Ford Retail is targeting ex-armed force personnel to fill sales vacancies.

The factory-owned dealer group teamed up with Talent Q, an employee assessment firm. Talent Q conducted a study of 205 sales executives at Ford Retail and compared their results on personality against their sales profits, volumes and customer service rating over a four-month period.

The study found that the best sales employees were open communicators with strong verbal reasoning skills and an ability to build rapport. However, those who rated highest for customer service were strong in empathy and were supportive, relaxed and consultative.

“Our philosophy is to create customers for life, not just make an initial sale, so we need to recruit well-rounded people who can perform well in both the sales and the customer service aspects of the role,” said Ford Retail HR director Sharon Ashcroft.

“We’ve started to attend careers fairs for the first time and we’ve also been targeting former armed forces people who may not have previously thought that they were suited to a career in sales,” said Ashcroft. “We’d never have done this without Talent Q’s support. But now, with their help, we’re not restricted to recruiting people from our industry. We know the attributes we’re looking for, so we can cast a wider net to find the right people and train them in our way of working.”

Orginial Story Taken from Motor Trader News – http://www.motortrader.com/industry-news/ford-retail-targets-ex-armed-forces-sales-staff/