66 Interview Questions to Ask Before Hiring Sales Employees!
Would you hire a Salesperson just because the candidate can write a good-looking resume?
Just because they can write good resumes, doesn’t mean they could sell or guide your prospects to buy from your company. Sales is a learnable skill that combines the cognitive, affective and psychomotor of a person (intelligence, behaviour, tone of voice, influence and body language).
As an Employer, it’s YOUR responsibility as a leader to determine whether or not they succeed in their role as a Sales Professional in your business.
Just because they can write good resumes, doesn’t mean they could sell or guide your prospects to buy from your company. Sales is a learnable skill that combines the cognitive, affective and psychomotor of a person (intelligence, behaviour, tone of voice, influence and body language).
As an Employer, it’s YOUR responsibility as a leader to determine whether or not they succeed in their role as a Sales Professional in your business.
As an employer, entrepreneur and sales capability developer who has hired over 100+ sales employees over a period of 20 years, and trained over 1,270 sales professionals over a period of 12 years, I have 3 tips for Startup Founders, SME business owners, HR teams and hiring managers.
These tips help to guide you to hire the absolute best person for the sales position from the list of candidates you received.
These tips help to guide you to hire the absolute best person for the sales position from the list of candidates you received.
Tip #1: First, during interviews, don’t be overly friendly or overly firm—two extremes made by many business owners who don’t interview often. Instead, strike a balance between the two, and always remain professional.
Tip #2: Ask at least 30 of the 66 questions below. I know it sounds like a lot of questions and you might be perceived to be interrogating them, but if you don’t do your due diligence during the interview, you won’t get the sales superstar your business deserves. Replacing them later is an expensive journey that costs you a lot of time, money, lost productivity and lost opportunities.
Tip #3: Hire for culture fit based on your organisational Core Values and not because the candidate looks good, beautiful, handsome, confident or comes highly recommended. Focus on direct evidence instead of supplementary evidence such as referral letters and recommendations.
Now, review the questions below, put them into a document as a template or into a HR system and ask these questions during the interview.
It is best if you take notes and attach them to the CV after each interview so that you can compare all the CVs and the candidate's answers to the questions before shortlisting the top candidates for hire.
Tip #2: Ask at least 30 of the 66 questions below. I know it sounds like a lot of questions and you might be perceived to be interrogating them, but if you don’t do your due diligence during the interview, you won’t get the sales superstar your business deserves. Replacing them later is an expensive journey that costs you a lot of time, money, lost productivity and lost opportunities.
Tip #3: Hire for culture fit based on your organisational Core Values and not because the candidate looks good, beautiful, handsome, confident or comes highly recommended. Focus on direct evidence instead of supplementary evidence such as referral letters and recommendations.
Now, review the questions below, put them into a document as a template or into a HR system and ask these questions during the interview.
It is best if you take notes and attach them to the CV after each interview so that you can compare all the CVs and the candidate's answers to the questions before shortlisting the top candidates for hire.
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