Meet frequently with your leaders to keep a pulse on what is going on across the business.

We suggest meeting once a week to discuss problems that surfaced during that week. Plus, monthly with People Ops and Finance to do a deeper dive into what each team needs and think critically (and cross-functionally) about the problems each team is trying to solve.

🔥 Tip: Look for patterns that emerge about similar issues facing various leaders or teams to find the problem’s root. That way, you aren’t making a “snap-hire.” Meaning, a hire that solves a symptom of a larger (and probably more complicated) problem.

Once you’ve established what problem needs to be solved, it’s time to write a role description that will attract high-fit candidates. Work with the Hiring Manager to craft the right description that will attract your ideal candidates!

🔥 Tip: Be specific. Focus your efforts on attracting quality, highly aligned candidates over quantity.

As you work with the Hiring Manager on crafting the job description, ask questions like:

• “What will the day-to-day look like for this new hire?”
• “What problem is this person trying to solve?”
• “What would success look like in this role?”
• “What KPIs/metrics will this person impact most dramatically?”
• “What processes will they improve?”
• “What are they taking off your plate?”

After taking tons of notes, craft a role description that will attract someone specifically suited for the problem this role is going to solve!

Use the job description template to make sure you capture all the information you need to build a high-impact job description.

Here’s an example of how to write a job description for Trainual’s Sales Specialist role.

TL;DR

You thrive in high-volume sales environments. Partnering with small and medium-sized businesses to create efficiencies in their business is your jam. And, you know how to hit the phones to close business.

What you will own & improve:

1. Converting leads in the free trial to paying customers: You will engage with leads during their free trial to help them convert to a paid account! You will achieve this by evangelizing the product through a consultative sales process.
2. Closing leads: You understand the value of playbook software. And you know how to position the unique value proposition for organizations.
3. Lead & customer experience: You will ensure all assigned leads and customers have an incredible experience with Trainual – regardless of whether they decide to use the product.

What you already know:

1. The art of storytelling & closing: You know how to tell a story that weaves buying reasons and objections into the narrative. You are compelling, yet consultative, always keeping the customer’s needs top of mind.
2. How to manage a quota: Trainual is a volume-based sales environment with ample opportunities to hit or exceed goals. But this high-volume environment requires an organized, hungry candidate that can manage their own pipeline and meet their goals.
3. How to collaborate as a team: At Trainual, our collaborative, team-based approach is critical to our internal and customer success.

What you will learn:

1. How to use our tools: You will get a crash course in Trainual (obviously), Hubspot, Aircall, SaaS Admin, and Stripe. Plus, you’ll learn to leverage technology for automation and efficiency.
2. How to prospect larger accounts: You will be able to grow into a position where you generate and engage with leads of a larger deal size in both an inbound and outbound capacity.
3. Everything about Trainual: You will gain a thorough understanding of the products and services Trainual offers to help every business have a playbook!

How success is measured:

This role is simple: Close assigned leads into paying customers. It’s a volume-based game, so more is better.

The job scorecard is a snapshot of each role. What you expect from the position, key responsibilities, and metrics to measure success included.

Translate the job description into the job scorecard using the job scorecard template.

🔥 Tip: Share this with your hiring team and your newly hired employee to set clear accurate expectations!

Determining the right role to hire, clearly articulating what they will do, and designing the proper evaluation process can take time. So, let’s walk through an example together!

Once you’ve determined the role your organization needs, built a specific and accurate job description, it’s time to align the role with specific questions so the interview squad is evaluating against the proper criteria to hire a high-fit candidate!

Let’s use the Trainual Sales Specialist again as our example:

Interview #1: Pops (AKA HR) qualifying call (60-min interview)

Sample questions include:

1. Why Trainual? How would you describe our product to a potential customer in less than 30 seconds?
2. Why are you looking for a new role? Why right now? Why this role?
3. Have you ever had a quota before? Over the last year, how many months slash quarters were you on the plan or exceeded plan?
4. Where do you get your leads? How many do you usually get? And what is your current conversion rate?
5. Who decided what markets you would own?
6. Tell me your story…
7. Listen to their professional story.
8. What are three role-related tasks you are incredible at?
9. Ask for a specific example for each.
10. What are three areas in which you need to grow? Or, What are three things slash responsibilities you don’t want to do in your next role & why?
11. Ask for a specific example for each.
12. What is your superpower?
13. What do you never want to do again?
14. What is your favorite role? What is your least favorite role? And why?
15. Answer questions and pitch the Trainual team, growth path, culture, and more.
16. What are your compensation expectations? +Share our comp plan, benefits, culture

Interview #2: Zoom with their hiring manager (30-min interview)

This interview focuses on qualifying situational sales behaviors and skills. For example, how have they handled pricing objections or a high volume role with massive call lists at other companies?

Sample questions include:

1. Each week we have approximately 250 prospects whose trial ends without converting to paid. We have emails for all and phone numbers for most. At a high level, what would your strategy and outreach look like to convert them?
2. Call campaigns often result in leaving a lot of voicemails. In your past experience, what voicemail messaging have you found successful in getting prospects to call you back?
3. Scenario 1: You connect with a prospect whose trial has ended, and they tell you they didn’t convert because they didn’t really have time to try the software. What is your response?
4. Scenario 2: You connect with a prospect whose trial has ended, and they tell you they didn’t convert because the cost was too high. What is your response?
5. Scenario 3: You get an inbound lead for a prospect interested in Trainual (they have not started a trial yet). What would your goals be for this first conversation? What questions would you ask them?
6. How would SMB customers measure the success of Trainual? What are the outcomes they are trying to achieve? How would they measure ROI?

Interview #3: Peer Zoom interview with a representative from Sales & CS (45-min interview)

The intention of this peer interview is twofold. One, sell them on Trainual. And two, ensure they can do the role by digging into the day in the life of their past experience with behavioral interview questions.

Sales-focused questions include:

1. Tell me about a time you missed quota and adjusted your strategy in the next quarter.
2. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a rude customer.
3. Tell me about a time you had to deal with a complex sales deal and had to strategize a way to make something work through creative problem-solving.
4. Do you have experience in creating custom sales slash pitch decks? If so, what type of programs did you use for this?
5. Do you still have relationships with your past clients? Tell me about one of your favorite clients that you’ve worked with
6. Tell me about one time how you handled letting a prospect know that your solution is not the best fit to solve their immediate problems.
7. Are you familiar with a CRM system? Tell me about how you manage your time between prospect conversations, follow-up examples, and how many times you touch them throughout the sales process.
8. If you had a choice to be the most intelligent business professional or to be kind and curious, which would you choose and why?
9. When you feel overwhelmed, how do you re-shift and focus your mind?
10. Tell me about one of your favorite leadership or sales books slash movies that made a big impact on your professional development.

CS-focused questions include:

1. Tell me about ways that you have expressed empathy to sales prospects.
2. Based on your experience with SMBs, what are some daily challenges that you believe business owners and managers face?
3. Tell me about a time when a sales prospect gave you a bogus excuse or clearly fictional information. How did you handle the follow-up?
4. What sources of information have you used in the past to research a sales prospect? And what their needs might be?
5. Tell me about a time when you and one of your teammates disagreed about how to handle a sales prospect or deal? How did you resolve it? What would you do differently next time?

Interview #4: Product demo & closing interview with the hiring manager (60-min interview)