A Letter to Sales Leaders: Why You Can Trust our Candidates

Dear Sales Leaders,

At SalesFirst Recruiting, we don’t spend a lot of time talking about ourselves to prospective clients. Most of our business comes from word of mouth and referrals from satisfied clients. We rarely share the details of our candidate vetting process, even though it’s something we’re incredibly proud of. So, I wanted to take a moment to share how we approach identifying and presenting talent in the market. Our approach isn’t necessarily about finding the best salespeople. In fact, our focus is more on finding the most honest ones. That’s the real secret to our success: we look for truthfulness first, knowing that integrity and dedication are a huge part of the foundation for long-term success in sales.

We’ve found that honesty in candidates typically comes in three layers, and we’ve perfected our process over the last 13 years to help us identify which categories our candidates fall into. Here they are:

First, there are candidates who are genuinely honest and transparent about their achievements, failures, and growth. These are usually self-aware and confident individuals who have nothing to hide. Our process helps these candidates showcase their accomplishments, and then we guide them to share the details behind their success stories.

Second, there is a HUGE population of candidates who struggle to articulate their experiences accurately, especially when discussing their past challenges or setbacks. For these candidates, we show them the path to being forthright about their journey, helping them open up and share their story honestly. This group is chock full of great talent who have genuinely progressed in their careers but are probably not well-versed in how to properly interview. Often, they come into the process believing they have to present perfection to be taken seriously, but we help them understand that sharing their real body of work is the most effective way to approach interviews. We believe that Employers hire people they believe in.

Last, there are those who are deliberately dishonest. They hide their gaps and failures out of desperation or due to a consistently poor track record. These candidates often think they can outsmart the process, but their stories won’t pass through our line of questioning. Typically, they aren’t as good at lying as they think they are, and our structured approach exposes their inconsistencies.

A Rigorous Interview Process

Our interview process isn’t intimidating at all, and our candidates don’t feel like they are being grilled. But we definitely dig deep, asking layered and specific questions that reveal the full picture of a candidate’s experience. Rather than relying on surface-level answers, we use the same set of structured questions to verify facts and detect inconsistencies. If a candidate was attempting to be dishonest, they would need to be exceptionally skilled at lying. Unfortunately, there are some accomplished liars out there, but a good background check company can sniff them out pretty quickly.

One of the ways we ensure candidate honesty is by asking questions that require detailed, specific answers. And we ask these questions in a variety of ways using a mix of targeted and open-ended questions to gauge both competence and character. Here are some key questions from our process:

"Let’s chat about your work history – can you walk me through your last few positions and give me a quick high-level overview?"

"Tell me more about that role—what were you selling and to whom?"

"Can you tell me a bit more about your daily activity: how many calls, emails, or sales appointments you’re typically running?"

"What were your leads like—inbound or self-sourced?"

"How was your performance measured, and how did you perform against those standards?"

"How long was the sales cycle? What was the typical deal size?"

“What was your ranking on the team?”

These questions force candidates to recall details that are hard to fabricate on the spot. If a candidate struggles to provide consistent answers or changes their story throughout the conversation, it’ll be a red flag for the recruiter.

Insane Attention to Detail

We are RELENTLESS when it comes to documenting candidate information, so by the time a candidate reaches you, we can pull up just about any detail you may want to know. Whether it’s specifics about their daily activity, their sales metrics, or their goals and ambitions, we’ve got it all documented.

That’s why when you receive a candidate from us, you can be confident that they’ve either demonstrated integrity throughout the process or have been coached to value honesty over perfection. Recruiters are held to strict lines of questioning here, and those details are further reviewed by your Account Manager.

The Outcome: Truthful, Reliable Hires

At the end of the day, our process works. Reach out to us at SalesFirst Recruiting to learn more about how we make hiring easier, more transparent, and more successful.

Sincerely,

Adam Morris