A strong sales strategy starts with building a high-performing team. Sales talent drives revenue, accelerates growth, and creates a competitive advantage. With 54% of sales professionals saying selling has become more challenging this year, hiring the right people is more important than ever.
This guide will walk you through identifying, attracting, and onboarding top sales talent—people who consistently exceed targets, push growth forward, and keep your business ahead of the competition.
How to Hire Top Sales Reps Step By Step
Hiring top sales talent goes beyond filling a position. It’s about finding the right people who align with your organization’s goals and can drive meaningful results.
📖 Related Read: How to Build a Great Sales Team From the Ground Up
The process isn’t always simple, but most times we may not be measuring what we are looking for in an interview process so a structured approach can make it more efficient. Here’s how to do it.👇
1. Define Your Ideal Candidate Profile
Start by defining the type of salesperson who will thrive in your organization. Are you looking for a strong relative experience to shorten ramp time or a higher degree of intrinsics you can further develop. Meaning are where do you land around buy vs build?
Consider your sales motion—does success depend on managing a complex buying process, or is it a consultative approach to challenge status quo or… does it require velocity and is it more transactional? Industry experience, adaptability, and cultural fit also play a role. If you don’t hire and fire on your company values you don’t have values.
Once you have a clear profile, meaning you’ve taken the time to study your top AEs then you can create job descriptions that attract the right candidates, structure interviews to assess key traits and build a team that consistently drives revenue and growth.
2. Craft a Role that describes who they’ll become
Skip the cookie-cutter job descriptions. If you want top-tier reps, you need to sell the role like you sell your product—clear, compelling, and specific.
Lay out exactly how this position drives personal growth for them and what challenges they’ll tackle. And don’t forget to highlight your culture and ability to impact the company at this stage. The best candidates aren’t just looking for a job—they’re looking to be a part of a broader story and how this role is relevant to their journey.
3. Focus on Key Traits Also
Skills are essential, but they’re not everything. You can train a rep on your product and process, but you can’t teach them everything. It’s one thing for them to know what they should do but another to do what you know. Focus on the traits that separate top performers from the pack. Look for candidates who are:
- Curious: Drives better discovery. According to Harvard Business Review, highly curious people are more effective at problem-solving and uncovering customer needs. Great sales reps don’t just pitch — they ask thoughtful questions, dig deeper, and seek to understand what truly matters to the buyer.
- Coachable: Top performers aren’t just talented — they’re teachable. Research from SalesHacker shows that coachable reps ramp 20% faster and are more likely to hit quota consistently. Look for candidates who actively seek feedback, show humility, and demonstrate a willingness to improve and adapt.
- Resilient: Research shows that only 29% of sales close successfully, so you must hire a sales rep who can bounce back quickly and learn from negative experiences.
- Drive: Overachievers welcome. Look for candidates with a proven track record of meeting and exceeding targets.
- Empathy: Qualtrics suggests that 63% of customers believe businesses need to care more about them, so having somebody on your team who can effectively connect with the customer can win the sale. Empathetic sales reps utilize active listening skills across all communication channels, establishing deeper customer relationships.
4. Evaluate Core Sales Skills
Specific sales skills are non-negotiable for a high-performing sales representative:
- Communication skills: Sales is all about what the buyer understands, not what is said. Whether it’s cold calls, discovery meetings, or high-stakes negotiations, your reps need to be articulate, consultative, and able to read the room. Strong interpersonal skills make the difference between a lost deal and a closed one.
- Presentation skills: B2B sales often means pitching effectively, so confidence is key. A great rep knows how to tailor their message to different audiences, keep prospects engaged, and deliver a compelling value proposition with a unique point of view.
