors each team member has that will likely make the biggest impact on their remote work, with regard to both strengths and areas of development. This allows managers to anticipate challenges and where they can expect natural strength. In this context, managers can start building relationships based on the information they learn and understand the foundation for the development plan they’ll need to lay out for individual and team growth.

What can you do during a crisis to help your employees #WorkFromHome better? @CaliperCorp has new crisis competency #JobModels to help you lead and work better in times of uncertainty.
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The report also provides suggestions for how managers can better guide employees through their development and how to work and communicate with each team member in a way that suits their preferences and natural motivations.

Helping Remote Workers Develop Themselves

Another important aspect of keeping remote workers engaged and happy is by helping them feel in control of their own work and their own development. The Individual Developmental Guide provides employees with an opportunity for self reflection and insights into their own skills so that they can better understand themselves, the way they like to work, and where they might face challenges in their work.

But more than just revealing an individual’s natural strengths and challenges, the Individual Developmental Guide offers suggestions, thought-provoking questions, and conversation starters for developing their skill sets further. It’s not just a report for learning about themselves, it’s a tool for guiding them forward in their career.

Adapting Quickly

You can’t always see a crisis coming. But, the Highlights Report gives managers a quick snapshot so they can see where each teammate has natural strengths, what they might find more challenging, or where they will need additional support in order to build skills in a specific area. It provides a clearer picture of the strengths and opportunities they’re working with, person to person. When you need to move quickly, the highlights report provides an overview of what managers can expect as the transition begins, and helps them anticipate or spot challenges more easily.

This report, instead of waiting to see which problems arise and then reacting accordingly, allows managers to plan ahead, and create an action plan for who’s going to need what kind of support, and when. For a crisis like our current one, that came on suddenly, this kind of preparation can be crucial so as to not lose those critical first days.

For more information about the Caliper Report and how it can transform your teams, reach out to our experts today to get started.

Why should you look for #MentalToughness during the hiring process? @CaliperCorp shows you why it might make all the difference for #remote employees:
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Habits of Mental Toughness

While there’s no test to target mental toughness in your candidates, there are key characteristics and skills to look for during the hiring process. By catering your interviews and questions to certain habits, you can start to suss out those candidates who may have mental toughness.

Here are a few ways to focus your questions to gauge mental toughness:

Ask them about the way they communicate. 

Communication is key when working independently, and those who have mental toughness are well-organized and informed. Those willing to have regular one-to-one conversations demonstrate that they are prepared and ready to talk about their work. Staying informed is important to what they’re doing, and they understand that keeping their managers informed is equally important. This also provides them ample opportunity to articulate and break down any barriers they’re facing.

Ask them how they stay focused. 

Individuals with mental toughness know that maintaining focus is key to achieving their goals. Talk to your candidates to better understand what they do to self-manage and stay organized so that they’re able to maintain their motivation and follow through on their tasks. Without mental toughness, candidates may struggle to come up with tried and true methods to remain focused without someone checking in on them. Look for proactive answers over reactive answers.

Ask them about their process.

Mentally tough individuals are thorough and structured. Athletes often have rituals they repeat over and over, and in a professional setting, that can often translate to having a refined, repeatable process that they’ve found works well for them on a reliable basis. Ask them about how they measure their success, and how they structure their workflow and processes around the lessons they’ve learned from their successes and failures.

Ask them about how they listen.

Mental toughness means an individual has a lot of internal strength and fortitude, but they usually get there by listening carefully to feedback and paying attention to the needs of their teammates, coaches, or nuances of the game. In the sales field, a mentally tough person will not only listen carefully to the feedback from their managers and peers, but they also understand the value of active listening to their prospects. They’ll want to get deep insights into the problem so that they can better understand the solution.

Ask them about their follow-through

Mentally tough salespeople take pride in their work and are thorough from start to finish. They understand that deals can fall through at any time, and don’t leave any loose ends. Ask candidates how they wrap up a deal, and what their closing processes are like. Someone who hands off the contract and moves onto the next deal might miss a few key interactions without someone double-checking their work.

