Welcome to week 4 of our blog series on the predictive demographic attributes of top competitive sales hires. For those just joining us, the three previous characteristics that were covered were: (1) Coming from a Warm Referral Source; (2) Being Employed at the Time of Applying; (3) Possessing at least 3 Years of Competitive Sales Experience.
This week’s predictive demographic trait is JOB STABILITY.
Our data clearly shows that sales rep hires with 2 or fewer full time jobs in the past five years, significantly outperform and are retained at a much higher rate than those with more career movement.
As illustrated to the left, sales rep hires with previous job stability provide a “double whammy” ROI, whereby they perform above average and are retained at a substantially higher rate. Let us use a company of 100 sales reps as an example:
Average 1st Year Production: $200,000
Average Cost of Hiring / Training / Onboarding: $20,000
At the end of 12 months, this organization would have an additional 19 reps still active, all of whom would be performing 16% above the company production average. As such, this top line ROI reflects an additional $608,000 in sales revenue in the first year alone. Consequently, there is a top end ROI due to the elevated production levels, and a simultaneous bottom-line savings associated with the reduced costs of not having to train and on-board 19 new sales reps. This bottom line savings is $380,000, which brings the total ROI associated with hiring sales reps with previous job stability for this relatively small company to almost $1M in the first year.
The most likely explanation for this finding is that job stability is an indirect measure of commitment. Individuals who demonstrate job stability appear to be more selective in the careers they choose and are more committed to excelling and growing within the organization. Individuals who demonstrate a pattern of “job jumping” are likely unsure of what they are looking for in a career, and thus are prone to “job sampling” or simply taking a job to change their current situation (e.g., unemployed, unsatisfying job). Consequently, as the title of this blog suggests, finding candidates with an exceptionally stable job history, is a good predictor of their probability to stay with you.
Stay tuned for next weeks installment where we will unveil the 5th predictive demographic trait…