Top Sales Manager Blog

Without even talking to a sales candidate face to face, you can tell a lot about a potential sales candidate by simply analyzing their resume.

In this sales training series on screening sales resumes we tell you exactly how to do it…so you can get your sales superstar quickly…while wasting minimal time.

Age, GPA and Education

They tell you in every interviewing course or class you ever take and in every interview book you ever read…

Human Resources rails you for it if you ever ask it…

Its the “age question”.

OK, so keep everyone happy (and you from any sort of legal issues) – don’t ask it, just figure it out instead. Either way, you’re only in the resume screening phase, so don’t sweat it.

Determining the age of a sales candidate is an important part of the resume screening phase of hiring a sales person. As important is examining their degree and GPA – very important tidbits of info you can gather way prior to meeting a candidate. In this tip, we show you how to do it so you can screen out the junk and get to the good.

1. Determine their age by when they graduated from college.

If they graduated from college in 1992, than as of this writing, the candidate would be roughly 37 years of age or so.  Not that age really matters, but at this stage all you are trying to do is to get a clear sense as to who the person is, so gaining a mental picture of their approximate age is a useful tool to deploy.

Whatever you do, don’t discriminate due to age, because great sales people come in all sizes and shapes, as well as all ages.

2. Is there a Grade Point Average?

Under the “Education” section, you’ll either find a G.P.A. listed or not. The G.P.A. is a good indicator of the “self-starting”, internally-driven nature of the candidate. If there is no GPA, there’s probably a reason why. It simply means its not that good.

GPAs are easy to check and are done in most background checks with employers, so if its missing, that means that the candidate purposely chose not put it on there.

In my opinion, if you had a high GPA in college, you were either naturally smart, very disciplined or both. As you may know, there are a lot of distractions in college, so a candidate who achieved a high GPA may indicate that he is impervious to distractions, self-starting and focused – all good attributes for a sales candidate.

3. Do they have an advanced degree?

If they do, then that’s great. That degree, even though it looks real good, won’t necessarily help them sell any better however.

If they are in the process of completing their advanced degree, then the current GPA will tell you a lot about their ability to manage time effectively.

Even better, if they are pursuing an advanced degree and concurrently have outstanding sales accolades, then you may have found your next sales executive!

However, be cognizant of your company’s tuition reimbursement program, because the candidate is bound to ask you in the interview, so do your homework.

To learn more about sales management training, get our free video on the sidebar of this post or by clicking here.

Please post you comment and insights below.

Filed under: Hiring by ralphburns