Finding Energy to Succeed From Home

Another key aspect of mental toughness that can be uncovered during the hiring process, is learning more about the way the candidates find the energy and persistence to stay motivated while working away from the office. Not only do they need to be self-driven, but they have to be able to talk themselves through disappointment when there isn’t a coworker there to provide a pep talk.

Interviewing for #MentalToughness can add major value during your #hiring process. Find out how on the @CaliperCorp blog:
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Things you can ask your candidates to gauge the way they self-motivate include:

• What kinds of shorthand or efficiency tricks have you discovered in the way you work?
• How do you know when it’s time to take a break, and what do you do to re-energize?
• What’s your motivator that keeps you going even when you’re tired or discouraged? How did you find it?
• What do you do to maintain balance between your work and personal life to avoid burnout?
• Tell me about the relationships you build with clients and how they help you close deals?

The more your candidates know about themselves and their processes, the stronger the indication that they possess mental toughness. They’ve reflected on their needs, their successes, their failures, and their relationships with others that help or hinder their success. Being able to talk through such introspective topics can give interviewers meaningful insights into the potential performance of the candidate.

The Caliper Profile Can Make it Easier

When the interview process combines guided and targeted interview questions with the Caliper Profile, a better, more holistic understanding of your candidates is possible. The Caliper Profile is built with decades of research to pinpoint individual strengths, natural inclinations, preferred work and communication styles, and specific personality traits that can indicate potential success in a given role.

When used alongside the Caliper Job Models, hiring managers can see how a personality matches up with their potential effectiveness for a different type of sales role. A competency report helps put those insights into context, so managers can more effectively manage, develop, and retain the best people for the job.

Caliper can help you find, identify, and nurture mentally tough sales professionals. To learn more, reach out to our experts today to get started building your all-star sales team.

But how can you find and understand sales effectiveness beyond just sales KPIs?

Think #SalesEffectiveness is just about how many deals you win? @CaliperCorp says the things to focus on go beyond traditional sales KPIs:
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To help measure your sales teams for sales effectiveness, we’ve put together essential sales competencies and metrics every sales leader should look for to reach optimal performance amongst their team.

Uncover Core Competencies

The Caliper Profile is a powerful assessment tool that helps you better understand individual strengths and inclinations. Not just a tool for hiring, the Caliper Profile can be used to help get a better picture of the different strengths and abilities that exist on your sales team. Combined with our competency report, they paint a clearer picture of what actions you can take to develop successful salespeople.

Here’s an example:

Consultative Selling requires competencies like Active Listening and Information Seeking with a particular knack for approaching sales with a Service Focus. Do you have someone on your sales team who loves to build relationships with their prospects and provides guidance through the process? They might be well suited for a consultative selling role.

Examine the key roles within your sales team and how they align to the skill sets that your salespeople possess. Does your method of selling match up to the soft skills of your team?

Here’s another example:

Account Development differs from sales hunters or business development in that this role seeks to expand business within existing accounts rather than acquiring new clients. Account Development requires someone who has Organizational Savvy, meaning they are adept at gathering and assessing information about the organization and speaking specifically to their needs. Do you have a salesperson who doesn’t hunt particularly well but is very persuasive in an organizational context? It might be effective to move them from a new business role to existing accounts.

How to Develop the Right Talent, the Right Way

Once your sales manager has a better understanding of the competencies and potential of their team, it’s time to put it into context. How can managers train and develop highly effective salespeople with what they’ve learned in the Caliper Profile?

The Essentials for Coaching report provides a Competency Report that goes through each of the competencies considered important to sales effectiveness. Within the report are suggestions based on how an individual scores in each category. If they score low on the team building competency, for example, their report outlines which aspects of teamwork they should lean on— meaning the aspects of teamwork where they show potential—and it suggests possible challenges the individual might face when dealing with teamwork in aspects where they aren’t as skilled.

Conversely, If an individual has high potential in teamwork, there might be no challenges listed, and managers can identify that person as someone to tap when they know teamwork will be required or they need someone to help them rally the team around a cause.

The Competency Report helps put an individual’s traits and competencies into the context of their role and what will need to be coached, leveraged, or where they’ll need to focus to develop key traits. The report also includes recommendations for the manager to help them guide training and development goals and help boost their sales effectiveness while honing their skills.

