Should You Hire From Sales Bootcamps?

Bootcamps have long been a legitimate source for finding quality candidates for open positions. But at least initially, they were geared more toward helping develop coding skills to land entry-level programming jobs. It wasn’t until recently that the Bootcamp phenomenon spread to sales.

And it couldn’t have come at a better time. After all … 

1. The demand for salespeople far exceeded what was actually out there.
2. Very few colleges and universities offered sales programs.
3. For the right person, sales can be an exciting and lucrative career. But with that said, getting in the door felt daunting without sales experience.

Sales bootcamps prepare people for their first sales job, often a sales or business development representative job that could potentially lead to account executive, sales management, and sales leadership positions. The curriculum includes not only sales skills such as building rapport and asking questions, but it also includes the end-to-end enterprise selling process and getting hands-on with the supporting technology such as Salesforce.com, Salesloft, Slack, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and other popular tools used in sales organizations today. 

Nearly all programs offer an internship, which is an obvious plus. 

A little bit more about sales bootcamps

Sales Bootcamp operators make money in a few different ways:

• Most charge tuition to enroll in their program, and many offer tuition deferral programs or tuition contingent upon finding a job.
• Second, all of them will charge recruiting fees to employers. This can be several times what students actually pay for tuition.
• Third, some will charge tuition back to employers.
• Fourth, some use their students as interns to do contract outbound calling for clients as a “try before you buy” scenario.

Since recruiting is such an important revenue stream, it is in the best interest of the sales Bootcamp operators to provide solid candidates to their corporate customers. They also usually provide a guarantee that the candidate will work out for some period of time after placement.

If the candidates work out, it can be a win for the student who gets their start in a potentially lucrative career. It’s also a win for the Bootcamp, which earns fees for training and placing the student, and a win for the corporate recruiter, who gets a proven source of entry-level talent.

If you haven’t tried hiring from sales bootcamps, it is definitely something you should at least consider. Below are links to 10 sales bootcamps and their CEOs.

1. Always Hired (www.alwayshired.com) – Gabriel Moncayo, CEO. Always Hired has been a leading virtual sales training program for nearly a decade. They have over 250 alumni at companies such as ServiceTitan, Google, Mulesoft, Salesforce, Lever, and Okta.

2. Aspireship (aspireship.com) – Corey Kossack, CEO. Aspireship separates itself from the pack by combining learning and tactical experience with a one-of-a-kind process for candidates to prove they are ready to do the job. Aspireship focuses on career transitions into SaaS sales.

3. Fuel Sales Academy (gofuelsales.com) – Daniel O’Reilly, CEO. This Bootcamp promises B2B tech and software sales organizations an opportunity to shorten ramp-up time, reduce hiring risks for the long term, and improve revenue generation.

4. Hyrise Academy (www.hyrise.com) –  Dominic Blank, Managing Director. Voted the Best Tech Sales Bootcamp by CourseReport in 2021, Hyrise helps you hire and train sales talent that onboards faster, performs better, and stays longer.

5. Prehired (www.prehired.io) – Josh Jordan, CEO. According to its website, over 90% of Prehired members are hired within 12 months and make an average of $69,000 in their first year. Prehired is the only tech sales career launch program to be in Hubspot’s top sales training programs list 3 years in a row.

6. PreSales Academy (www.presalesacademy.com) –  Yuji Higashi, Co-founder. An 8-week online program, PreSales Academy offers live instruction, group, and self-paced activities.

7. Sales Platoon (https://www.mysalesplatoon.com/) – Raleigh Wilkins, CEO. Sales Platoon is unique in that its primary clients are military veterans. They focus on leveraging and translating highly skilled, resilient, dedicated, adaptive, and disciplined men and women from active duty to a career that aligns well – a career in sales.  

8. Uvaro (uvaro.com/) –  Joseph Fung, CEO. Uvaro offers a valuable and curated learning experience with live, interactive, virtual sessions taught by experienced instructors.

9. Vendition (www.vendition.com ) –  James Nielsen, CEO. Vendition works with over 500 companies to hire and train sales development reps. This Bootcamp offers free, part-time, online courses for anyone looking to earn a job in tech sales.  

10. Victory Lap (www.victorylap.io) – Brian Bar, CEO. Victory Lap believes that sales is the greatest profession in the world when done right, which is why they are committed to a blend of tailored education, access to opportunity, and support for its participants.

What are you doing to improve your sales hiring process?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result. If you are satisfied with the average over 1 in 3 success rate for new sales hires, then continue doing what you are doing. But if you want to improve your odds, then consider using a predictive simulation to improve quality, consistency, and efficiency throughout the process.

For B2B sales organizations needing to minimize the risk of bad hires and move fast to land the best applicants, the Sciolytix Sales Performance Predictor (S2P2) is a next-generation talent assessment that quickly and accurately predicts quota attainment while delivering an engaging, differentiated experience for candidates.

Traditional hiring assessments are usually better than gut instinct, but like any tests, candidates hate taking them. Furthermore, traditional assessments only predict potential and not performance. S2P2 puts candidates into realistic selling situations with 3D avatar simulations, scores their interactions with virtual prospects, and through AI, predicts their expected quota attainment. 

S2P2 gives your managers insight to avoid bad hiring decisions, improves hiring objectivity and consistency, and shows candidates you are a forward-thinking company that takes their development seriously. 

Bottom line, we are revolutionizing the way organizations hire, onboard, develop talent, and create a fair hiring process for all. Predictive simulations are the latest enhancement we’re adding to that arsenal of products.