- Tech skills: Sales today is powered by AI-tools—CRM automation, insights, analytics, and signal software. Reps who can navigate tech smoothly will find deals faster, stay organized, and spend more time selling instead of struggling with systems or manual work
5. Build a Strategic Interview Process
Your interview process should include a combination of techniques to assess both DNA and relevant experience. You can include a variety of formats:
- Video interviews: Quick, efficient, and a great way to gauge first impressions. Have them tell their story, if they can’t do that well think of other stories they’ll tell. Can they hold a conversation? Do they sound confident and engaging? This step helps you filter out candidates who might struggle customer facing.
- Show me sessions: Forget hypotheticals—give them a real sales scenario. How do the manage a book of business? Have them show you examples of emails that yielded meetings last week. Have them walk you through a deal that closed this month from meeting source to CW.
- Behavioral questions: Open-ended, situation-based questions give insight into how candidates approach challenges. Ask about a time they lost a deal—what went wrong, and what did they learn? Their answers will show whether they have the resilience and problem-solving skills to succeed.
6. Assess for Growth Potential, Not Just Experience
Experience matters, but don't get stuck chasing tenure over talent. A hungry, coachable rep with the right mindset can outproduce a veteran who's set in their ways. Look for adaptability, a willingness to learn, and that drive to win—because a high-potential rookie with the right work ethic can be shaped into a sales powerhouse.
7. Onboard and Train for Success
Unfortunately, your job isn't done yet. Effective onboarding and training are essential to setting your new team members up for success. The right tools can make this process faster and more efficient—this is where sales intelligence solutions like Momentum come in.
Momentum’s AI sales coaching with automated insights provides a real-time view of performance metrics, helping you spot patterns and improve efficiency. The automated AI summaries offer immediate feedback on calls, allowing sales reps to receive tailored guidance right away.
The Ask Momentum bot can even integrate with your Slack workspace, creating custom training frameworks based on real-life call data. While continuous learning is key, these coaching capabilities also serve as a powerful onboarding tool, allowing new hires to learn the ropes through live examples and past conversations.
🔎 Where to Look to Hire Sales Reps
A strategic recruitment strategy should include a multi-channel approach to build a strong pipeline of qualified candidates.
Here are some of the places where you can begin your search:
- Your network: Know entities carry the least risk but maybe not the highest upsdie, but the real question is are you worthy to be followed
- Sales professional communities: Go where the best reps hang out. Industry forums, networking groups, and sales-specific communities are goldmines for talent.
- LinkedIn: You're missing out if you’re not actively recruiting here. Post job openings, search for top reps, and don’t be afraid to DM potential candidates for a quick chat.
- Employee referral: Your team knows what it takes to win—tap into their network with a solid referral program. Great reps know other great reps.
Stack these channels, and you’ll build a hiring pipeline that delivers real closers.
🚩 Interview Red Flags
Bad hires drain time and money—catch red flags early, and you won’t have to clean up the mess later. Watch for these warning signs:
- Lack of preparation: If they don’t bother researching your company, they won’t bother putting in the extra effort for prospects.
- Poor communication: Sales is all about clarity and persuasion. If they fumble answers, can’t listen, or push too hard, they’ll struggle on the field.
- Salary-focused: If the first (and only) thing they care about is compensation, but they haven’t asked about the role or team, they’re probably just chasing a check, not a career.
- Inconsistent answers: Inconsistent answers or dodged questions? It could be a sign they stretched the truth on their résumé.
- Overpromising: Be skeptical if they claim to have crushed quota every year but struggle to explain how. Real top performers can break down their wins.
- Poor cultural fit: Sales is a team sport. If their attitude, work style, or energy doesn’t match your environment, it won’t work long-term.
Final Thoughts: Create a Repeatable Process for Hiring Top Sales Talent
Great sales teams don’t happen by chance. You need a straightforward, repeatable process to find, train, and grow top talent. Know what makes a great rep, use the right hiring channels, and invest in onboarding that sets them up to win.
Make hiring a strength, not a struggle. With the right system, you’ll always have strong reps ready to drive revenue. Momentum can help—reach out today and take your sales team to the next level.