The people in our professional network know us for our work matching talented professionals to top companies. No surprise there. But the mechanics of recruiting is just part of it. When you take a step back, the essence of our job is to help companies succeed, and help professionals meet their career goals. We don’t just want to find the people to fill a company’s open headcount. We also want to understand that company’s overall needs and share my insight into how to perfect their hiring process and ensure they bring in the right people.
That’s why our founder and CEO, Carolyn Betts Fleming, recently partnered with our friends at Sales Hacker, a big thought leader in the sales ecosystem, to publish an article identifying the right questions to ask in a sales interview. Carolyn has worked closely with enough companies, and seen enough of their sales interview processes, to know firsthand what works and what doesn’t – and the article synthesizes the key things we’ve seen and presents them in a quick and easy read.
Read the article for the full scope. You can also check out the Betts Recruiting eBook Faster Hiring Means More Sales for an even deeper dive into perfecting the sales hiring process.
Key highlights from the Sales Hacker article
Here are just a few of the questions covered in the article and the eBook.
- Is meeting quota more important than customer happiness, or vice versa?
With consultative selling and annual recurring revenue models on the rise, this is an essential question to ask in a sales interview. You don’t want candidates who only know how to go for the hard sell without taking the time to create a plan for meeting a prospect’s needs. That’s how you end up with unhappy customers and churn. - What do you do if a prospect clearly isn’t a good fit?
Any good sales rep will tell you they don’t give up easily. But sometimes the skill of knowing when to cut your losses really comes in handy. Look for a sales rep who understands when an account just isn’t going to close, and who has the discipline to move on to more promising ones. - What happens after you lose a deal?
Once a rep marks an account “closed – lost”, do they ever speak to that account again? Under a purely transactional sales paradigm, maybe not. But it takes guts, brains, and humbleness to reach out to a prospect even after the account is lost and ask for feedback. Those who do, though, are showing they’re interested in improving as sales professionals and being more successful in the future. That’s definitely something you want in a rep.
Knowing the right questions to ask in a sales interview can make all the difference when it comes to filling your team with the right people. Head over to Sales Hacker or download our Faster Hiring Means More Sales eBook to keep sharpening your skills as an interviewer.