The right job description can make or break the number of qualified candidates you attract to your roofing business. With labor shortages seemingly affecting all industries, especially roofing, there are currently more sales rep job openings than candidates to fill them. In a marketplace flooded with job openings, it can be hard to stand out.
At the initial stage of the recruiting process, you’re trying to sell your position and company to prospective candidates. So, what’s a good balance of fluff and stuff? A recent study from Indeed showed a job posting between 700 and 2,000 words gets up to 30 percent more applications.
Our many years of experience in recruiting in storm restoration sales has given us an edge when it comes to job postings. We’ve listed a few best practices below to help you nail your next job advertisement and hire a quality roofing salesman. Make sure your job description includes the FIVE segments below and you’ll be on your way to finding the right people.
- Job Title: Specific job titles are more successful – while sales rep is generic and all encompassing, you may want to provide a more eye catching and searchable term. Working with insurance companies? Try Insurance Restoration Sales or Storm Restoration Sales Professional.
- Company Description: The description is the bread and butter but keep it short and sweet. Here’s your chance to hook someone that may be thinking of going into sales but is not sure what place, i.e., opportunities, will be right for them. Your company overview should be the same across all your platforms: LinkedIn, your website career and meet the team pages.
- Responsibilities & Duties: Highlight day-to-day activities and lay out how the position fits into your company. What parts of the sales process are they responsible for? Does a team handle your customers? Or is your salesperson responsible from point A to Z with a customer? What are the expectations for this position?
- Qualifications & Skills: Keep this as concise as possible. If job seekers have made it this far in reviewing your post, they already probably check off a few of your boxes. Consider separating out necessary skills and desired skills. Only put those skills you absolutely cannot train and need someone to show competence on day one as required. If your company does offer formal training, talk about it! There are lots of good salespeople out there but they need to know you are committed to providing the tools to make a lucrative career out of this opportunity. If your company doesn’t offer training, here are some low-cost options for candidates with no roofing experience.
- Pay & Benefits: Don’t overlook this section – even for 1099 positions with no “formal’ benefits. This is your chance to attract candidates. Include if you provide company leads, paid training, support and hands on guidance, FLEXIBLE schedules, rapidly expanding company, dog (or cat!) friendly office, etc. Most job seekers are searching for salary info. For a more successful posting, include the typical range sales representatives at your company are likely to earn, and if you offer base + commission or straight commission.
While having a killer job description is one part to recruiting the right team, so much more goes into hiring and finding successful candidates. Seeking out resumes, making tweaks to ads (including budgets!) sharing across networks, screening resumes and responses…all of this takes TIME. We take the time this requires and more to get quality candidates your way.
Learn more about our recruiting services on our website.