Interview Questions to enable you to effectively conduct a sales interview. Themes and types of interview questions. Free pamphlet to download - How to Interview Effectively. Prepare for your sales interview. Hints, tips and Advice

The Most Common Interview Questions

Sales and Business Development

What is the worst objection that you’ve ever had to handle? Talk us through how you tried to handle this objection?
What is your preferred technique to handle objections?
How do you ensure that your sales targets are exceeded each month?
What is your favourite closing technique?
How do you pick yourself up after losing a potentially large order?
How do you create a sense of urgency to speed up the sales process?
What is the largest account that you have ever won and talk me through the stages from start to close?
What is the largest account that you have lost and talk me through the stages?
What is the most difficult piece of business that you have ever won?
Have you ever walked away from a sale and why?
What do you consider to be the single most important sales skill?

Sales Management

What does effective Sales Management mean to you?
What personal qualities should a Sales Manager possess?
What are the personal qualities that you possess to make you a successful Sales Manager?
What is more important ‘managing’ or ‘leading’?
Talk me through the most difficult employee that you have ever had to ‘lead’?
What is the biggest learning curve that you have worked through in your path to becoming a successful Sales Manager?
What is your Management style? Do you think this style is the most effective?
Who is the best Manager that you have ever worked for? What qualities did they possess that you have modelled to improve your ability to lead sales teams.
How important is it that sales professionals are effectively managed?
How do you manage egos within your sales team?
What is the best example that you can give me that describes your management style?
What have you personally done to develop your management skills?
How do you handle responsibility?
How do you keep a distance between yourself and your reports?
Your worst performing sales executive has a personal crisis and needs significant time off – how would you support them?
From the choice of Churchill, Gandhi, Alex Ferguson or Richard Branson, who is the most effective leader and why?

Planning and Prioritising

How do you plan each day?
What are your objectives each day?
How do you measure yourself against your objectives?
What importance do you place upon planning each day/week/month/quarter/year?
Think of a sentence that would describe your mission each day – your personal daily mission statement?
How do you prioritise your accounts?
How do you ensure that you are the most effective that you can possibly be?
Why would you prioritise one account over another? What criteria would you use to prioritise accounts?

SALES INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

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7 Ways to Conduct Brilliant Interviews

Presentation and Pitching

What experience do you have in making presentations?
What is the largest audience that you have ever made a presentation to?
Talk me through an example of a piece of tender led business that you have won?
What makes your presentations a success?
What techniques do you use to handle difficult clients during a pitch?
What is the typical structure of your business presentations?
How would you describe your PowerPoint skills – non existent, Basic, intermediate or advanced
Talk me through the most difficult pitch that you have made?

Decision Making, Risk and Judgment?

What is the greatest risk that you have taken in your business career? What happened?
What would you detail as the biggest failure of your business career?
For every decision that you get right how many do you get wrong?
How do you make a decision that potentially carries enormous risk? What steps do you go through? What minimum information do you require?
What experience do you have in working in pressure situations?
How do you make decisions in these pressurized situations?
How would one of your reports describe your decision making ability?
What is the worst decision that you have ever had to make in your business career? What happened?
What is the best decision that you’ve ever made in your business career?

Teamwork

Are you more effective on your own or as part of a team?
What is the best team that you have ever worked in and why? What part did you play in the team and what contribution did you make to the success of the team?
What are the characteristics of a great team?
How important do you feel the ‘leader’ is in creating a successful team?
What types of characters do you work best with?
What kind of people do you find difficult to work with?

Personal qualities - Confidence

Talk me through a situation that demonstrates the level of confidence that you have in yourself?

Personal qualities –Interpersonal

How would your best friend describe you? 5 adjectives
How would your closest work colleague describe you? 5 further adjectives
Describe the relationship with your current/previous line manager?
How would your current/previous line manager describe you? 5 further adjectives
What is the single biggest issue that your current/previous line manager has with you?
Describe a confrontation that you have had with your current/previous line manager when they were in the wrong? What happened?
When was the last time that you lost your temper at work? What happened? What did you learn from this?
What kind of people do you find difficult to work with?
How do you handle criticism?
Who is your worst enemy? What happened? How would they describe you?
What is the most unpopular decision you’ve ever taken? What happened?

Personal qualities – Values

What are your values?
How would you like to be remembered?
What is an ethical line that you will not cross?
Have you ever lied to win a sale? What happened?
Would you ever lie in the interests of your company?
Have you ever gone over your current/previous line manager’s head to get a decision?
On a scale of one to ten how would the term ‘maverick’ describe you?
What habits or behaviours that you possess would you like to change/improve?