Are you ready to make the right hiring choices? According to a recently released survey of 16,000 businesses nationwide, Manpower reported that hiring will improve in the fourth quarter of 2003. Specifically, the staffing company found that 22% of companies expect to hire more staff in the last quarter of the year. If you plan to hire any salespeople, youll want to avoid some common hiring mistakes.

Hiring salespeople can be particularly challenging. When you think about it, it makes sense. Salespeople are good at selling and sometimes you can be sold a bill of goods. In any hiring decision, its easy to make a mistake. In sales, your odds of hiring the right person are 50/50 at best.

To make sure you dont sabotage your chances of success, try these five tips:

1. Use an assessment instrument. A good assessment, and there are many on the market, will often tell you what your candidate wont. Make sure your assessment instrument matches well to the type of selling you do. For example, you dont want to hire someone who is great at transactional sales if you want your salespeople to build long-term relationships with clients.

To save money, an assessment tool should be reserved for your top choices and is not necessary for every candidate. Use the first interview or a phone interview to narrow your choices before deciding who moves on.

2. Develop a standard set of questions. Ask all of your candidates the same questions. Its easy to get sidetracked by an engaging candidate and not cover everything you wanted to if you are just winging it with your questions. Using a standard set of questions will also provide you with legal protection, should there be discrimination charges brought against you. Come up with a set of questions that all candidates are asked. Ten is a good number of questions to aim for, give or take a few. You want to be able to compare the answers of all the candidates to see who is a good fit for your organization.

If youre having trouble developing the right questions, remember to keep it simple and get help if you need it. An HR consulting firm that specializes in hiring or screening candidates can provide great assistance.

3. Dont divulge too much about your company upfront. A common mistake people make when hiring is to bring in a candidate and tell them all about the company. Then, they proceed to start the interview process. A savvy salesperson will spit back to you everything you want to hear using your own words to do it.

You can tell a great deal about a salesperson by the amount of homework theyve done on the front end. So a good first question might be, Tell me why you are interested in working at our company? A good candidate will have researched your firm and prepared for the interview. Isnt that the kind of salesperson you want working for you?

4. Be tough. By being tough, I am not suggesting that you are mean or rude. Instead, you shouldnt dance around hard questions like Did you always meet or exceed your sales quota in your former job? If so, how can I verify that? If not, why not?

Another good question might be, When I call your former boss, what will he/she tell me about your performance? Whether you plan to call the boss or not, the wording of this question will let the candidate know that you mean business. Consequently, your chances of getting an honest answer will increase.

5. Do a mini-role play. Its easy for salespeople to answer typical interview questions like What are your biggest strengths? and What are your biggest weaknesses? Its much harder to role play and fake it with a canned answer. Ask the candidate how he would handle specific sales scenarios.

For instance, if the salesperson was meeting with a prospect and at the end of the meeting the salesperson asked for the business and the client replied, I need to think about it or We dont have the money in the budget. How would the salesperson respond? Using an objection about timing, price or the competition is a good way to separate the men from the boys, so you can see how the salesperson responds in a real-life situation.