Look Beyond the Resume

Recruiters: Stop Hiring Salespeople Based Only on Who Has “Sales” on Their Résumé

When hiring for sales, whether someone is selling products, services, partnerships, or solutions, direct sales experience should not be the only qualification.

Some of the strongest sales talent is hiding behind a different job title.

Here’s what recruiters should be looking for:

Curiosity

Great salespeople ask strong questions. They want to understand the customer, the challenge, and what is driving the decision before they ever start pitching.

Emotional Intelligence

Can they read the room, adapt their communication style, recognize hesitation, build trust, and connect with different personalities?

Resilience

Sales comes with rejection. Strong candidates can hear “no,” learn from it, adjust, and keep moving without becoming discouraged or overly aggressive.

Strategic Thinking

Sales is more than calls and activity metrics. High performers know how to prioritize opportunities, manage relationships, follow up intentionally, and connect their activity to results.

Coachability

Can they receive feedback, change their approach, learn a new market, and apply what they learn?

Communication & Storytelling

Customers rarely buy because someone memorized every feature. They buy because someone clearly connected the solution to a need that matters.

Recruiters should also pay closer attention to transferable skills.

Customer service professionals understand customers and problem-solving.

Teachers know how to educate, influence, communicate, and manage objections.

Hospitality professionals know relationship-building, service recovery, and how to create positive experiences.

Fundraisers understand prospecting, storytelling, relationship development, making the ask, and follow-up.

Recruiters and account managers understand discovery, pipelines, negotiation, relationship management, and closing.

Project and program managers bring stakeholder management, strategic thinking, executive communication, presentations, and influence without authority.

Those are sales skills.

The better hiring question isn’t always:

“How many years of sales experience do they have?”

Ask:

“Have they demonstrated the behaviors and transferable skills required to succeed in sales?”

You can teach your CRM, product, pricing, and sales process.

It is much harder to teach curiosity, emotional intelligence, resilience, business acumen, and the ability to build trust.

The best salesperson in your applicant pool may not have “sales” anywhere in their current title.

Hire for capability, not just the title.

#sales #transferableskill #recruiting #agameadvisors