Frequently Asked Client Questions

We specialise in helping growing businesses build and develop their internal sales teams. From helping to plan the shape of the business development function through to managing the onboarding of team members, our services include:

• Recruitment - From Management through to SDR/BDE team members and sales trainers

• Training - Provision of training services, either as part of a bigger project through to individual one-off training sessions.

• Onboarding - We help create effective onboarding programs for our clients that can either be managed by us or our clients.

• Managed Services - Consisting of any combination of the above, our managed services allow you to focus on what you do best, safe in the knowledge that your recruitment and training function is being managed in line with your company objectives.

No. We help companies create amazing business development teams. Whilst this often includes recruiting trainee and junior sales team members, we recruit all levels of SDR (Sales Development Representative) and BDE (Business Development Executive) and Managers and Team Leaders too. Whether you're looking to recruit and train your own graduate trainee's or you're looking to hire a team of highly experienced SDR's we can help.

Put simply - yes we can. From placing a full time sales trainer to a contract trainer on a fixed number of days per month, through to the provision of a packaged sales recruitment and training service our range of training solutions are designed to ensure we can provide the right solution for every business.

We specialise in sales - our heritage is 20 years in sales recruitment. In that time we have refined our assessment criteria time and again. But one key element remains true – by meeting our candidates and talking through why they want a career in sales, what they understand the job will involve and why they think they’re suited, we’re quickly able to determine their suitability. By challenging them further, we’re able to determine how they respond to the challenge and thus their natural response to objection – another great indicator of suitability to sales.

Quickly! Our proactive approach to the recruitment process and ability to reallocate resources means that we can normally deliver a shortlist within a matter of days. Any delay in the recruitment process is usually as a result of delays at the client end due to diary issues or indecision. As part of our initial discussion we work with you to plan the project effectively, dealing with any challenges at the outset, helping reduce the likelihood of problems and delays.

Over the last quarter, our average time to fill (i.e. from day of taking brief until offer accepted) is just 11.35 days!

How you are charged for our services depends on the type of service you require and the level of support you require. Our recruitment services (contingency and retained) are usually charged at a fixed % of remuneration or can be agreed on a fixed fee basis. The exact level is dependant on many factors including the type of guarantee required, payment terms and other factors. Additional services (onboarding, branding and candidate generation) are usually charged on a project basis depending on the resource required to deliver.

Contact us to explain your current situation and we’d be happy to give you an indicative fee level for you to consider. Alternatively, upload details of your vacancy and we’ll contact you to discuss how we would manage your project and all associated costs.

We are incredibly confident that we will be able to deliver a shortlist of candidates who meet your requirements and go on to be successful for your business. However, we’re realists and even the best can’t get it perfect every time. That’s why we typically offer clients a 100% guarantee whereby if a placed candidate leaves your business during the agreed guarantee period we will provide a replacement candidate at no further cost to your business (where the replacement is at a similar level of experience). The exact details of the length of guarantee period and other factors will be negotiated once we understand exactly what you’re looking for.

How can we offer such a guarantee? Because we closely monitor our success rate and over the last year 95.1% of candidates we placed successfully completed their guarantee period.

This depends on the recruitment service we’re providing. For retained and contingency assignments we have a three part assessment as follows:

Stage One – Initial telephone screen. A 20-30 minute initial call to determine what the candidates current situation is and what they’re looking for. The main purpose of this call is to determine how confidently the candidate communicates and how much research they’ve done into sales and why they are interested in pursuing a role in sales. If successful they’re invited to the next stage.

Stage Two – Formal sales interview. A 60 minute interview during which we cover every aspect of the candidates background, education and achievements to date. We have an in-depth discussion about sales as a career and talk through expectations and requirements in details. During the interview they are regularly challenged in order to determine how they react and their ability to handle rejection. We then discuss the types of sales roles available and look to determine they type of role and environment they would be most suited to, looking to identify the 3 key factors that will influence their decision to accept a position. Finally, we explain how we work and what will be expected from them if we represent them in their job search.

Stage Three – Role Presentation. The final part of the assessment. We present details of the position to the candidate and ask them to go and research your company and sector. They are asked to present back to us on what they understand about your business and why they feel they’re suited to the role. Only if we’re satisfied at this point do we include them in the final shortlist and present their details to you.

Without yet knowing exactly your situation we can’t be 100% sure but the likelihood is high that we are and almost certain that we have at some point in the recent past. However, we don’t believe that holds much relevance as we treat every new role, whether with a new or existing client, in exactly the same way, taking a full brief and agreeing a project plan on each and every project we undertake.

We work with clients across the UK and can deliver any of our services UK wide. Through the combination of our cloud based systems enabling our consultants to be fully remote and the use of our bespoke video interview platform we can effectively manage a recruitment campaign anywhere – even when the recruiting manager is at the opposite end of the country to the person they’re recruiting!

We utilise a wide variety of candidate sources to ensure we have the required volume of qualified candidates to meet demand. Our specialist candidate consultants are solely responsible for candidate acquisition and qualification, are experts within the field of sales and understand what it takes to be successful within a sales role. They are responsible for delivering a shortlist for each role we work on within defined timelines. Candidate sources include:

• Certus Graduate website

• Relationships with universities and career hubs

• LinkedIn

• Facebook/Twitter/Instagram

• Google for jobs

• Jobsites including: 

Milkround/Reed/Indeed/Adzuna/Totaljobs/CV Library/Guardian Jobs

It’s worth noting that candidate acquisition patterns vary from year to year and what works brilliantly one year may not work so well the next.