Hiring Salespeople for Gender Diversity
Here at Rainmakers, we are helping sales teams to hire the best talent in the industry. One request always comes up: “How do we hire more female candidates?” Companies are more focused than ever on building a diverse workforce, which makes for an even more competitive talent market.
It’s no secret that there are fewer women in tech sales than there are men. By using the same old recruiting strategies, companies are going to perpetuate this ratio.
- Broaden your hiring profile – many companies screen their sales candidates with only two criteria: what companies they have worked at, and what university they attended. While there’s no doubt these candidates may be a good fit, it will continue to yield the same results in terms of hiring. It’s important that companies start to think outside the box and find overlapping sales experience rather than just looking at logos. One option is to use a platform like Rainmakers that provides objective sales data for candidates.
- Create standardized interview questions across the board – Hiring teams have now begun to create “interview question banks” for hiring managers to use when interviewing. This allows for the same questions to be asked for each candidate coming through the door, and helps to further eliminate unintentional bias.
- Re-write your job descriptions to attract more diverse candidates – Women are much less likely to apply for a job if they don’t meet 100% of the criteria, compared to male candidates who apply even if they only meet 60% (Hewlett Packard Internal Report). Rewriting your sales job description to focus on what the candidate would be responsible for accomplishing rather than a bulleted list of qualifications will make a big difference.
- Create a diverse interview team – a candidate’s first interaction with a company will usually take place with the interview team. With a diverse interview team, candidates from underrepresented demographics will feel more comfortable and less alienated.
We will be continuing the discussion around this and related topics in upcoming blog posts, as well as our live event, which we encourage all to attend.
Women in Tech Sales- Event Details
When: December 4th, 2018 at 6:00PM
SPEAKERS
Carla Sparolini
VP of Commercial Sales @ Salesforce
Jeanne Dewitt
Head of Sales, US & Canada @ Stripe
Aliisa Rosenthal
VP Sales @ Walkme
Rebecca Olson
VP Strategic Accounts @ Gainsight
MODERATED BY
Brooke Garnder
RVP of ISV Sales @ Salesforce
Where:
225 Bush Street
#2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA
94104
Rainmaker Contributors- Emma Schumacher and Mike Fossi
