Sourcing Great Sales Talent
The A-player salespeople you most want are too busy closing deals to browse job boards. Treat recruiting like sales: supplement passive want ads with outbound. Start by asking your network and your own reps for referrals, then run targeted LinkedIn outreach to well-connected salespeople in your industry — and ask who in their network might be open to a move.
By Chris Perry, OMG Certified Partner · Updated
Originally published in The Sales Recruit on August 28, 2025.
Photo by Alvaro Serrano
Hey everyone, welcome back the Sales Recruit— Let’s jump into it.
Sales Hiring Link of the Week:
- The ROI of Sales Training - A great, data-backed article on the surprising ROI of investing in sales training.
This Week’s Task: Reach out and touch somebody
There’s a tough dilemma in the sales hiring market right now—most folks I talk to are inundated with candidates, but still struggling to find those rare, game-changing A-players with the drive and urgency to really accelerate their sales. The reason is too many teams are relying on passive ads to source their deals.
The fact is the sales reps you are most eager to recruit are too busy closing deals and earning big commission checks to peruse Indeed or LinkedIn jobs.
Just like a good sales team wouldn’t sit back and wait for leads to come in—they’re always doing a little outbound to generate new opportunities—we should be supplementing our want ads with some targeted outreach to find salespeople that meet our ideal candidate profile.
So, what does that look like?
The fastest, easiest outreach is likely through your (and your employees’) networks. Have we asked everyone we know if they know any excellent salespeople that might be open to exploring another role? Have we asked our salespeople if they know of any other excellent salespeople that would be worth talking to?
The next level up, albeit more involved, is doing outreach via LinkedIn. Create a filter for salespeople in your industry, at companies your size or slightly larger, and start looking for ones who seem well-connected, professional, and have great referrals/testimonials on their pages. Why not reach out to them to see if they, or someone in their network, might be open to joining your team?
Example LinkedIn Outreach
“Hey Rachael, I’m guessing you’re probably having way too much fun and success at Tyrell Corp to consider taking another role elsewhere, but after seeing your profile, I have to say you’re just the type of candidate we’re looking for to join our sales team. Do you happen to have any peers in your network as accomplished as you are who might be open to considering a role with us? I’d be happy to send over the job description if it would be helpful. -Chris”
Good hunting!
Chris
p.s. Do you want more ideas or suggestions for a particular part of your sales hiring process? Just email me, I’m happy to help.
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