Founded in 1932, Bruckner’s Truck & Equipment is one of America’s largest and oldest dealers of Mack and Volvo trucks and equipment, with locations from Arkansas ​to Washington. Bruckner’s began using hiring assessments to streamline its selection process in 2016. Since then, the company has conducted over 1,000 assessments and built a stable, high-performing sales team.

For learning and development (L&D) professionals, the case also offers practical insight into how assessments can inform hiring decisions, accelerate onboarding and guide long-term coaching and development.

Using Hiring Assessments to Identify Top Performers

Over the past decade, Bruckner’s has grown rapidly from nine locations to 45​ and from 220 employees to 1,400​. This expansion made it imperative for the company to find the right candidates, hire and onboard quickly — in all roles including sales professionals, regional sales managers, corporate sales managers and sales coordinators. It also became even more important to reduce turnover so the company could keep the employees they were hiring.

“We’ve grown our feet on the street about 14% throughout the last year,” said Brian Murphy, vice president of sales at Bruckner’s Truck & Equipment. “We’re hiring an average of one new salesperson every week.”

Bruckner’s hiring process includes initial resume submission, online application, one-on-one interview, hiring assessment, assessment debrief, executive review, reference check and background check. Using the assessment dramatically shortened the hiring process and enabled the company to hire top performers quickly.

“I can look at the assessment and, in about two minutes, determine if the candidate is a definite yes or a no,” said Murphy. “You have to have velocity in this. Your big producers are going to move fast, and you will lose them if you can’t move at the speed they expect you to.”

One of the main benefits of using an assessment is it takes the emotion out of hiring. The tool reveals sales professionals’ selling skills, working styles, communication preferences, job competencies, driving forces and sales acumen.

“We love having a third party who’s never interviewed the person look at them on paper and give us their red flags or the confidence they’re the right hire. Taking the emotion out is huge,” said Murphy.

Job Benchmarks Show What Good Looks Like

To fully deploy the assessments, the company’s L&D and human resources (HR) team partnered to create job benchmarks that identify the most important characteristics of the roles Bruckner’s is hiring for. Hiring managers compare each candidate’s assessment to the benchmark to make sure they’re a good fit.

“What we’re looking for is the best person for our organization — somebody who’s going to have the highest chance of succeeding. It’s different for a manager, a salesperson or a sales coordinator. It’s not one-size-fits-all to us,” said Murphy.

These benchmarks gave L&D a shared definition of success that could be carried from hiring into onboarding, coaching and performance development.

A Guide for Ongoing Training and Coaching

Using the hiring assessment has allowed Bruckner’s to shrink its onboarding time from a year to 90 days. The debrief gives new hires an awareness of their strengths and helps them understand where they need to develop. The company builds onboarding from there and uses the assessment as a guide to improve ongoing training and coaching.

“We used to bring new hires into corporate for three days to learn about product and our processes,” said Murphy. “Now, with a newly onboarded person, we talk about how they’re built, their training opportunities as well as their strengths. It’s a career-long document that you can always keep and learn from.”

How L&D and HR Partner on Hiring Assessments

Bruckner’s case study shows there are several practical steps L&D professionals can take when working with HR and sales leaders to improve sales hiring outcomes.

Benchmark the Role

What’s the right fit? Before hiring for any position, define what “good” looks like with a role benchmark built precisely for each position. Develop the benchmark with the hiring manager and survey internal experts who understand the job to learn essential competencies.

Assess the Candidate

Is the candidate wired for selling? A hiring assessment will show selling skills, working styles, communication preferences, job competencies, driving forces, and sales acumen. Assess candidates and compare individual reports to the benchmark to determine compatibility with the role.

Use the Assessment as a Guide

Does the candidate know how to sell? Use the assessment to determine skills levels, identify strengths and diagnose areas of improvement. Once hired, debrief both the candidate and the hiring manager to target coaching and development throughout the lifecycle of the new hire.

Knowing what “good” looks like and focusing on role-specific profiles and team fit gives Bruckner’s confidence that they’re choosing the best candidates — and gives L&D a clear foundation for developing those hires throughout their careers.