Recruitment to Sales
Discussion
Interested to hear from anyone who has made this switch? Most of my career has been in technical/professional recruitment across a range of industries and I'm interested in trying something new. Jumping over to the sales side seem like an obvious move. How easy was it to make the transition, and are you glad you did? Any significant difficulties?
Target field would be engineering for the oil & gas sector as I know the sector reasonably well and find it interesting, and there seem to be a lot of these sort of companies based where I live (north east). However I realise a lot of times people in these roles come from a technical background as well, which I don't.
Sales Managers/Directors/employers - how would you view this sort of background? Have you hired people before? Would you again? And what in particular would you look out for when doing so in future?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Target field would be engineering for the oil & gas sector as I know the sector reasonably well and find it interesting, and there seem to be a lot of these sort of companies based where I live (north east). However I realise a lot of times people in these roles come from a technical background as well, which I don't.
Sales Managers/Directors/employers - how would you view this sort of background? Have you hired people before? Would you again? And what in particular would you look out for when doing so in future?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Easy transition. I've done exactly that. In fact I found sales easier than recruitment.
With recruitment, you are selling the key skills of each potential employee into the role, whatever it may be. Hence, each 'sale' is usually a custom fit if you like, which often involves a lot of research, side-ways thinking and a bit of intelligence.
Sales are obviously similar, but one you know your product / service inside out, that remains constant and hence it is a little easier, plus you will have real confidence and conviction in what you are selling. And you're also not dealing with a 'person' as a commodity which, as you probably know, can often let you down!
Funnily enough, I got my first sales role from my recruitment job.
There was this one company who were recruiting for a sales director. I kept in touch with the HR woman on a regular basis, attempting to sell them one candidate or another for a while. They did end up interviewing a couple, but they were no good for one reason or another. After the second rejection, I phoned the woman to get feedback, and she said to me 'actually, what I REALLY want is someone exactly like you! You've really impressed me these last few weeks on the phone - come in and see me for a chat!'
Which I did, and took the position!
With recruitment, you are selling the key skills of each potential employee into the role, whatever it may be. Hence, each 'sale' is usually a custom fit if you like, which often involves a lot of research, side-ways thinking and a bit of intelligence.
Sales are obviously similar, but one you know your product / service inside out, that remains constant and hence it is a little easier, plus you will have real confidence and conviction in what you are selling. And you're also not dealing with a 'person' as a commodity which, as you probably know, can often let you down!
Funnily enough, I got my first sales role from my recruitment job.
There was this one company who were recruiting for a sales director. I kept in touch with the HR woman on a regular basis, attempting to sell them one candidate or another for a while. They did end up interviewing a couple, but they were no good for one reason or another. After the second rejection, I phoned the woman to get feedback, and she said to me 'actually, what I REALLY want is someone exactly like you! You've really impressed me these last few weeks on the phone - come in and see me for a chat!'
Which I did, and took the position!
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