What It Takes to Recruit Sales Employees

Every business has something to sell-but those who don't successfully recruit and retain talented corporate and account sales employees to make those sales will not see the financial return they need to operate and grow. So why should HR care? With 126,437 corporate and account sales jobs currently open across the U.S., employers are in a tight battle to recruit & retain these crucial roles to increase revenue. But before a sale can be made, HR acts as the salesperson recruiting the right talent to directly impact the bottom line. What does HR need to know? Glassdoor has released a new report identifying the Highest Paying Companies & Cities for Sales Jobs. For HR, this report provides a breakdown of how much corporate and account sales employees earn on average, how their total pay is split between base salary and commission, and a comparison of what sales employees are getting paid, broken down by total pay, base salary and commission, by city. If a company is not offering a competitive compensation package, it's likely losing out on quality talent. As part of this, we want to help HR even more so we're offering 3 things HR should keep in mind to effectively recruit quality sales employees: #1: Make Sure Your Compensation Package is Competitive According to various Glassdoor member surveys, we know that salary is the #1 factor job seekers consider when determining where to work. So, if you're recruiting sales employees, you need to know what fair market value is for each city you're recruiting in, ensure that's what you're paying, and get senior leadership approval on these salaries. In the world of sales, we know that the average corporate and account sales employee reports their base salary is 67% of their total pay, and commission accounts for 32% of their total pay. They also report a median base salary of $50,000 and a median commission of $25,000 at a national level. For detail on how this breaks out and differs across more than 80 U.S. cities, see the complete results of our report. They key is knowing what fair market value is for a specific city and role, then making sure you are paying competitively to help your efforts of recruiting the very best. #2: Know Where Your Competition Is As part of the recruiting puzzle, you've also got to know where your competition is because this will likely play a role in your odds of recruiting effectively - either giving you a competitive edge if there is less competition, or perhaps making your process longer and tougher if you are in a saturated market where demand is high. For instance, as we see in this report, the top three cities with the highest number of sales openings right now include: New York City (#1, 8,174 current job openings) Chicago, IL (#2, 5,308), and Los Angeles, CA (#3, 4,899). However, cities like San Antonio, TX, Columbus, OH and Salt Lake City, UT all have fewer than 1,000 openings.  By knowing where your competition is, and isn't, this can be an added data point for you to consider when you launch your job advertising and targeting efforts for these roles. #3: Put Your Jobs Where the Candidates Are This final part of the equation is a no brainer - if your open jobs are not where the job candidates are, you may be shooting yourself in the foot to win the recruiting game. On Glassdoor, for instance, we welcome millions of job seekers each month, deliver a higher quality candidate to employers than CareerBuilder, and at a fraction of the cost compared to LinkedIn. One great and affordable way to make sure your jobs are in front of quality candidates is to post them yourself as needed. Using a tool such as Glassdoor's Job Posting Solution is a great first step, and allows you to manage which jobs you want to post as needed. Learn more. Want to know more about how to recruit sales employees? Check out Glassdoor's survey on How to Recruit Sales.