Over 50% of All Sales Hires Fail
Over half of all sales hires fail, according to a survey of 500 sales and business leaders released today by IPX
● 50% of sales hire, business leaders confirm
● psychometric testing does not work for sales people
● new AI-powered platform has 85% effectiveness
It’s long been known that recruiting salespeople is a fiendishly difficult thing to get right.
Now a new survey of 500 sales and business leaders, with input from the likes of Amazon, Rolls Royce and checkout.com, reveals the full extent of the problem:
● 85% of business and sales leaders say over 50% of sales hire fail
● 55% believe more than 66% sales hire fail
So what’s the cause?
The survey reveals the top reasons why salespeople are difficult to recruit effectively:
● errors in hiring process (28%)
● lack of competency (28%)
● lack of effort (21%)
● lack of training (14%)
‘These results confirm what we’ve long known from our own client feedback and research,’ says Paul Jackson, ceo of IPX, which commissioned the survey by Incite. ‘Sales hiring simply doesn’t work when you rely on guesswork or gut instinct - both of which are notoriously unreliable.
‘Hiring salespeople effectively is incredibly difficult,’ agrees Phil Guest, whose company Revcelerate builds sales teams for fast-growth tech companies.
‘One issue is that salespeople by nature talk a very good game, and they are also good at covering up flaws or gaps in their skillset or experience. Hirers can’t just rely on intuition or chemistry - and it takes a lot of expertise and experience to get past those defences.’
Paul Jackson adds: ‘Recruiters make poor decisions and choices, sometimes through unconscious bias or sometimes because they’re recruiting the person they hope to see, rather than the person that’s actually in front of them.
‘Yet the costs of getting sales hires wrong are heavy: wasted time and resource for sales leaders, additional recruitment costs, pipeline and target delays, and team motivation issues.
‘So any business that can address this issue can save costs, drive up performance, and - given how widespread the problem is, as evidenced by the survey - gain a significant competitive edge.’
A new solution for an age-old problem
When asked how to improve the situation, sales and business leaders were only cautiously optimistic about traditional psychometric tests, with:
● 60% saying they sometimes work
● 21% reporting they hardly ever work
Some 50%, however, say they look to AI to take precedence over intuition in the hiring process
This week, sales tech specialists IPX have launched Sales Metric™, a proprietary algorithm that can accurately predict the success of potential sales hires. It has a track record of turning that 50% failure rate into an 85% success rate.
Sales Metric™ compares candidates against 72,000 data points that together benchmark the key attributes of the world’s best-performing sellers.
The accuracy of the data has been confirmed by real-world validation: IPX followed up on each candidate successfully placed by the Sales Metric™ assessment after six and then 12 months, establishing a direct correlation between assessment score and enduring success in the role.
So candidates who score highly on Sales Metric™ are statistically much more likely to work out and perform well.
Sales and business leaders can request a free trial of Sales Metric™ by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Notes for editors
It’s long been known that recruiting salespeople is a fiendishly difficult thing to get right.
Now a new survey of 500 sales and business leaders, with input from the likes of Amazon, Rolls Royce and checkout.com, reveals the full extent of the problem:
$1● 85% of business and sales leaders say over 50% of sales hire fail
55% believe more than 66% sales hire fail
