[The Company] Sales Interviewing 101

Interviewer Responsibilities

Interviewer Responsibilities

• Be on time. Don’t wait for the previous session to end, and wrap up your questions with a few minutes before the end of your time.
• Complete feedback on the correct form, Sales,- immediately following your interview, and before deliberating with any other interviewees
• Attend the feedback session
• If you have a scheduling conflict, notify the hiring manager before the day of the interview.

​

​

General Experience + Process

• Resume Sourced Phone Screen
• First Round
• 2 - 30 minute meetings
• Combination of sales managers
• Candidate Deliberation
• At least a “6” on feedback scores to move forward
• Second Round
• 30 minutes shadowing
• Director
• Bar Raiser
• 2 AE/AMs
• Additional Sales Managers
• Final Deliberation
• [Team Member] makes final call based on candidate feedback. Will selectively choose to deliberate when needed
• Reference Check - Minimum 3, and preferably 1-2 back channel
• Offer Call
• Send offer
• 3 congratulations emails from other members of the team
• Close

What is expected of you?

• Be prepared before you enter the interview
• Be in a position to make a decision when you leave the room
• Make your “snap judgment” and then convince yourself otherwise
• Don’t poison the well for others
• Maintain control of the interview
• Provide a great experience - introduce yourself & close with the ability for the candidate to reach out to you if they have additional questions

​

Legal

• Age
• Race
• Religion
• Ethnic background
• Gender
• Marital status
• National origin
• Political affiliation
• Credit Score

The following cannot have any influence on hiring decisions.

Sales Skill Matrix - Can do vs. Will do

• CAN DO
• Intelligence
• Communication
• Track Record
• WILL DO
• Motivation
• Discipline
• Coachability
• [The Company] VALUES
• Trajectory vs. Experience

Intelligence

• The Ability to acquire & apply knowledge & skills
• Do you consider yourself an expert at something? If so, please explain it to me.
• Can you teach me something, as if I’ve never heard of it before? (It can be anything: A skill, a lesson etc)
• What do you know about SaaS?
• What can you tell me about [The Company]a? What are we doing well? What are we doing poorly?
• If you could change one thing about your current role, what would it be? If you could make that change, would you stay at that company?
• Tell me about a time that you made a good judgement call. What was the outcome and why was it good?

Communication

• The imparting or exchanging of information clearly
• What was the greatest pushback you got selling {{company}}? How’d you answer that?
• What’d you find effective in opening up a conversation?
• How do you think selling this software will compare to {{past sales experience}}?
• You’re a potential buyer -- what do you want to hear from [The Company]?
• Tell me about a situation outside of a professional setting where you had to sell someone something?
• What makes you different than the other candidates we speak to?
• What is (or would be) your approach to getting a sale?
• Tell me about the last time you convinced somebody to make a purchase on the spot?
• Tell me about a time when you were able to change someone’s opinion during a conversation, what did you do?
• Describe a time when you took charge of a group/situation and convinced people to do something different?
• What do you do with an angry customer?

Track Record

• Have they been successful at anything?
• Sales (*great sales people know their numbers)
• How many sales people?
• Where did you rank?
• How long where you at that rank & how often did you fluctuate?
• What was your quota?
• What % of the company hits quota?
• What % of months did you hit quota?
• Other profession
• Expert/Passion
• Ask/Dig in

Motivation

• Reasons for acting/behaving in a particular way
• How’d you do at {{company}}? What separated you from the top performer?
• What motivates you?
• Tell me about a time you failed at something -- what did you do to overcome that experience?
• What was your hardest job? Why? What did you do to work through obstacles?
• Tell me about your worst month ever as a sales rep what did you do in the following month/qtr to avoid repeating your performance?
• Tell me about a time when you had to out work or out hustle a group to hit a goal?
• Tell me about a time when you lost your confidence in yourself, what happened and how did you pick yourself up?
• Tell me about a time when your back was against the wall and you had to deal with a high pressure situation?
• If you could start your career over again what would you do differently?
• What are your long term goals? What would you get out of this job?
• What was your first job?
• If you could come into [The Company] and create your own role, what would it look like?

​

Discipline

• Obeying by a certain code of behavior that will yield success
• Talk to me about how you define discipline
• Tell me about something you stuck with for a long time
• You get a goal at the beginning of the month - walk me through how you go about achieving that goal?
• If you’re balancing relationships with 200 potential customers at a time, how do you determine who to spend your time with?
• Everyone has their own style for managing their work & time -- what works for you?
• Tell me about the last time you set a goal, when was it…What was it, and what steps have you taken to accomplish that goal?
• Describe a time when you had to solve a lot of problems at the same time and how you prioritized them?
• What does your current day to day look like?
• Walk me through your sales cycle?
• What does success look like in your current role? How do you get there?
• If you were to start tomorrow at [The Company], what do you focus on?

​

Coachability

• The ability to take & implement feedback
• Role play with them - give feedback - do it again (see if they took your feedback)
• Do you have a mentor or coach at your current job? What was the best piece of feedback they’ve given? How did you go about implementing it?
• Do you have a mentor or coach at your current job? What was the best piece of feedback they’ve given? How did you go about implementing it?
• Tell me about a time you took and implemented feedback?
• What’s the hardest piece of feedback you’ve been given?
• What was the last time you changed something? Either at work or personally?
• Tell me about a time you failed at something?
• Tell me about you disagreed with your manager, and had to get them to understand your side?
• Have you had a performance review lately? What did your manager say you could do better?
• Have you had a chance to check out our site and complete an application? Great, what is one piece of feedback you would give?

Misc

• Be hyper aware of the candidate
• Body language
• Hand shake
• Checking their phone
• Make sure you end your questioning by the 20 min point the latest
• You need to leave 10 minutes to ask them questions
• You need to end the interview if it looks like it will go longer than 30 minutes
• Defer salary/title/equity/start date/special request questions to [Team Member]