When a shortlist disappoints, the instinct is to blame the market. More often, the problem was written down before the search began.
Most Sales Director job specs are built by addition. Someone starts with the last spec, adds what the previous person lacked, adds what the board would like, and adds a few things that sound important. The result is a list of fifteen essentials that no single human has ever had at once.
Long lists put off the right people
The strongest candidates read a spec carefully. When it asks for everything, they assume the business does not know what it needs, or that they will be judged against an impossible standard. They quietly pass. The people who apply anyway are often the least self-critical, which is not what you want in a commercial leader.
Start with the problem, not the person
The best briefs I work from begin with a plain question: what has to be different in two years? Perhaps it is breaking into a new sector, rebuilding a tired team, or moving from order-taking to genuine selling. Once that is clear, the three or four things that really matter become obvious, and most of the rest turns out to be nice to have.
I also want the honest version of the business, not the brochure. How decisions really get made, how the managing director reacts to bad news, what the last Sales Director found hard. That is where fit is won or lost, and a good candidate will want to know it anyway.
A shorter spec is a braver spec
Cutting a spec down feels risky. In practice it widens the field to people who can solve your actual problem, including some who would never have recognised themselves in the original list.
That conversation is the first stage of how I run a search, and it is the one I would least like to rush.