How can personality and #competencies help you develop better #SalesTalent? @CaliperCorp shows you how with their latest blog post:
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Here’s an example:

Your Account Development Specialist shows strong Organizational Savvy. The competency report will recommend that the manager helps this person consider the outcome that they are hoping to achieve when they speak with clients. Client feedback helps the salesperson identify what their organization does well, where they want to improve, and what their desired outcome is. They can adapt their approach based on real feedback from clients, and you’ll find their sales effectiveness increases.

So, where do you begin?

Start with competencies where your salespeople have high potential. Leverage their strengths to target their challenges. With their potential competencies laid out, it should become clear how you move forward based on what they do well and how those skills can help them address others.

The Competency Report puts those competencies into a workplace context, allowing managers to see where their personal preferences lie and different strategies to avoid in order to implement better development objectives that fit into their work style and person inclinations. Managers can come up with tailor-made goals for individuals to increase productivity effectively and efficiently than singular training programs implemented across the board.

Sales effectiveness isn’t just the number of wins or closed deals; it goes beyond numbers and into personality. The Caliper Report can put crucial personality data into context and provide managers with insights that lead to better sales effectiveness across their team. Reach out to our experts today to learn more about the Caliper Profile or how a Caliper Subscription can help your sales managers transform their team’s effectiveness.

Struggling to hire for sales? @CaliperCorp uses validated job models to match candidates to sales-specific roles and is the trusted choice for sales selection.
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Hiring for Sales

How do you determine if a candidate will be an effective salesperson? While sales effectiveness is not a generalized trait, there are qualities and habits that are greater indicators of success in a sales role. When hiring for sales, you should look for these six traits or the potential to cultivate these characteristics in candidates:

• Hyper-focus: Salespeople have many tasks and clients to focus on at once. In order to be successful, they need to be able to prioritize and focus on what is most important.
• Active listening: The best salespeople listen to their customers and ask the right questions.
• Networking Master: Building relationships is a key element for success in sales. Effective salespeople are able to build trust which improves customer loyalty.
• Work smarter, not harder: Successful salespeople follow a consistent process and balance their tasks. They don’t reinvent the wheel when there is already an efficient process in place.
• Adaptability: When faced with an unforeseen challenge or obstacle, effective salespeople are able to quickly adapt their approach.
• Be prepared: Exceptional salespeople know their product better than anyone. They do their research and are able to anticipate the questions their customers might have.

Did you know that sales productivity is the #1 challenge for 65% of B2B organizations? Learn how @CaliperCorp can improve your hiring and development plans and help you achieve #SalesEffectiveness.
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It’s also crucial to consider sales effectiveness as a function of the tasks themselves, although these tasks will differ across industry and organization. In order to hire the right candidates, start by defining the relevant tasks for your strategy, and reflect those tasks in hiring criteria and a disciplined hiring process. A combination of structured interviews, assessments, and background and reference checks allows hiring managers to observe and predict the candidate’s job behaviors which can yield the best results when hiring for sales.

Talent assessments have become more available and intuitive, which is great news for sales leaders. The Caliper Profile pre-employment assessment, for example, was built to help predict a job candidate’s potential success in the role. The assessment not only measures specific behaviors and competencies, but also uses the data and insights to match candidates to scientifically-validated job models for sales professions. The Caliper Profile also goes a step further to provide hiring managers with interview questions, coaching recommendations, and training for skills gaps, meaning that it can be used at both the hiring and developing stages of employment.

Set Them up for Success

Did you know that less than 45% of companies have a formal sales training process? Given the lack of training and development structure in sales, it’s easy to see why the turnover rate is so high. Companies tend to invest more heavily in recruiting and hiring activities than on the processes and programs that focus on developing employees and keeping them engaged. However, investing in training and development will likely improve retention and increase your company’s margin.

Professional Development and Productivity

Playbooks are a great tool for training employees and creating consistent sales processes across your organization. A playbook ideally contains all the content necessary for your sales reps to succeed, including buyer personas, call scripts, negotiation tactics, and proposal guidelines. Creating a playbook can be very time-consuming and should involve multiple stakeholders throughout your company. However, it is time-saving in the long-run as it allows new employees to be trained more quickly. Additionally, a playbook frees up time for selling. Research by the CMO Council shows that sales reps spend 40% of their time searching for or creating content, and a playbook can help centralize the resources they need.

