Rule #10: Treat the Job Interview as a Sales Call

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Rule #10: Treat the job interview as a sales call, which means it's your job to disqualify.

You want your salespeople to disqualify all the prospects that should not be in your funnel, and not to fill your funnel with a lot of garbage that you're going to waste your time and company resources on. The same things holds true with you too, as a leader. You want to get rid of all the candidates that shouldn't be there. Easier said than done though, why? We're under a lot of pressure.

Hey, look, you've got to make sure you hit your revenue numbers, and you're having a part of your team isn't producing because they're not here. Also, you're under a tremendous amount of pressure because you've now got to fill that gap. You've got to fill that up. That's hard. It's really hard because now you've got to be a leader and now you're a player/coach. Now I'm in the field protecting that territory until I can get somebody. Then I put on top of that; I don't interview a lot. Maybe I interview twice a year, so I'm rusty. I have no process in place.

Here's the rule, disqualify. It's okay. Don't succumb to the pressure of, I'm a player/coach all the suddenly. It's five times more expensive to put a bad person in there. We know it costs five times the salary, so why not make it a great hire? You're going to spend hours, days, months, cleaning up your mess later, so do it up front. It's okay to disqualify. We do that in our personal lives. If you've dated, you don't marry the first person that you've talked to. It doesn't work. You date, and you say, "Can I live with that person? Is that person a good partner?"

I want you to do that with a candidate as well. I understand that it's frightening that you don't have a person there. I understand that you've got to do double work, but if you can put three components together with the mentality, it's okay if they don't qualify, you're going to be better off. A job profile, what am I looking for? A candidate profile, the search model. Then finally, a list of questions that will uncover, is this the right candidate?

All those things are the, what? The thing that'll drive that is the mindset. It's okay if this person doesn't fit. Don't spend your interview time pushing a job that doesn't make sense for this person. Most jobs aren't going to fit the applicant. Just make sure, for you, that you have the right person in the right job. Good luck.

THE SANDLER RULES FOR SALES LEADERS details a sales management process that works. It offers 49 timeless, proven principles for effective sales leadership, based on the Sandler Selling System. The book is the sequel to the Wall Street Journal bestseller THE SANDLER RULES, also authored by David Mattson.