Rain's 125+ Sales Hiring Interview Questions
Adapted with Interview Insights by Michael J Griffin
6 minutes read with PDF
Most sales organizations fail to train up sales managers to effectively interview potential sales talent. This can result in hiring salespeople that can't sell, don't align with your sales culture, or worse, your sales managers mis-read talent and don't hire top performers.
I just read an excellent list of 125+ sales hiring questions from Rain Group. It is thorough. You can download these sales interview questions at the end of this blog. Before you do, read my eight insights and tips to develop your sales managers as focused interviewers to identify superior sales talent and reduce bad hiring decisions.
Make sure your sales job descriptions are up to date with the changes after Covid, your sales technology, and market shifts.
Sales managers should be trained on interviewing skills that assess the "Big Four" of salesperson's knowledge, motivations, selling skills, and adapting to your market environment. Just don't take a "yes, I can" but ensure your sales managers ask for real proof or stories to back up these competencies. Most companies ignore sales manager interviewing skills that effectively pinpoint proof of the Big Four.
Train your sales managers to interview with skill and insight. ELAvate's Focused Interviewing 2 days’ workshop does this well based on our interviewing experience of 30 plus years in Asia Pacific. You can download the Focused Interviewing flyer here.
Use third-party assessments that benchmark potential sales candidates against global sales competence: hunters, farmers, key account management, or product specialists, high-value solutions or low-value solutions. These profiles help the sales. manager accurately uncover then ask questions on the candidate's skills, attitude, and culture fit. At ELAvate we recommend assessments and sales profiles from TTISI, Harrison Assessments, and Chally Assessments. High-quality assessments can offer real proof of a candidate's real potential.
Don't forget to train up your HR recruiters or head hunters to conduct screen interview for sales candidates as well. Most HR interviewers do not understand sales and if not trained make poor decisions on forwarding candidates to the sales department.
Lack of "teachability" and bad-mouthing past bosses is a big red flag. My experience has shown that candidates who bad-mouth past bosses always turn out as duds. During the interview sales managers should assess the candidate's humility, personal security to accept constructive feedback that connects to their "teachability." If a candidate appears unteachable, don't hire.
Do not just hire on the "client list" the candidate says he or she has. Rarely does a candidate client list transform into a big jump in your sales revenue.
I still use the Xerox "sell me a pen" role play where the candidate sells you a high-end pen. This exercise brings out how well the candidate thinks on the spot, how good are his/her probing/question skills, handles a bit of pressure, and their creativity to craft features and benefits to needs. Some of the best salespeople I have ever hired excelled at asking relevant questions rather than "tell and sell" the pen.
For the excellent list of 125+ Sales Interview Hiring Questions list by Rain, download the PDF it here.
Which of these 8 insights can help you make better hiring decisions to drive sales revenue in 2024? Plan them into your 2024 sales development and training plans!
Michael J Griffin
Founder and CEO of ELAvate
Certified Sales Assessment Coach
Sales Productivity Consultant that gets Results