If you're applying for a sales job, chances are potential employers will ask you to take pre employment tests.
These tests are often used by employers to determine many aspects of a potential candidate and can include everything from personality to skills-based questions. However, some new types of tests are trying to distinguish themselves from all the others.
Traditional sales personality tests and sales aptitude tests are often called sales assessment tests, even though they are not. At the same time, conventional sales personality tests can ignore the impact of an applicant's experience, sales training and knowledge of sales techniques.
These tests can actually produce an adverse outcome and leave employers with the wrong candidate instead of the ideal one. For instance, a college graduate with no sales experience and someone with 25 years of sales experience are capable of scoring the same on a sales personality test if they share similar personality traits.
Those types of results can lead employers to make the wrong hiring decision, as the person with more experience would most likely outsell the college graduate, even though they both receive the same personality score.
Situations like these are why many employers are realizing that old sales personality tests are inadequate for hiring top salespeople. Because of this, companies are beginning to create tests that don't cater to the limitations of traditional tests.
One example is The JOY Tests of Total Sales Ability, which tests candidates for:
- sales prospecting ability
- appointment setting, cold calling, rapport and presentation ability
- objection handling and negotiating ability
- sales closing ability and asking for payment/deposit
- cementing the sale and the ability to get referrals
- computer, Internet, e-mail, CRM and sales tools ability
- miscellaneous crucial sales and marketing abilities
- sales team recruitment ability
- sales team management, leadership and motivation ability
- advertising, marketing and public relations ability
Tests such as these are able to test business development professionals at various career levels, including salespeople, sales managers, sales directors or vice presidents of sales. They also can be used for testing manufacturer's representatives, sales engineers, distributors and franchisees.
