If it feels harder than it used to be to hire a good salesperson, you are not imagining it. The pool of strong, proven sales talent has not kept pace with the number of businesses chasing it, and the gap has been widening for years. Knowing why helps, because some of the reasons change how you should hire rather than just how much you moan about it.

These are the forces behind the shortage, and what each one means for you when you are trying to fill a sales seat.

1. Fewer people choose sales on purpose

Most salespeople fell into it. Very few grew up wanting to do it, and sales still carries an image problem that puts graduates off. So the top of the funnel, the number of capable people even considering the career, is smaller than the demand needs it to be.

2. The good ones are not looking

A strong salesperson who is hitting target is being looked after by their current employer and is not sitting on job boards. People actively applying are disproportionately the ones between jobs for a reason. But the talent you actually want has to be approached, not advertised at.

3. Remote work opened the market both ways

Your best rep can now be hired by a company two hundred miles away without moving house. That cuts both ways, and it means you are no longer competing for local talent with local firms. You are competing with everyone who will hire remotely, some of whom pay more than you.

4. The skills the job needs keep changing

Modern selling asks for social selling, comfort with data and CRM, multi-channel outreach, longer and more complex buying committees. Plenty of experienced salespeople have not kept up, so the pool of people who can do the job as it is now, rather than as it was in 2010, is smaller than the raw headcount suggests.

5. Counter-offers have got aggressive

When you do find someone good and make an offer, their current employer often panics and throws money at them to stay. And more of our clients lose candidates at the eleventh hour to a counter-offer than they did five years ago. Speed and a clean process matter more than they used to.

6. Burnout thins the ranks

Sales churns people out. The pressure, the targets, the rejection. A chunk of experienced salespeople step out of the profession entirely every year, and that steady leak keeps the experienced end of the pool shallow.

7. Everyone is fishing in the same small pond

Post a standard advert for a standard sales role and you are competing with a hundred identical adverts for attention. The businesses winning the talent are the ones doing something other than posting and praying.

8. Reputation travels faster now

Glassdoor, LinkedIn, word of mouth in tight sales communities. If your business has a name for chewing reps up, the good ones know before they apply. Your employer brand is doing your recruiting for you, for better or worse.

9. Pay expectations have jumped

Basic salary expectations for good salespeople have climbed, and the reps know their worth better than ever. Turning up with a package built on last year's numbers gets you ghosted.

10. Hiring the wrong ones makes it worse

And every bad hire deepens the hole. A mis-hire leaves in months, the seat is empty again, and you are back in the same thin market having lost half a year. Getting it right first time is the only real way out of the shortage.

You cannot fix the market. What you can change is how you fish in it, and that mostly means going after the people who are not looking rather than waiting for applications from the ones who are. That is the part we are built for. We approach proven salespeople directly and quietly, so you are choosing from people who are good rather than people who happen to be available. Our piece on why reps quit is worth a read on the retention side. When you are ready to fill something, here is how we do it, or book a call.