Professional development is integral to individual success in sales and overall retention. When career advancement paths are unclear, sales reps will start to question their place in the company. This is where sales leaders can make an impact by investing in the professional development of their team with a coaching mindset. Effective coaching includes building a plan for your employees, establishing expectations, challenging your staff, and helping them find solutions. By implementing these practices, employees are more likely to become engaged with their careers and increase their overall performance.

Sales productivity is the #1 challenge for 65% of B2B organizations and directly impacts a company’s ability to grow and improve its bottom line. Hiring and developing for sales can be difficult, but the right investment in these processes will help you find the most qualified sales candidates and keep them invested in your organization.

Caliper can make implementing these processes as simple and seamless as possible. Want to see how our products can help you increase your success in sales? Contact us and we can get you on the right path to hiring and developing more sales effective employees.

Over the last 30 years, the way these competencies are tracked and analyzed has improved dramatically, allowing for a deeper understanding of what they mean and how these specific skills can identify top performers in any given industry. Caliper’s Director of Product Development explained competencies as “building blocks” that “reflect job responsibilities but can also reflect a company’s mission, vision, and values. Competencies and competency models are a standard way for a business to speak a unified language and have a way to help the entire organization ‘walk the walk’ because they allow for performance management.”

#SalesEfficiency and effectiveness requires an understanding of how #competencies differ across sales roles. Read more about how @CaliperCorp can help you identify and predict candidate success based off competencies:
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Companies in every industry seek lower turnover rates, and understanding how to identify competencies in candidates is one way to achieve that. Sales positions, which typically have higher turnover than other areas in a company, are one position where mining for specific skills and competencies is critical. Through extensive research and decades of conducting meta-analyses, we’ve created a library of 56 different competencies, each referring to a bundle of attributes required to perform a specific job function. Recruiters and managers alike can use this library to identify whether applicants stack up to the demands of a job in sales. In fact, competency models have proven to be incredibly effective in talent management. As Jim Graber said way back in 2015:

“A talent management function without competency models is like a house without furniture.” 

Below includes a breakdown of some of these competencies and how they relate to sales efficiency and success.

Time Management

A good salesperson needs to be able to manage their time and responsibilities. Clients and prospects will be at different locations in the sales funnel, and an ability to sift through the clutter and maintain a clear knowledge of where each account sits throughout the process is necessary for success. Sales efficiency is centered around effectively managing time. Making good use of time tracking tools can help your sales reps better manage their weekly schedules and parse out their workloads.

Composure

In sales, rejection is unavoidable. How salespeople handle the rejection — and then learn from it — is where the difference is made. Emotional intelligence is important in a sales role, and this skill requires a high level of self-awareness. One way to measure an applicant’s ability in the interview process is to analyze their staying power.

Salespeople who stay in a role for longer than 2 years exhibit the grit and resilience necessary for success. The attitude of your sales team is an essential aspect of the success of the team as a whole — how you handle rejection, missing your quota for the quarter, or managing buyer objections can directly affect your future success in a sales role.

Tip: Remember, not all sales roles are the same. We’ve identified 8 different categories of sales roles, each with their own unique core competencies. Sales efficiency and effectiveness requires an understanding of how these competencies differ across roles. 

Bonus Content: [Infographic] Learn more about each of the 8 sales roles 

Relationship Building

A salesperson’s ability to build rapport and create a relationship with prospects is integral to successfully closing the deal. Sales efficiency is contingent on an salesperson’s skills at relating to the customer and making them feel comfortable as they advance through the cycle.

Relationship-building goes beyond just relating to the customers; it’s also the ability to relate to their specific role in the company. We talked earlier about how sales roles can differ within an organization, so it should be no surprise that the kind of person best equipped for each role will differ as well. Having the self-awareness and self-confidence to understand their own strengths and personality will increase the likelihood that the sales rep take on a role with the highest chances of success.

Bonus Content: [Infographic] Learn more about the best personality traits for sales 

Competency-Based Job Models

Structuring your job models around core competencies allows for deeper insights to the kind of candidates you should be recruiting for specific roles. Structured competency models allow for an easy and streamlined way to identify the most essential competencies for a variety of industries.

