The job recruitment and selection strategy included herein is meant to provide the company with a streamlined process to be used in this task and many other that would follow. This first step was to understand what other departments in the company were doing in their processes. In this regard, the sales department has been aliasing with other departments that have performed n senior management recently. In addition, the department is in the process of understanding processes followed by key competition in the process of recruiting new sales staff. The sales departments shall make good used of the relationship existing with competitors. In addition, the departments shall go through industrial literature to understand the trend in the industry in terms of change in the number of applicants, and qualified ones (CPS 23), which will help in understanding how concurrent entrants in the job market have been faring I the recruitment processes.
Methods of Attracting Applicants
Various methods shall be used in the process of attracting candidates for the vacant job position in the department. Candidates for this position would come from both inside and outside the company. Despite encouraging organizational employees to apply for the position, all candidates would be treated and tested on similar grounds. This means no preferential treatment would be accorded to candidates who are already employed in the organization. Sourcing from within would be good for the department because the recruited candidate will not need to be oriented about the company and its organizational culture (Bernthal 7), and thus save the department a lot of resources and time that would be spent on that in that process. On the other hand, recruiting from outside the organization has the benefit of bringing candidates well exposed to the working of competitors, meaning that the department and organization, in general, would benefit from fresh inputs (JMP 175). In regard to candidates that would be sourced from external sources, the department shall ensure that applicants will well be exposed to the inner workings of other organizations’ sales activities. To be specific, it shall be ensured that the candidates have the right experience in dealing directly with customers, which is based on the reason that the sales executive will serve as the go-between the company and its customer bases spread over a wide geographic region.
A special focus will be directed to the fresh MBA graduates. This is because the department intends to have fresh minds and ideas in its leadership. However, the candidates would be required to have some experience in working with sales departments of companies in a similar line of business. Leadership experiences within these candidates will be checked to ensure that they can stand the challenges posed to them. The focus on candidates from three different sources (internal, externals, and recent graduates) will mean that the department will have three distinct measures to attract applicants. The three processes are detailed below:
Internal Recruitment
As mentioned earlier, internal recruitment will aid the company in the process of training for the job, because only a few resources would be used in the process helping the new member of staff in the understanding process. Employees in the company would be informed of the open opposition through internal email to the organizational labor force. This email will be sent on a weekly basis for a month to ensure that members of the labor force have completely gotten the message. In addition, the department will ensure the use of company notice boards in communicating the same message to the labor force. The department further understands that internal candidates would most likely come from within its labor force.
In this regard, current management will ensure encouraging members of the sales labor force to apply for the position. Regarding attracting employees within the company, the department shall be quick to list competencies that make the department more desirable than others. This is based on the interdepartmental competition that exists in the company. Indeed, the sales department in the company is seen as the most competitive of all in terms of job productivity and participation in organizational activities. Based on a recent report from the appraisal committee, it has been established that the sales department’s employees are most productive, active and exemplify greater job satisfaction. All these winning competencies will be listed on company notice boards. This would be a good way of attracting members of the labor force into the department.
External Recruitment
This process shall involve recruitment from the labor market. As mentioned earlier, the company shall benefit from key competencies that would come from candidates coming from outside the organization. It has to be understood that the employees who have experience with organizational cultures of competitors will enrich those of their new employer, which would result in new cultures that would result in greater work ethic and productivity. Though the candidates will be required to have the understanding and experience of how this company’s industry works they shall also be required to have greater experience in inter-industrial connections. This is because the recruited candidate will be required to have a greater working relationship between the governments. Advertisement for the position will mostly be done through mainstream media.
However, the department shall ensure to advertise on trade journals and other publications, whose readers would most likely be sales specialists. Advertising in specialized journals has the benefit of bringing candidates that would be beneficial to the organization’s department (Eaton). Another way of attracting candidates from the sales field will be through associations meetings that are held bi-monthly in various parts of the country. This is based on fact that association meetings allow members to advertise on positions available in their respective departments. In this case, the department will have posters indicating the vacancy, requirements, and job description. In addition, senior management will be available to answer questions that may arise in the process. This will also be an opportunity for the department to have the company name more recognized within the associations, especially sales professionals that would be attracted to join the company.
