Predictive Hiring at Scale: Transforming Recruitment for Sales Consultants
Client: A franchise-based business with more than 40 locations across South Africa
Industry: Retail and manufacturing
Focus: Recruitment Process Optimisation; Talent Assessment; Predictive Hiring; Applicant Tracking System; AssessFirst
What They Were Up Against
The client faced persistent challenges in recruiting and retaining Sales Consultants, a critical, customer-facing role that directly influences sales performance and brand reputation.
With no centralised recruitment process, each franchise managed hiring independently. This resulted in inconsistent candidate experiences, varied levels of hiring rigour, and uneven quality of hires. Many franchise owners lacked formal HR expertise, resulting in unstructured processes, poor hiring decisions, and occasional Franchisor intervention.
This decentralised model also limited visibility into recruitment performance across the network. The business struggled to identify bottlenecks, compare outcomes, or drive consistent improvement. The result was high turnover, long time-to-fill, and difficulty attracting top-tier candidates.
Retention issues compounded the problem. With no shared definition of what “great” looked like in a Sales Consultant, hiring relied heavily on intuition. Without a predictive, structured approach, franchisees struggled to hire consistently high performers, which weakened both sales outcomes and employer brand.
Where We Chose to Focus
Working with the Operations Director and franchise leaders, we set out to design a structured, scalable, and insight-led recruitment process that could improve hire quality, shorten time-to-fill, and deliver a consistent brand experience across all locations.
Key steps included:
Engaging with executives, franchise owners, and top-performing consultants to define success in the Sales Consultant role
Conducting a remuneration benchmarking project to inform competitive pay practices
Using psychometric assessments and predictive modelling (via AssessFirst) to build a data-backed profile of high performance
Redesigning the end-to-end recruitment process to embed structure, objectivity, and brand alignment
How We Partnered for Impact
Our co-designed recruitment solution balanced consistency with the flexibility required for diverse franchise contexts.
Key interventions included:
Ideal Success Profile
Based on behavioural, cognitive, and sales performance data from top performers
Centralised ATS
Implementation of Teamtailor to streamline, automate, and standardise recruitment across the network
Predictive Assessments
Embedded early in the process to guide shortlisting and improve fit
Ongoing Support
Regular touchpoints, psychometric feedback sessions, and refinement with the Operations Director and franchisees
Brand-Aligned Job Ads
Refreshed to attract candidates aligned with the success profile
Shared Talent Pool
Enabled faster access to pre-qualified candidates
What Shifted
The project reshaped recruitment across the network from an inconsistent, reactive process to a structured, predictive, and brand-aligned model.
Franchisee buy-in
Predictive hiring models, grounded in sales outcomes, increased trust and adoption
Shift To Data-Driven Hiring
By 2024, most franchisees were consistently using psychometric insights, marking a clear move away from intuition-based decisions
Consistent Candidate Experience
Centralised systems, standardised communication and improved professionalism.
Market Competitiveness
Remuneration benchmarking enabled franchises to attract stronger talent with competitive offers.
Efficiency Gains
Approximately 70% of screened candidates progressed to final interview/offer, improving conversion and speeding up hiring
Success Enablers
Predictive, Performance-Linked Model
Grounded in real sales and behavioural data
Technology Enablement
Teamtailor streamlined processes and improved the candidate journey
Context-Driven Design
Insights from within the business made the model credible and practical
Capability-Building
Ongoing coaching helped franchisees understand and apply assessment data effectively
Strong Partnerships
Collaboration with the Operations Director and franchise owners ensured trust and relevance
Early Wins
Quick improvements in hire quality reinforced trust and adoption