How Caliper Makes a Difference

In 2016, Caliper began to offer competency-based views in Caliper Analytics, its online People Analytics dashboard that earned us the Brandon Hall Group Gold Award for the Best Advance in Candidate Assessments Technology three times over. Since our foundation, we have focused our efforts on creating technology and assessments that help companies refine their hiring techniques when it comes to sales. By utilizing self-awareness and identifying the core competencies applicants display in the recruitment and interview processes, companies can transform how they place candidates and can drastically improve their hiring process.

Relationship building goes beyond just relating to the customers; it also entails the ability of the #sales rep to relate to their specific role in the company. @CaliperCorp has more on how #competency based hiring can lead to greater success:
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In the following Q & A, we talked to Caliper’s Director of Product Development about how the Caliper approach to competency-based job models can inform a user’s experience in Caliper Analytics, especially from the perspective of employee development:

How does a company arrive at the optimal competency job model?

By doing a formal job analysis. Depending on the specific engagement, the outcome from the job analysis may also be a unique configuration of competencies from among the 56 in our library. Or it may be completely unique to the client – especially if accompanied by a local Validation Study with data analysis – and come with fully customized competencies. It all depends on the level of need, plus one’s appetite and what makes an effective solution, obviously.

The alternative is to leverage our research by comparing what the client knows about the job to our 52 unique validated job models; if alignment is good, all the better. They can use the power of all that data behind our models to help them make those effective decisions.

What questions does the marriage of Caliper Analytics and competency modeling help leaders ponder and answer?

• How well do I, as a manager, know what makes my people tick?
• Am I placing employees in situations where they can flourish?
• Is the team faced with situations that will cause stress by putting them in performance requirements that play against their natural tendencies?

The idea here in all these examples is to use a deeper understanding of people, in comparison with performance strengths or gaps, to plot a course to maximize results.

As the interplay between competency models and Caliper Analytics evolves, what interests you most?

Using the power of research to provide people with statistically proven models to stack the deck in their favor when making a hiring decision.

The most interesting and compelling, to me, involves managing your current talent. You’re looking at people’s inherent potential and understanding how to make the most of it. You’re seeing how teams can work better together. Self-awareness is the foundation for meaningful growth. This tool can help provide that.

Interested in learning more about sales efficiency through competency modeling? Speak with one of our professionals to learn more about how the Caliper Profile and Caliper Analytics can help you remodel how you hire for your sales team.

Though it can be overlooked, employees need training and development catered to their individual personalities and learning habits. How will your team learn, grow, and thrive in your organization if they’re stuck in lengthy, unengaging training programs?

The answer is competency-based training focused on specific skills. Here’s how it can benefit your organization:

The Basics of Competency-Based Training

Competency-based training is training and development that focuses on specific competencies, or skills. What makes this style of training unique is that the training programs are broken down into individual courses, or modules. These modules focus on a single skill at a time, taking trainees through a course based on their mastery of each of the individual skills in the program. Simply put, it is personalized to better suit your development needs. Your employees are individuals, after all. They each have their own way to learn, train, and develop.

Your employees need #adaptable and #personalized training they can manage. See the basics and benefits of competency-based #training with @CaliperCorp:
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Think of a competency-based training program like an obstacle course, each portion of the obstacle course, whether it be climbing a wall or swimming through a pool, requires a different skill to complete it. Once completed, the obstacle course moves on to a new challenge that requires a new skill.

In other words, your employees that enter a competency-based training program will focus on skills or competencies, sometimes referred to as skills-based training, following the desired track until they have achieved goal completion.

Specific skills can be grouped into modules to emphasize specific types of training. For example, if you’re looking to train your sales team on a specific set of skills to improve their sales capabilities, these types of competencies can be grouped into a specific module. Through competency-based training, employees learn and demonstrate their mastery of specific skills before moving on to further segments of training.

The Benefits of Competency-Based Training

The ability to customize and tailor your training sets competency-based training above other kinds of employee development. Simply put, large-scale standardized training and development might work for some, but not all people and personalities are the same. Employees experiencing this type of program reap a myriad of benefits from a personalized training process.

