Is Past Sales Quota Attainment a Good Hiring Predictor?

Sales numbers don’t lie, but they don’t always tell the full truth when evaluating sales candidates.  Hiring managers use many metrics when determining whether to hire a sales candidate.

One of the primary considerations is whether the candidate has a history of meeting or exceeding their past sales quotas.  However, is past sales quota attainment a good hiring predictor? The answer is not so simple and warrants a closer look.

Why do employers use past quota attainment as a hiring indicator

It’s understandable why employers use past quota attainment as a hiring indicator.   Unlike legal or accounting, a sales division must tie a real return on investment directly to each employee hired.

They are on the hook.  If the new employee meets quotas, that sales recruiting effort is deemed successful.  Conversely, should those numbers come up short, it was a poor hire.  To employers, sales quotas are everything.

The most coveted sales employees can overcome hurdles to meet stressful, ambitious goals.  From this perspective, looking at past sales quota attainment makes sense.  However, there’s more to it.

How much weight should be given to a sales quota

First, a hiring manager must determine what they are trying to learn from a candidate’s past quota attainment.

In a broad sense, all hiring managers use sales past quota attainment to measure a sales candidate’s potential for future success.   However, many fail to do so accurately because not every sales environment is the same.

Sales quota attainment is only an accurate indicator of future performance when the candidate used similar skills to meet those goals.   As a result, before deciding how much weight to put on a candidate’s history of meeting sales quotas, employers must evaluate two broad factors.

Define the sales skills necessary to succeed

The first step is to identify and define the sales skills necessary to succeed at the job. These may include.

• Cold-calling
• Building and maintaining client relationships
• Renewing and up-selling existing accounts
• Selling to a particular division or industry, market or department
• Selling to multiple stakeholders in a sales process
• Navigating common sales obstacles
• Overcoming industry-specific buyer objections
• Managing a comparable sales cycle
• Solving customer problems to deliver desired outcomes

Were those skills used in past sales jobs

Once an employer defines the skills necessary to succeed in the role, they must determine whether those skills were utilized in the candidate’s past positions.

Only when the same or similar skills were used is past sales quota attainment a valid predictor of future success.  In other words, certain aspects of a candidate’s past jobs must be clarified to determine if you’re comparing apples to apples.

Examine the circumstances behind quota attainment

Raw numbers and percentages can be misleading. As presented on a resume, a history of meeting sales quotas tells us very little about a candidate’s actual ability to succeed in a new role.

In addition to ensuring similar skills were used in past jobs, hiring managers should examine certain circumstances to determine whether past quota attainment is a good indicator of future success.

Did the salesperson source their own leads?

If a salesperson worked in an environment where prospecting and lead generation were handled by others, achieving 140% of quota may look very different than it would in a role requiring independent business development.

How prominent was the brand they were selling?

The same 140% quota attainment can mean very different things at an emerging SaaS company than at a well-established market leader.

Selling for an up-and-coming company is often considerably more difficult than selling for a recognized brand. Salespeople who rely heavily on brand recognition can struggle when moving to smaller or lesser-known organizations.

What was the biggest obstacle to closing business?

Was the primary challenge price, product quality, competition, market awareness, or something else?  Strong salespeople are often capable of overcoming most obstacles, but the nature of those obstacles matters.

Effective interviewers take the time to understand exactly what barriers the candidate had to overcome in order to achieve their results.

Were the quota expectations realistic?

A candidate who achieved 90% of quota one year may have performed more impressively than when they achieved 130% the previous year, particularly if management increased quotas to an unrealistic level.

Did revenue from past years’ contracts factor into quota?

Similarly, consistent quota attainment over several years may not necessarily indicate strong new-business generation.  If the salesperson was supported by long-term contracts or a large base of recurring revenue, their results may have been driven more by account retention than by new customer acquisition.

The goal is not to discredit a candidate’s past performance, but to understand the circumstances under which that performance was achieved and whether those circumstances are comparable to the opportunity at hand.

The Verdict

Past sales quota attainment can be a valuable hiring indicator. But, it must be evaluated in the proper context.  Employers must analyze how similar the sales situation was to theirs as well as other key market conditions that could affect sales numbers.

Most importantly, employers must look beyond any percentage or number and understand the story behind those numbers before making a hiring decision.