Recruiting the Wrong Salespeople: Are the Job Ads to Blame?

Abstract The salesperson is central to the success of many organisations, yet job turnover in this role is reported as being excessive. Recruitment of these key individuals must be given a high priority, and practice should be as effective as is practical. This research examines the extent to which the job advertisement may be a contributory factor to this problem, by examining what recruiters say that they look for in today's salesperson and evaluating the potential effectiveness of advertisements placed in the printed media in the United Kingdom. Results indicate that advertised sales jobs tend to be for unqualified, relatively inexperienced, individuals, and who are relatively poorly paid. Recruitment of high quality staff to sales posts is further limited by advertisements that lack information of fundamental importance to potential applicants. Hence, at least some of the blame for poor sales staff can be attributed to the advertising of the posts and to the nature of posts that are advertised.