In a recent review of sales rep job postings, it struck me that most companies are seeking candidates with X number of years of specific industry experience. Should industry experience be a major decision factor when hiring sales people? What is the correlation between industry experience and sales success?

I posed the following question to a group of experienced sales leader:

Is it easier to teach an industry / product expert to sell OR teach a sales expert an industry / product?

People jumped on this issue and focused their comments around hiring decisions. If given a choice, 95 out of 100 sales leaders would hire a proven sales expert with no industry experience over someone with less sales success but more industry experience. In fact, many of the responders had specific examples of why industry experience should not matter.

If the overwhelming majority of sales leaders feel this way, then why do so many companies seek sales reps with industry experience? I believe this is the case for several reasons:

• It's easy for recruiters to identify and source candidates

• Some companies do a good job of training sales people and become recruiting targets for companies that lack effective on-boarding programs

• Perception that sales people who come with industry experience are lower risk

The reality is most companies do not invest the time to determine what type of selling environment experience is most relevant for the position. For example, the selling environment might include complex sale cycles (multiple steps, multiple decision stakeholders), C-level decision-making, and decision criteria based upon ROI. Granted, potential candidates from your industry most likely have this experience but what other industries have a similar selling environment?

Identification of candidates with like selling environment success can greatly increase the pool of potential hires - and bring fresh perspective to the selling process. As most sales leaders would agree, it is easier to teach a skilled sales person an industry than teach an industry expert how to sell.