Every day somewhere around us, thousands of people are being interviewed for a sales position. They are being asked questions by those who have been untrained. Good-willed entrepreneurs, sales managers, and other recruiting personnel are doing their best, but they are making a ton of mistakes. These mistakes include talking too much, not allowing silence, and asking questions about things unrelated to the sales position they offer. All the while, this results in decreasing the predictiveness of their hiring process—leading to unwanted turnover, low sales performance and bad cultures.
11 Interviewing Tips and Focus Areas
- Direct and redirect discussions to receive answers related to the following 5 areas: Character qualities you want in a sales rep, their attitudes toward sales as a career and toward your products, their level of motivation, and the personality traits and skills present in your top performers.
- Ask structured, open ended questions toward the 5 areas above. Design open-ended questions that start with who, what, where, why, when, how, describe and tell—questions that do not have yes or no answers.
- Listen 80% of the time and ask anchor questions. Then, follow-up with layered questions that dig for truth in their reply. When you do this, you will only talk 20% of the time with short paraphrases of what they say and to ask additional questions.
- Take notes, because when you do, your candidates will talk and reveal more about what you need to know. When they see what they’re saying being written down, they will believe that you care about their answers. Also, when you take notes, your brain will retain and remember more.
- Do not react emotionally to their answers, get off track, or tell your own personal stories. Keep your emotions in check.
- Don’t grill someone, and sell the interview! It’s OK to smile and to have a high-brow, not a low-brow, facial expression regardless of what they say or reveal.
- Do not save the candidate if they struggle in their responses. Allow silence before the candidate responds. If you feel you need to enter the silence, just say that you may not have asked the question well enough and simply ask the question again.
- Play down any problems or weaknesses revealed by the candidate. Just say that you understand, note what they say, and move on.
- Remember that if the candidate doesn’t share unfavorable information about themselves, this is actually a poor interview.
- Look for clues to their number one motivation and their maturity—especially the maturity and social presence to sell to your typical customer profile. These are two important areas that assessments do not have a way to accurately measure and require you to discover with great questions and interviewing skills.
- Look for past performance as a predictor of future performance—at school, sports and in other areas of their life. Goal orientation and character are formed in the crucible of someone’s discipline, praise, and desire to work toward a specific future.
These 11 interviewing skills keep you from losing control of your interviews and interviewees. They keep you from talking too much, saving candidates when they are struggling to answer, and missing the information you need to make an important hiring decision. They cause the best candidates to value your company and its position at a higher level because of the strength of professionalism that you portray to them. And, if you structure your questions to discover the character, motivation, attitudes, personality and skills you desire in your top reps, the predictability of your hiring decisions will rise to higher levels.