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Hire Sales Managers
Sales is the role where references and numbers matter more than interviews, because a good salesperson will interview well by definition. Selling themselves is the job. So our screen is arithmetic: what was the quota, what did they close against it for each of the last three years, what was the average deal size, how long was the cycle, and what share of the pipeline did they create themselves.
How We Fill It
Transferability is the other half. A candidate who sold a ₹50,000 SaaS subscription to a startup founder has not done the job of selling an eight-month enterprise deal through a procurement committee, even though both CVs say 'B2B sales'. We match on deal size, cycle length, buyer persona and whether they hunt or farm — and we say plainly when the match is partial.
We recruit across SaaS and technology sales, industrial and technical sales, BFSI distribution, healthcare and pharma institutional sales, real estate, and channel and distribution networks. Each has its own definition of a good month, and a consultant who does not know yours will send you plausible CVs that waste your time.
Timelines & Market
Salary Benchmark
Indicative metro ranges for 2026 — Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. Tier-2 cities typically run 20–30% lower for the same scope.
| Experience | Indicative CTC | What that buys |
|---|---|---|
| 3–5 years | ₹6–12 LPA fixed | Plus 20–40% variable; individual contributor quota |
| 6–9 years | ₹12–22 LPA fixed | Plus 30–50% variable; team or large-territory ownership |
| 10–14 years | ₹22–40 LPA fixed | Regional or national sales manager |
| 15+ years | ₹40 LPA+ | Sales head and CRO track, usually via executive search |
These are negotiating frames drawn from the mandates we run, not a quote. Bands move with sector, funding stage, city and how scarce the specific skill is in that market — ask us for a benchmark against your exact role and location.
Our Screen
Three years of quota attainment they can state numerically, average deal size and cycle length in the same range as yours, evidence of self-generated pipeline, and CRM discipline
Experience selling to your buyer persona, a transferable network in your segment, a structured sales methodology, team-management track record for people-leader roles, and local-language fluency where the territory needs it
Whether the numbers were personal or the team's, what they did in a year they missed, whether the network is genuinely portable to your product, and how much of their success was the brand rather than them
JD Outline
Use this as the starting point for your job description — it is the scope we brief candidates on.
Interview Structure
Four rounds, each testing something different. Rounds that repeat each other cost you candidates without improving the decision.
The numbers conversation — quota, attainment, deal size, cycle, pipeline source — plus whether the network is portable to your product. Most candidates do not survive this unchanged.
Walk through their two largest closed deals and one lost one, in detail. The lost deal is where you learn how they actually think.
Sell your product back to you after a short prep, or run a discovery call with a realistic objection. Nothing else exposes the gap between talking about selling and selling.
Two former managers, asked about attainment against quota and how they behaved in a bad quarter. In sales hiring this is not a formality; it is the single highest-value round.
Why It Stays Open
We raise these at the briefing rather than after a month of silence.
The most common inflation in Indian sales CVs. We ask for individual attainment, then cross-check it against the territory and team size, and we flag the claim on the shortlist when it does not reconcile.
Somebody who grew existing accounts at a market-leading brand may have never cold-started a territory. Both are valuable; they are not interchangeable, and this mismatch causes most sales mis-hires inside six months.
If the on-target earnings assume 150% attainment, candidates discount the variable entirely and compare only fixed pay. A credible, achievable structure wins more offers than a bigger headline number.
Interviewing well is the skill being hired. References with two former managers, asked specifically about quota attainment, are the correction for that and should never be dropped under time pressure.
Sector Context
60–90 days; 30 days in startups and most GCC-to-GCC moves
Sector practice30 days for frontline sales and collections, 60–90 days for corporate and compliance roles
Sector practice30 days at site level, 60–90 days for corporate, planning and leadership roles
Sector practiceFAQs
We ask for quota and attainment year by year, average deal size, cycle length and the share of pipeline they sourced themselves, then sanity-check it against the employer's actual product, pricing and territory size. Where the arithmetic does not reconcile — a claimed number larger than the territory could plausibly produce — it is flagged in writing on the shortlist, and we always recommend taking references before the offer.
Sometimes, and far less often than the CV implies. A network transfers when the buyer persona, the price point and the problem are similar; it does not transfer when the candidate was carried by a market-leading brand or when your product sells to a different function entirely. We test this explicitly rather than letting it be assumed.
Yes. Team builds are run as a sequenced mandate — the manager first so they can help select their own executives, then the executives in a batch, which also improves retention because they join together into a defined structure. For high-volume inside sales we price per position rather than as a percentage of CTC.
For individual contributors in India, 70:30 to 80:20 fixed to variable is normal; for senior and team-leading roles, 60:40 is common. What matters more than the ratio is whether the target is achievable: candidates talk to each other, and a structure where nobody hit target last year is known in the market and costs you offers.
Send the requisition to info@recruitmentconsultant.co.in and we will come back with a realistic band and timeline before any search starts.
Send us the job description and get a screened shortlist within 48 working hours. No obligation, no upfront fee, and a 90-day replacement guarantee on every permanent placement.
