Insights — Executive Recruitment — 3 min read
What Should You Look for When Recruiting a Sales Director?
Track record in a similar business matters more than a strong CV in a dissimilar one. Assess against the mandate, not a generic competency list.
In short
Look for evidence that the candidate has done the specific job your business needs done — built a function from nothing, or improved one that already exists, in a business of similar size, sales cycle and complexity — rather than a generic strong sales background. Test for commercial judgement, forecasting discipline and the ability to build a team, and confirm cultural fit with how your business actually makes decisions.
Most Sales Director appointments fail not because the person could not sell, but because they had never done the specific job the business needed — building where they had only ever inherited, or optimising where they had only ever built from a blank page.
The evidence worth weighting heavily is narrower and more specific than a typical competency framework suggests.
What track record actually predicts success?
- Whether they have done this specific job before — built a function, turned one around, or scaled one — not simply held a Sales Director title.
- Evidence in a business of comparable size, sales cycle length and buyer complexity. Enterprise software sales experience does not automatically transfer to industrial distribution, or vice versa.
- What happened to the team and the pipeline after they left their last role, not only what happened while they were there.
- Whether their reported results are attributable to their leadership specifically, or to market conditions, product changes or pricing decisions made elsewhere in the business.
What should you test directly, rather than take on trust?
| Capability | How to test it |
|---|---|
| Commercial judgement | Walk through a real, anonymised scenario from your business and ask how they would approach it |
| Forecasting discipline | Ask how they built and defended a forecast previously, and what happened when it was wrong |
| Team-building ability | Ask for specific examples of hires made, people developed, and people moved on, with reasoning |
| Board or investor exposure | Ask them to present their commercial thinking as they would to your board, not just to you |
| Comfort with your sales motion | Confirm they have sold, or led people selling, through a genuinely comparable route to market |
How much does sector experience matter?
Less than sales-cycle and buyer-complexity experience, in our view. A Sales Director who has sold complex, considered-purchase B2B products in one sector often transfers well to another sector with a similarly complex buying process. The bigger mismatch risk is moving someone from transactional, short-cycle selling into a long, multi-stakeholder sale, or the reverse.
What red flags should slow the process down?
- An inability to explain, specifically, what they changed in their last role versus what they inherited already working.
- Vague or inconsistent answers about forecast accuracy — a Sales Director who cannot discuss where their own forecasts have been wrong is unlikely to be candid with your board.
- No evidence of having built or restructured a team, if the role you are recruiting for requires exactly that.
- Strong individual selling history with no evidence of leading others to sell well.
How does cultural and structural fit factor in?
A Sales Director who thrived with genuine autonomy in a fast-moving founder-led business may struggle in a more process-driven, board-governed structure, and the reverse is equally true. Be explicit in the process about how decisions actually get made in your business and test the candidate's comfort with that reality, not an idealised version of it.
What role does engagement model play in who is available?
Some strong candidates are open to interim or fractional arrangements but not a full-time permanent role, particularly if they have recently left a permanent position or are building a portfolio of part-time leadership work. Deciding the engagement model before the search starts widens or narrows the realistic candidate pool accordingly.
Discuss a Sales Director requirement
Permanent, interim or fractional. The conversation starts with what the business actually needs the role to own, not with a job title.
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