U.S. businesses spend $800 billion yearly on sales force salaries and commissions and $15 billion on sales training because even one or two top sales performers can turn a yearly forecast into reality and jump-start stagnating sales.
Employers also strive to prevent sales representative turnover because it directly impacts their bottom line. Sales managers dread hearing that a star performer plans to leave since they will lose the person’s talent and product knowledge. New business could be in jeopardy as well as existing deals, and client retention may be at risk.
The best way to build and retain a good sales team is to hire the right people. Therefore, many organizations implement an industry-leading assessment solution like the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM and use aptitude tests for sales jobs.
Why You Need Aptitude Tests for Sales and Marketing
Hiring a top sales team is essential for your company to maintain its competitive edge and increase market share. Using aptitude tests for sales and marketing helps you identify candidates with the right skills and experience and determine which ones are the best fit for your corporate culture.
With aptitude tests for sales jobs, you and your team can instantly screen hundreds of applicants and compile a shortlist of promising candidates instead of manually reviewing hundreds of resumes. You will also improve hiring outcomes because your decisions will be based on hard data instead of on information candidates provide, which is often unreliable. These are some ways aptitude tests for sales and marketing help you hire top sales talent:
Streamline Hiring: You probably receive hundreds of responses for every job posting—many from unqualified candidates. Aptitude tests for sales jobs enable you to instantly identify top applicants and eliminate unqualified ones. This saves you hours you would have spent manually reviewing resumes for candidates with no chance of being hired.
Library of Validated Skills Assessments
Top assessment solutions provide pre-prepared assessments that are ready to use. The eSkill Assessment Library contains hundreds of validated job- and subject-based skills tests. You and your team can use the pre-prepared assessments or build your own aptitude tests for sales and marketing by selecting questions from multiple skills tests.
For example, suppose you are hiring sales representatives for a medical equipment company. You will want to include questions to test candidates’ sales abilities. However, you must also ensure they know the industry and its inherent regulations. So, you can include questions from the Medical Terminology, HIPAA-Health Insurance Coverage, and HIPAA-Health Privacy and Security Standards skills tests.
Realistic Simulations
Aptitude tests for sales jobs confirm that candidates have the right skills but do not show if they can apply them on the job. This is why HR teams include simulations in assessments. Simulations replicate job situations candidates will encounter if hired so you can evaluate how they perform. For example, you can ask candidates to manage situations where they must overcome objections, solve a problem for a difficult customer, or sell against a competitor to win or win back business.
Video Response Questions
You can also include video response questions in aptitude tests for sales and marketing to evaluate abilities you cannot measure on paper, such as interpersonal communication and negotiating skills. Sales representatives must sound pleasant and professional over the phone, in video meetings, and in person. By including video response questions in aptitude tests for sales jobs, you can confirm that candidates are articulate and can effectively sell the value of products and services.
Sales Aptitude Test Examples
Sales representatives must be excellent communicators and negotiators, build relationships, and gain prospects’ trust to close sales. Therefore, these are examples of sales aptitude tests that we recommend:
- Sales Representative: Evaluates candidates’ ability to sell and promote products and services to customers and prospects, generate and follow up on sales leads, close deals, and communicate effectively on the phone, by email, and in person.
- Sales Concepts: Measures applicants’ knowledge of sales strategies and tactics, professionalism, closing skills, and ability to explain the value of products and services.
- Negotiating: Assesses applicants’ persuasion and analytic abilities, relationship-building skills, strategic thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and interpersonal communication skills.
- Emotional Intelligence: Measures candidates’ social intelligence skills, how well they understand and manage their emotions, and whether they can use them productively when dealing with customers, prospects, and team members.
- Email Etiquette: Confirms candidates can compose clear, complete, and tactful emails and understand basic email etiquette.
- Writing: Evaluates candidates’ ability to organize their thoughts on paper, write clear, complete sentences, and use correct grammar and spelling.
- Videoconference Communication and Etiquette: Confirms candidates understand videoconference etiquette, know how to use video conferencing applications, and can engage participants effectively.
Get Started with Aptitude Tests for Sales and Marketing
Aptitude tests for sales and marketing are the perfect solution for businesses that want to build a top sales team. Organizations worldwide use an assessment solution like the eSkill Talent Assessment PlatformTM to identify top sales representative candidates. They also improve hiring outcomes while reducing recruiting costs and decreasing time-to-hire. Many eSkill clients have decreased hiring costs by about 70% and reduced time-to-hire by around 60%.
Are you and your team looking for a solution that provides aptitude tests for sales jobs? Contact us to request a demo and see sales aptitude test examples.
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