Graduate Recruitment
The department shall make use of graduate recruitment job fairs to attract fresh MBA graduates to the department. This shall be done through fairs that are organized by various branches of commerce chambers. The department has thus signed for several job fairs to be held across the country during the coming months. Further, the department considers the current graduation period to be a grand opportunity that would provide a bigger pool of candidates to fill the position. Fact that many universities would be covered by recruitment will mean that the pool of candidates would have a diversity of strength, which will increase the possibility of ending up with productive sales executives. Information about the company would be provided to the candidates in an attempt of making them more aware of the organization. Having the company’s name well known to these new entrants in the labor market has the propensity of future association. A greater emphasis on this tactic is applied to universities that are close to the company headquarters, where the sales department is located. During these job fares, the department shall ensure that candidate eligibility and on-job exams are performed; it helps to shortlist candidates (Dale 119). Department representatives will thus go to their offices having a list of candidates that would be considered for interviews.
The above measures will ensure that the department gets a larger number of candidates, which will raise the possibility of getting a well-qualified member of staff. In order to ensure that the company has an assured supply of future employees in the sales department, the department shall ensure keeping contact and qualification information for the candidates, especially those who would have shown greater qualification for the post. In any case, a position becomes vacant; the department would just contact these individuals and subsequently request that they apply for the position. The department shall ensure to inform other departments on how the process was undertaken because only the best practices would be applied in the system. The successful hiring of well-qualified employees by the department and the company would have positive impacts. The labor force will further benefit from improved teamwork in respective departments. The company’s organizational culture would also benefit from the contribution made by new members of staff.
Appendix
Job Analysis
Job Title: Company Sales Manager
Reports to: Marketing Vice President
Department: Marketing
Essential functions of Sales Manager
Following are the key functions to be performed by the company’s sales manager:
Link to Consumers; The sales manager shall be the link between the company and its customers. The managers shall therefore be responsible for communicating customer complaints or any other information to the Marketing Vice President. Key duties will involve selling company products to the target market. Being the link between the company and its customers, the sales manager shall be responsible for communicating important messages to different departments; this shall make it easy for the manager to work together, and thus enable the company to reach its goals, mission, and values.
Recruiting Sales Staff; This task will involve searching for well-qualified sales staff to represent the company in different markets. The manager will also allocate duties to the newly hired sales team together with the existing sales representatives. As the overall sales team leader, the sales manager shall be responsible for motivating, monitoring, and supervising representatives’ performance both in the field and in the offices.
Setting Target and Budgets: The manager shall be responsible for setting budgets to be used in distributing company products to the markets, as well as setting targets for projected sales revenue in different markets. It shall be important to ensure that these goals are met.
Understand the Market: The sales manager shall be the source of information regarding competitors’ moves in the market, which will be important for the company because it shall be able to stay ahead of the competition after understanding rivals’ market expansion plans (Bunn & Johnson 15).
Primary Objectives
First, the Sales manager’s key objective shall be to promote the company and its products to the market in the most aggressive and beneficial manner. Means used will be the ones that will be affordable to the company; they must also help in maintaining the value of company products among consumers.
Second, The sales manager shall ensure that goods reach customers’ locations at the right time and in the form they had left company stores. This shall ensure that quality is always guaranteed, and thus prevent inconveniencing the company consumes.
Third, the manager shall pursue with zeal consumers’ loyalty to company products. This is a must achieve the goal, because it will lead to more repeated business for this company. The manager should always have in mind that most of the company’s revenue is garnered from repeat business, which should remain the case.
Fourth, the sales manager shall be liable for maintaining smooth routes of communication between the company and its customers. The manager should thus inform or train the sales team on ways of keeping consumers happy and collecting information that will e of great use for the company. The sales team should understand very well their employer’s mission, goals, and vision, which should be used in guaranteeing consumers the best services products possible.
Fifth, the sales manager shall be monitoring inventory so as to ensure that there are always enough products to be shipped to consumers’ locations when needed.
Education
A sales manager has to be knowledgeable in the following areas:
Sales and Marketing: Apart from holding a bachelor’s or higher degree in business administration, the manager must have undertaken a sales and marketing course ruing undergraduate or graduate education. A postgraduate diploma in sales and marketing will serve as a due advantage to the manager.
Language Skills: This involves the knowledge of understanding both written and spoken English. Being able to write and speak the language to a degree that can be understood by consumers is also necessary because it will make performing the duties of listening and attending to consumers’ needs.
Company Products: Having an educational background that touches on company products will make it easier for the sales manager to learn about new company products easily (Danna 194). This will benefit consumers because their questions regarding new company products, which will be explained by an individual who understands not just the product but its chemistry and history.