Competency-based training is…

Productive

Competency-based modules are broken down by specific skills to deliver training in shorter, and more manageable doses. This frees up time your team would have spent taking the larger, more time-consuming training program.

In other words, employees can complete training modules on their own time, or the training schedule you create with them. The key takeaway here is that the schedule is in your own control. Modules are ready to be completed however you set out to accomplish them.

Bonus Material: Check out how the Caliper Precision Series can assist with competency-based training.

Adaptable

Need your entire team trained on a specific skill, but don’t have the time for the group to meet, altogether, at once? Modules are self-paced and user-managed – meaning they’re adaptable for your team to take, train, and develop skills at their own pace.

Have you ever met someone that’s incredibly talented at taking tests? Or someone who is capable of reading and comprehending text much faster than their peers? Everyone learns in their own unique way, so segmenting your training this way will cater to the individual learning styles of your team.

Every person has a unique learning style. That’s why #Training and #Development need to cater to the individual. See how competency-based training improves the professional development of your teams, with @CaliperCorp:
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Cost-efficient

Get training on the specific skills you need, when you need them. Some larger or bundled training and development programs can be costly – as they typically don’t allow you to segment the specific skills training you need. That’s where the competitive value of competency-based training comes into the fold.

Depending on your training needs, module-based training sessions can be much more cost-efficient. The best part? These microlearning training sessions save you money while still offering all the training and development benefits your organization needs (while also cutting out the training segments you don’t).

Personalized

Modify your training programs and modules to suit your interests, skills, and development needs. Remember how we talked about how individuals have their own unique learning styles? The same concept can be applied to training and development. Some people are naturally more talented at specific skills than others, and that goes for how people learn new skills, too.

With competency-based training, you can customize how your team tackles training by catering your programs to meet their individual needs. Pair the training with each individual employee’s personality assessment in order to create a more effective and targeted development program.

According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report…

• 93% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their careers.
• 68% of employees prefer to learn at work.
• 58% of employees prefer to learn at their own pace.

Competency-based training is about the professional development of your team. The secret to this method of training is that it can be paired with your other employee training and development strategies. Each training module can be used as a stand-alone training session tailoring the experience to your training goals. Need to cross-train your salespeople on a single particular skill? This makes it possible to scale up or scale down your training, for whatever you need.

Want to train your employees so they have the skills to compete with the best? With Caliper Precision Series, your company can offer self-paced microlearning around the competencies related to their skill development and professional success. Take your employees to the next level with the Caliper Precision Series.

These five traits of sales effectiveness separate the extraordinary salespeople from the rest.

Self Motivated

Top salespeople are continually learning and improving their processes to keep up with their customers and competition. They take time to understand the product, the company, and customers. With this new-found knowledge, they create a customer focused action plan. Want sales to grow? You have to stay ahead of the game, and top sales performers know this and are willing to put in the extra work to make it happen.

Did you know?

More than half of prospects want to see how the product works on the first call.

Remarkable salespeople have the focus and determination to strive for the best and more. They push past the distractions and set individual goals to be a top producer. They’re armed with a strategic action plan that guides them to reach goals and not let setbacks stand in their way.

Personable

Nobody likes to talk to someone who can’t hold a conversation or comes off cold. Every salesperson who has closed multiple deals and has a long list of clients has one thing in common – they’re personable. Customers are more attracted and likely to work with your company when your sales rep has a heightened level of emotional intelligence and can use it to create a connection with customers.

Your sales reps should be able to spark a connection and build a foundation between the customer and themselves. By doing this, your customers will feel valued and appreciated, and in the long run, will want to continue doing business with you. A benefit that comes with this is word of mouth referrals. Customers who have an incredible experience with their sales reps are likely to tell others, which can bring in more sales opportunities for your company.

Passionate & Optimistic

Top salespeople are typically positive and optimistic. They have a strong passion for the company and the products they sell. They typically have an upbeat outlook and tend to have a good sense of humor and overall fun aspect about them. While they still have those grounded traits, they make sure customers love working with your company. A top salesperson demonstrates passion every day, and it is clear that they believe in their product and their organization. This confidence and passion give customers a sense of comfort. They see their sales rep as authentic and trust what the rep is telling them.

