Recruitment Tips: How to Hire Sales Engineers in the Food, Processing & Packaging industry

Recruitment Tips: How to Hire Sales Engineers in the Food, Processing & Packaging industry

Hiring a Sale engineer in the Food, Packaging, & Processing industry 

2024 Considerations to hire Sales engineers in the Food, Packaging & Processing Industries

Technology integration: Sales engineers now possess a basic understanding of how automation tools work and leverage AI to craft more effective outreach strategies. Organizations are now investing in tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator to create better prospecting messages and share content with their networks. Additionally, CRM use is better leveraged through improved customer segmentation. Sales engineers should be able to harness available sales data to provide better market analysis, considering factors such as geography, product lines, and pricing. Companies that train their sales teams to adopt a data-driven approach gain a competitive edge by positioning their solutions more effectively.

Value Selling: Customer-centricity and value selling are becoming even more significant these days. Customer-centricity involves comprehending customers' aims and problems, while value selling emphasizes delivering positive outcomes of the company's products or services to customers or clients. Sales engineers might communicate and illustrate how their products and services enhance customers' demand using numbers, figures, and explanations. This necessitates a stronger collaboration with internal stakeholders, such as application engineers or product line managers, to highlight practical use cases of the machinery for customers. In a nutshell, a standalone sales engineer may not achieve their targets by themselves. In 2024, successful sales engineers are those who can leverage their internal and external networks to deliver the company's value proposition to prospects and customers.

Main responsibilities of Sales engineers in the Food, Packaging & Processing Industries

1. Develop and maintain customer relationships and provide technical support to customers.
2. Prepare and deliver technical presentations explaining products or services to customers and prospective customers.
3. Collaborate with sales teams to understand customer requirements, to promote the sale of company products, and to provide sales support.
...

A sales engineer in the food, packaging, and processing industries generates revenue by providing products and services that meet customer needs. They collaborate with cross-functional teams to maximize income while ensuring customer satisfaction.

The sales engineer is responsible for:

  • Business development for existing and potential future customers
  • Communication and coordination across functions to meet the company target with customer demand.
  • Create accurate quotations, negotiate and finalize contracts.
  • Generate price strategy, and supervise sales budget & forecast for their assigned business line and geography. 

The sales engineer role is a combination of technical mastery of engineering practice with a diversity of soft skills such as communication, which is essential for customer negotiations and cross-functional working. In the upcoming years, sales engineers need to understand software, especially CRM and analysis tools to create suitable strategies to deal with customers and competitors. Sales engineering is an entry position for many CEOs across the world this day and have various career paths to grow. 

Main Sales Engineers skills sought for 2024

CRM
CRM
Growth Strategies
New Business Opportunities
 
Sales Strategy
Marketing events
Trade shows
Project management
Stakeholder Management
Sales Admin & Operations
Quotations
Sales presentations
Objections
 
Product Demonstration
 
Sales Pitch
 
Sales Presentations
Negotiation
Closing deals
 
Leading win-win discussions
Problem solving
Working with others to solve problems
Relationship Building
Growing network and relationships
 
Nurturing long term relationships


Salary range 

🇹🇭
Thailand
30,000 - 50,000 THB per month
 
🇮🇩
Indonesia
5,000,000 - 9,000,000 IDR per month
 
🇸🇬
Singapore
4,300 - 7,500 SGD per month
 
🇲🇾
Malaysia
5,000 - 9,000 MYR per month
 
🇻🇳
Viet Nam
12,500,000 - 19,000,000 VND per month
 
🇵🇭
Philippines
21,000 - 28,000 PHP per month
 

Top industries where to hire Sales Engineers for the Food, Packaging & Processing Industries


This chart illustrates the mobility of sales engineers within the food, packaging and processing industry segment. The main industries recommended for hiring sales engineers professionals within the food, packaging and processing industry are as follows: 

  • Food, Beverage & Feed processing
  • Industrial Machinery and Equipment including oil refineries
  • Packaging and printing
  • Engineering and agricultural 

Interview questions to hire sales engineers

Negotiation
Leading win-win discussions
  • How do you establish common ground in a negotiation? Can you give me an example?
  • Describe a situation in which you led a win-win negotiation
Closing deals
  • Describe a situation when you failed to reach an agreement in negotiations.
  • Tell me about a time when you resolved a deadlock in negotiations
  • Describe a situation when you failed to reach an agreement in negotiations.
Problem solving
Working with others to solve problems
  • Can you explain how you leverage your team to deal with existing problems that occur at work?
  • How do you deal with criticism? Can you provide the latest example of criticism toward a problem you have faced? What was the outcome?
  • How often do you consult the team to solve common problems? Explain with an example. What do you expect from their contribution ?
Relationship Building
Nurturing long term relationships
  • What do you think is the key to developing long-term customer relationships? How do you practice it in reality?
  • Do you have a systematic process in place to maintain long-term relationships?
Growing network and relationships
  • What are your preferred networking tools? How often do you use them? Please provide examples
  • How do you use your network and relationships to keep up with the latest trends in your industry?
  • Describe how you get new customers through networking

Are you hiring sales engineers in the food industry?

Huneety is Southeast Asia Food, packaging, & processing recruitment expert. 

Connect with a talent pool of pre-qualified candidates in the Food, packaging, & processing. Our team of experienced consultants possesses in-depth expertise in the Food, packaging & processing sector and will manage the end-to-end recruitment process on your behalf.

We take the time to understand your business and onboard your skills requirements in our Talent Matching so that you can find the ideal candidates in 5 business days.

Click here to schedule a short meeting with us to discuss your recruitment needs 



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