I’ve blogged in the past about sales candidates who have a propensity to be verbose and why you may want to avoid them (huge timewasters). Whenever I’m tasked to do an interview with someone who our Sales Temperament Assessment has flagged as being over-social, I use the following technique to see if the person has…
Category Archives: Interviewing
The Last Sales Interview Question
You’re hiring salespeople, right? So, at a minimum, the sales candidate should know how to sell himself. That’s why, when you’ve completed all the rest of the interview and testing process, you should ask what I call the last question, “Why should we hire you?” This gives the salesperson one last opportunity to sell himself…
When to Interview the Sales Candidate’s Spouse
There are a couple of situations when it makes good sense to include an interview with a sales candidate’s spouse. The first situation is when you’re seriously considering hiring a salesperson from a competitor. The salesperson may be playing you off against his current employer for a raise. Asking to include the spouse in the hiring…
Hasty Hiring Decisions Can Be Costly
An article in the Harvard Business Review pointed out that 43% of hiring decisions are made within the first 4.8 minutes of the interview. Talk about the importance of a candidate creating a good first impression! If this is the case, why bother interviewing people for more than 5 minutes? The answer is because hasty…
Beware of Salespeople Who Interview Well
Hiring a salesperson who interviews well is an easy trap to fall into. The person is usually a charmer. He’s answered every question eloquently and in depth, giving you far more information that you asked for. He’s articulate, witty, personable, and obviously knows his stuff. Maybe, maybe not. You may have just been sold. You…
Consider Doing a Two-Minute Sales Interview
Before you go investing a ton of time and effort in setting up and conducting a face-to-face interview, consider a two-minute telephone interview with the potential sales candidate. While this is particularly important if you’re considering investing in an airline ticket to fly someone in for a formal interview, that isn’t the primary reason for…
Don’t Lead the Witness
Too many untrained interviewers hear what they want to hear and subconsciously ask questions that get them the answers they want instead of uncovering truths. In a court of law, this process would be called leading the witness. Asking leading questions that predispose the sales candidate to give you answers you’re seeking is a waste…
Hold At Least One of Your Interviews in a Social Environment
There are a couple of reasons why you should take candidates from your hiring shortlist out for lunch or dinner and neither reason has to do with feeding a starving salesperson. I recommend that you hold at least one of your interviews in a social environment. Here’s why: 1. The candidate may feel more relaxed…
Use TORC When Hiring
Not checking with a candidate’s previous employers is a serious mistake that many companies make when making a hiring decision. Sometimes it’s impossible to check a person’s employment record or do meaningful reference checks because the candidate is still in his first job. If you have someone you want to hire but the candidate is…
Conduct Group Interviews
If your firm is keen on using a team approach to selling, it might be wise to include some or all of the current sales team members in on the final selection interviews for a new salesperson. If there’s going to be a personality or other type of conflict, better you find out before you…