Fast Fact:

“Less than 10 percent of top salespeople were classified as having high levels of discouragement and being frequently overwhelmed with sadness.”

Optimism plays a huge part when you separate the average salesperson and the top performer. When your sales rep uses an optimistic approach, they know what they can achieve and they don’t allow one bad day or experience to tarnish their positivity or outlook on their overall goals. They focus on what they can control and take those bad experiences as learning opportunities to do better.

Resilient

Those top performers know the feeling of being told “no” over and over, but they also know how to bounce back fast and be persistent. They know how to get the job done and keep their focus. Bouncing back can tell you a lot about a salesperson’s attitude and personality if they can jump back into the game after being discouraged. They’re likely able to take constructive feedback well and are willing to put in the hard work.

Top performers don’t get discouraged when their numbers are lower than usual but instead look for opportunities. Those extraordinary salespeople have the tenacity to push through hardships and conquer any obstacles that might get in their way.

Problem Solver

The desire to create an ultimate experience for customers is a necessary quality for sales effectiveness. A great salesperson will look for new ways to solve customers’ needs, financially and emotionally. They are able to offer the right solutions based on customer needs and present it in a way that feels genuine and empathetic. By putting your customers’ needs first your organization is seen as capable and trustworthy.

Want to learn which core competencies your sales professionals possess? Get to know them with the Caliper Profile and see how to tap into their potential. To get started, reach out to our experts today.

But what exactly makes a great team member? Caliper works closely with the NBA to determine what qualities set the top college basketball players apart from the rest of the draft class. Attributes like extreme talent, physical dominance, and determination allowed players to make it to the top. However, the studies Caliper conducted found more undeniable qualities that make a great team player.

Resilience & Level-Headedness

Caliper’s research showed that resilience and level-headedness was a general personality trait amongst stellar athletes. Their ability to overcome adversity is what makes them dedicated to their craft. Coaching comes with criticism, so being able to shoulder it with a level head makes you a valuable member to any office or team. Leaders within your squad need to inspire resilient and level-headed players.

Resilience and level-headedness existed for seasoned NBA veterans as well. Those who had a higher career free throw percentage demonstrated great resilience. They were able to block out the crowd noise and distractions night-in and night-out. It can translate to your workers, too. Compared to an impressive free throw percentage, resilience in the office can be learning from mistakes made on past projects so players can provide immediate solutions the next time around.

Research has shown players with a low turnover rate showed level-headedness and dedication to their craft. A low turnover rate comes from hard work in practice, where players are less likely to turn the ball over when the opposition pressures them. In the workplace, resilience shows itself as handling difficult questions from a client or co-worker. Working through those questions will demonstrate their dedication to providing excellent answers.

Self-Discipline

Self-discipline is one of the most critical and essential qualities to have for a team to be successful. Practice makes perfect. Athletes dedicate their time and energy to honing their craft. Great employees who practice self-discipline are destined to succeed. If your management and leaders in your organization are self-disciplined, the rest of your workforce will follow.

Cultivating an office of self-disciplined workers can be difficult. There are a handful of tactics you can take. Below are a couple of ideas you should introduce so your workers become better at what they do.

• Communicate: Clear communication is a great way to spark self-discipline and leadership. Team members need to know their roles within the organization. Spending time talking with them will ensure everyone on the team is on the same page.
• Recognize: One way to motivate your employees and promote self-discipline is to recognize desired behaviors publicly. If you see a team member stepping up to take over for someone, praise them. Showing appreciation and providing guidance will only spark more initiative and drive.

Whether it’s meeting deadlines or providing prompt and clear responses to clients and co-workers, diligence and discipline are premier qualities any manager seeks out. Great athletes demonstrate self-discipline as well. They are the first ones in the locker room and the last one to leave practice. Your top players are the ones who make the most of their time in the office and continually help out where they can.

Managers in today’s modern business world should treat their roles like coaches. Demonstrating and helping players along the way is how you can grow an empowered team.

Looking to improve the coaching in your organization? Work with Caliper! Have some questions about how our assessments can help your company? Contact us!

Quality players are essential for a successful team. So make sure your players commit to their work!