Top Sales Interview Questions

Today’s economy makes it more critical than ever to have the right employees in place, doing the job they were hired to do. Hiring great sales people is one of the most challenging tasks facing every organization. Sales teams are responsible for producing planned revenue goals. The first step of the interview process is to clearly define the profile for the ideal sales person. It’s impossible to find the right person without definition and consensus amongst hiring decision makers. Eighty percent of all turnovers usually results from bad hiring decisions that might not be the fault of either the employer or employee. Many times, there was not enough information gleaned from the interview process to insure the candidate was the right fit for the job.

The below list of Sales Interview Questions is just one tool that can be used to help formulate the interview process. Not all questions are pertinent for every interview. Choose and modify synergistic questions to create standard question sets and scenarios so that candidates can be compared or contrasted to the ideal sales person profile.

1. Why are you planning to leave your current sales position?
2. What criteria are you using to select your next employer?
3. Given the choice of a sales or sales management role, which would you prefer?
4. What can you tell me about our company?
5. How did you prepare for today’s interview?
6. Are there any changes you would suggest for our website?
7. Having researched our company, are there opportunities you feel we are missing?
8. What is it about this opportunity that intrigues you?
9. What do you think it takes to be successful in this sales role?
10. What skills and background do you bring to this opportunity?
11. What levels of decision makers do you currently call on?
12. How would you get up to sales speed with out company?
13. What would be your plan to learn our industry?
14. Describe your ideal sales culture.
15. Describe your ideal sales manager.
16. How do you feel sales people should be managed?
17. Do you prefer to work alone or part of a team?
18. Why do you think people buy from you?
19. How do you keep current with industry news and trends?
20. How do you create value with your customers?
21. Describe your typical sales week.
22. Describe your sales preparation planning process.
23. What CRM’s have you used? What is their value?
24. Tell me about a goal you set and how you achieved it.
25. What metrics do you use to measure performance against goals and quota?
26. How much time do you allocate for prospecting?
27. How do you generate leads?
28. Have you used social media to generate leads?
29. Have you had success generating leads from trade shows?
30. How do you research prospects before calling them?
31. How do you qualify an opportunity?
32. What do you do to get a prospect to return a voicemail?
33. Do you have a strategy for building referral based business?
34. What is your strategy to setting a first meeting?
35. What is your recipe for handling rejection?
36. Typically, what are your first meeting goals with a prospect?
37. Tell me about an account that you developed from scratch, and the events that led to a contract award.
38. Have you ever developed a major account from a small customer?
39. Tell me about your largest sales win.
40. What is your greatest sales achievement?
41. Tell me about a sales campaign where you overcame a household competitor to win the award.
42. How do you overcome your top competitor(s)?
43. Describe your most creative solution.
44. What is your strategy for navigating multi-owner multi-decision maker organizations?
45. How to you manage your territory so that you call on the right opportunity at the right time?
46. What is your strategy when working with procurement personnel?
47. What is your process for handling objections?
48. Tell me about a frustrated account that you salvaged.
49. Tell me about a time you had to fight internally to win a contract. What obstacles did you overcome and how did you do it?
50. What is your approach for handling blind RFP’s
51. As a finalist, what is your preparation process for a final group presentations?
52. What is your process for resolving price objections?
53. Why are you unbeatable?
54. Have your ethics ever been challenged?
55. Have you ever broken the rules?
56. How do you typically handle conflict with a team member or sales manager?
57. How do you define success? What single ingredient has made you successful?
58. How would your current sales manager and sales colleagues describe you?
59. What causes sales people to fail?
60. Have you ever been outsold by the competition?
61. What have you been doing to improve your sales skills?
62. What changes have you made to your sales process over the past few years?
63. Why do you feel you are the best person for this position?
64. What is your income goal this year? W2 for last year? Next year?
65. If we were to extend an offer, what would you want to know to make an informed decision?