According to Leadership IQ “46% of newly hired employees will fail within 18 months” and “Only 19% of newly hired employees will achieve unequivocal success”.

Also, according to Leadership IQ, “Attitudes drive 89% of hiring failures, while technical skills account for only 11% of hiring failures.”

Sales and Business Development roles are no exception to this, and yet the costs of getting it wrong are eye wateringly painful.

So, here’s my top tip to get it right every time…

Always start with the end in mind, so assess, deeply understand and rigorously build the desired profile of your ideal candidate.

Ensure your hiring team are all in agreement about the desired candidate profile before you start.

What experience, skills, knowledge, technical or scientific background are absolutely necessary.

Eliminate the fluff, focus on the absolute must haves, because assuming you want a ROCK STAR, the big question should be “Is the candidate one of life’s winners?”

What have they excelled in, and on questioning what did it come down to ultimately?

The correct answer is invariably their own attitude, and if your candidate falls short there, they will subconsciously find a way to fall short in the role.

Understand your own culture (be brutally honest!) and hence what sort of people are going to fit naturally into your company.

Most hiring processes are too superficial as they are preoccupied with superficial fit, skills, knowledge and experience, which I think of as the “Can they do the job factors”.

They ignore the “Will they do the job factors”, which is all about understanding your own culture and the degree of fit with the candidate’s own attitude and behavioral map.

Psychometric profiling is priceless here, and if you’re not already using it you’re missing a trick.

Get this right, and you will have defused the single biggest reason why bad hires routinely happen.

Please get in touch if you would like to know more about psychometric profiling and how it could help you eliminate bad hires.