So why is Misalignment Between Talent and Sales such an issue? Well, hiring quality candidates these days should be a more straightforward endeavor, but it seems to be getting harder.

As companies need to ramp up their staffing, and startups seem to need to fill in all positions, talent acquisition teams are doing their best to keep up with all the demands of the different departments.

Also, these types of roles are all different. For example, the path needed to recruit an outbound sales development representative position versus an inbound market development representative is different. Therefore, recruiting and sales development teams need to be as aligned as possible to ensure the right hiring occurs.

Why does misalignment between talent and sales teams happen?

Often with the rapid approval and demand for sales talent, sales leaders are quick to communicate to their talent teams that they need a particular number of roles filled. However, they can also not take the time to provide the details of the position. Including the ideal characteristics, and compensation requirements. This leaves already overburdened talent teams guessing the specifics and details of the role and posting the wrong conditions. In turn, this leads to a longer time to hire or, even worse, the bad hire. 

The consequences of this will ultimately affect revenue growth. Sales and Talent organizations are in constant contact. Say one day they're looking for a transactional sales role to a consultative role, to an "experienced sales development representative" who is familiar with sales tools to an entry-level individual that can be taught, and there's a poor articulation of the requirements of what exactly the role entails. As a result, there's a lot of back and forth between the sales and recruitment teams. All for trying to nail down just the requirements of the positions before the recruitment itself can even begin.

In some cases, this can drag out for weeks. That can delay the entire recruitment cycle, as many experienced candidates need to provide notice to their prior employer to switch over.

Why is this important?

Sales positions are critical, especially those in the Business to Business (B2B) technology sector. These sales-generating positions provide the necessary cash flow for companies to survive and eventually grow. Even if these positions are entry-level sales development representatives, they help build out the pathway you can nurture into full-fledged paying clients.

Getting the right type of talent for these types of positions needs to happen as early as possible within the company. This is because it can take time to generate revenues from these activities.

What can be done?

A great way to circumvent this is to work with the right type of partnerships from the get-go. Since it seems that the sales representatives cannot fully describe their role in some cases beyond sales, and recruiters have full training or capability to properly vet candidates, especially on the ground level of experience, work with the recruitment company who can fill these in.

When you work with us at LaunchSource, you'll have access to a talent marketplace focused entirely on sales candidates for the sales development representative role. These candidates have full vetting ahead of time, so you'll know exactly what you're getting when you consider them. It's easy to have an introduction simply with a click, and you'll be able to continue along the process smoothly.

Don’t let a critical role get in the way of your company’s growth strategy any longer. You’ll thank yourself later.