Recruiting the wrong salespeople - Are the job ads to blame?

The salesperson is central to the success of many organisations, yet job tu rnover in this role is reported as being excessive. Recruitment of these ke y individuals must be given a high priority, and practice should be as effe ctive as is practical. This research examines the extent to which the job a dvertisement may be a contributory factor to this problem, by examining wha t recruiters say that they look for in today's salesperson and evaluating t he potential effectiveness of advertisements placed in the printed media in the United Kingdom. Results indicate that advertised sales jobs tend to be for unqualified, relatively inexperienced, individuals, and who are relati vely poorly paid. Recruitment of high quality staff to sales posts is furth er limited by advertisements that lack information of fundamental importanc e to potential applicants. Hence, at least some of the blame for poor sales staff can be attributed to the advertising of the posts and to the nature of posts that are advertised. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights res erved.