Recruitment of Salesmen: Meaning and Importance of Sound Recruitment

The success of any selling organisation depends more on the quality of its sales force than on almost any other single factor, because it is the salesman who meets the customer face to face and turns the firm's selling effort into actual orders. Recruitment of salesmen is the process of searching for suitable candidates for selling jobs and stimulating them to apply, so that the firm has a pool of applicants from which the right persons can later be selected. Recruitment thus comes before selection: recruitment gathers applicants, while selection chooses among them.

The Odisha CHSE +2 Commerce Salesmanship course treats sound recruitment as the foundation of an efficient sales team. A firm cannot build a good sales force out of poor raw material — if the applicants attracted are unsuitable, even the best selection procedure can only pick 'the best of a bad lot'. Sound recruitment means attracting the right number of the right kind of candidates at the right time and at a reasonable cost.

Importance of sound recruitment

• Right person for the right job. A carefully recruited pool makes it far more likely that the firm can place a person whose personality, education and interests actually suit selling work, rather than settling for whoever happens to be available.
• Lower cost of selection and training. When the applicants are broadly suitable, the firm wastes less money interviewing, testing and training people who will soon fail or leave.
• Reduced labour turnover. Salesmen who are well matched to the job are more likely to stay, so the firm avoids the heavy recurring cost of replacing salesmen who quit or are dismissed.
• Higher sales and goodwill. A competent sales force sells more, serves customers better and protects the firm's reputation, because every salesman is a representative of the firm in the customer's eyes.
• Foundation for supervision and control. Good raw material responds better to training, supervision and motivation, so sound recruitment makes every later stage of sales management easier.

Unsound recruitment, by contrast, fills the sales force with unsuitable persons, raises turnover and training costs, damages customer relations and ultimately reduces sales — which is why recruitment is treated as a planned, continuous management activity rather than an occasional emergency response to a vacancy.