Predicting Sales Manager Performance

In 2011, Hogan partnered with a nation-wide food retailer to establish a long-term research plan for developing and validating personality-based screening guidelines for their Sales Managers. We first conducted a Validity Generalization study, to identify HPI and HDS scales most predictive of Sales Manager performance. Based on the research findings, Hogan developed a profile to select candidates into the Sales Manager role who were more likely to be higher performers. The company began using this profile to screen in applicants who are stress tolerant and resilient despite setbacks, competitive and focused on achieving sales targets, build and maintain relationships with others, and are practical and sensible decision-makers.

Although the company received fit recommendations based on this profile, they continued to hire low fit, moderate fit, and high fit applicants for over two years. This gave us the opportunity to examine differences between all three groups based on our initial recommendations and to determine if we could improve the profile using key sales metrics collected during this time.

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