The Challenge

A sales force of 280 is not built overnight. Hammonds needed a recruitment partner that could consistently recruit the right sales roles at volume, finding people with the right personality and skill profile across a sustained recruitment campaign. With attrition in the sector making ongoing recruitment essential, this wasn’t a one-off hiring challenge.

But recruitment volume wasn’t the only issue. Hammonds’ managers needed greater support to interview and assess candidates effectively, with strong candidates being lost at the hiring stage.

How Citrus Connect Helped

Citrus Connect became Hammonds’ specialist direct sales recruitment partner, running a structured and repeatable process designed to recruit a high-performing sales team at volume without compromising on quality. Every candidate was assessed against consistent criteria, helping Hammonds maintain the same standard across locations and throughout the partnership.

We maintained a warm pipeline of pre-assessed candidates, allowing Hammonds to move quickly when vacancies arose rather than starting every search from scratch. Leena also worked directly with the Hammonds management team, creating and delivering a full training day covering recruitment best practice, candidate profiling and workforce planning. This gave managers the tools to identify, interview and select the right people with greater confidence.

The Results

• 280-person direct sales force recruited and maintained
• Hammonds’ management team fully trained on candidate identification, interview technique and workforce planning — with a set of ideal candidate avatars built from their top performers, giving them the internal tools to hire with confidence long-term

The partnership gave Hammonds both the recruitment support needed to maintain a large direct sales force and the internal expertise to make stronger hiring decisions long-term. For businesses facing similar recruitment challenges, book a call with our sales recruitment specialists to discuss your sales team needs.