Sales Manager
Job description, salary, sourcing, 15 interview questions and a 30/60/90 plan to hire a Sales Manager in a German SMB.
At a glance
- Time to fill50–80 days
- Experience5–10 years
How to hire a Sales Manager for your SMB
Before you write the job posting, settle three framing questions. They decide whether a new hire is the right lever and which profile you actually need.
Do you really need a Sales Manager or another senior salesperson? A Sales Manager spends 60-70 % of the time on leadership and 30-40 % on selling themselves. If your team has fewer than 3 salespeople, the ratio flips, and you pay 55 k€ for a player-coach who does not lead your team enough. Below 3 people to lead, hire a senior salesperson with partial coaching delegation; the leadership role emerges from 4-5 reports onward.
Full-time, fractional part-time or contractor? For a team of 3-5 salespeople at an SMB at the end of the seed phase (< 5 M€ ARR), a fractional Sales Manager (0.4-0.6 FTE through an experienced consultant) costs 30-50 k€/year and brings an operational frame without the overhead of a full-time role. Move to a full-time hire when you lead more than 6-8 salespeople or when CRM steering becomes a full-time job.
First or fifth Sales Manager? The first person builds cadence and sales culture; you need a profile that can formalize as well as sell. The fifth person joins an existing cadence; you need a profile that integrates into a structure without rebuilding everything. You spot the two profiles with different questions in the interview (see the Evaluation section).
An indicative capacity calculation: a Sales Manager leads 4 to 8 salespeople, depending on cycle complexity. Beyond that, split into 2 teams or build a Head-of-Sales layer.
Where to source this role
LinkedIn
€200-400 / month (Job Slots)In Germany the most important active sourcing channel for Sales Managers, but XING stays more relevant for Mittelstand sales than in other markets. Recommendation: LinkedIn for the job posts plus active sourcing via InMails with Recruiter Lite. 50-70 % of qualified applications typically come from here when you source actively.
XING
ProJobs from €195 / monthStill strong for sales roles in the German Mittelstand outside the tech and startup scene. Especially relevant in NRW, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and for profiles over 35. If you recruit in a classic Mittelstand sector (mechanical engineering, industry, wholesale), XING is often on par with or better than LinkedIn.
Stepstone
From €995 / 30 daysThe largest classic job market in Germany with a broad applicant pool. Strong volume for Sales Manager profiles, especially from industry and the Mittelstand; slightly less signal than LinkedIn or XING on senior profiles. A good complement for volume and reach when you can handle the filtering.