Customer Service: Being in contact with our customers at all times will demand the sales manager to have knowledge of consumer relations. This could originate from advertising and public relations from business classes and will come in handy as the sales manager executes various customer duties.
Management: Being the team leader of the company’s sales team will require the sales manager to be well exposed to the art of management. The sales team will be the company’s link to its company and should thus be managed well so as to leave a lasting positive impression on consumers regarding our company’s caring culture. Apart from management, the sales manager will be required to have some mathematical skills that will be needed in preparing target sales and budget allocations to various sales teams.
Experience
It shall be important for a sales manager to exemplify the following experience:
Attentive to detail: This involves the ability to listen carefully to consumers in ways that will create greater understanding. This will also help in listening and understanding instructions from superiors.
Expressive: This means that the sales manager has to be in a position to express in detail product features to consumers, which will the passage of accurate information to consumers.
Outgoing: The sales manager shall have to be experienced in mixing with a group of individuals and strike quick conversations. This is because the company sales manager will be meeting new customers that have to be interacted with as if the two parties have known each other for decades.
Negotiation oriented: This involves having the experience to make decisions in a group of people, or situations that no side holds sway. Since the company does not have cardinal rules to be followed by the sales team, it shall be upon the sales manager to lead the sales team in negotiating contacts with customers or their middlemen.
Persuasive: In reaching constructive agreements in negotiations, the sales manager has to exemplify the nature of convincing the other party into reaching mutually beneficial conclusions.
Work Environment
The sales manager will be performing tasks in different sets of environments, one being the office where alls strategies will be developed and the other being on the field while interacting with the customers. The following are some of the scenarios that the sales manager will be faced with along the line of duty:
Interacting with Senior Management; This involves regular meetings with the company’s senior management to brief on how company products are doing in the market compared to those of competing firms.
Interacting and influencing consumers; shall be different from the one in the office. The office environment is meant to be perfectly formal and is with colleagues and superiors that the sales manager knows well. However, the sales manager will be faced with a different environment in the field, because it shall involve strangers whose needs have to be met while at the same time improving their perception of the company.
Both environments have one thing in common: they provide sales managers with opportunities to crate and maintain a relationship with two groups that form key stakeholders in the company. The sales manager should use that opportunity to understand what both sides want to achieve in the long run existence of the company (Hisrich & Jackson, 8). The information gathered should be used in formulating policies that will ensure that the goals of both sides are harmonized and achieved. Meeting with these groups will hasten the manager’s understanding of the direction that sales strategies should take.
Conclusion
The sales manager job analysis detailed above highlights all the necessary requirements that a successful sales manager job applicant should hold. All the responsibilities that sales managers are tasked with are also well detailed. It has also been indicated on what successful sales managers should target at achieving in specific periods of company operations. Though not mentioned above, it is very important for sales managers to have a passion for their job, company products as well as interacting with consumers. Performing this sort of job analysis for various positions in the company is a sure way of ensuring that each individual understands what is expected of them even before they start working in a certain company (Sims152).
Application Form
Company Sales Manager
Thank you for your interest in the post of sales manager with our company. We are glad to have you as an applicant and are looking forward to working with you. Kindly complete and submit this form to our branch offices. You can also fill the application form on our company’s website.
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I ……………………………………………. (Applicant’s Name) declare that the information provided in this form is true and reflects the correct history of my education and work experience.
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Works Cited
Bunn, Albert H. & Johnson, Eugen M. Managing the SalesForce. New York: General Learning, 1973.
Danna, Anthony, J. Developing Professional Selling Skills and Techniques. St Victoria,
British Columbia: Trafford, 2005.
Hisrich, Robert, D. & Jackson, Ralph. Selling and Sales Management. Hauppauge, Barron’s Educational, 1993.
Sims, Ronald. Contemporary Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities of Human Resource Management: Charlotte, NC: IAP, 2006.
Appendix Work Cited
Bernthal, Paul. Recruitment Procedures. International Development Dimensions, Boston, 2005.
CPS. Recruitment Strategy. Washington DC, CPS, 2007.
Dale, Margaret. Recruitment and Selection Guide. New York, Kogan Page, 2003.
Eaton, Helena. Recruitment and Selection. 2007. JMU Consulting. Web.
JMP. ‘Recruitment and Selection.’ Management Practice, 4, 164-179.