Top 25 Interview Questions to Ask Sales Candidates for an Outside Sales Position

The face-to-face interview is a meeting where you ask short-listed candidates questions about previous employment history, career commitment, sales abilities, goals, education, prior accomplishments, etc. How well you conduct the interview and the types of questions you ask will shape the quality of information you elicit from the candidate and how suitable he or she is for the position.

There is a plethora of advice found on the Internet and in career guides on local bookstore shelves on the subject of job interviews. Any candidate who has several years of sales experience will have researched the interview process. You should be aware of someone who is an “interview star,” which is a term applied to candidates whose best performance occurs during the in-depth interview. This problem is endemic in sales as one of the traits of a successful salesperson is their ability to empathize with people and adapt their personality to the personality style of the individual sitting across from them.

To avoid receiving pat answers, CPSA’s Sales Resource Centre has listed 25 questions you can ask sales candidates.

1. Why are you applying to work with our company?
2. How hard are you prepared to work in this position?
3. What is it you like and dislike about selling?
4. How would you describe your personality?
5. Where do you want to be in five years and why?
6. What things are most important to you in a job?
7. What are your major limitations? Weaknesses?
8. Tell us what you have learned from your mistakes.
9. How do you define “consultative” selling? What do you think makes a person “successful” in sales? How do you rate yourself in these areas?
10. Why do you feel you will be successful with our firm?
11. How you go about finding common ground with customers?
12. Trust bonds are an important aspect in the consultative sales relationship. Describe a time when you were successful in dealing with another because you built a trusting relationship.
13. What would you hope to achieve in your first year of work here?
14. What have you done to improve yourself in the past year—attended courses, self-study materials, joined an association?
15. Tell me about a time when you had to cope with strict deadlines or time demands. Can give me an example?
16. How do you handle rejection?
17. Have you ever assumed an existing sales territory? If yes, what was the dollar volume when you started and what was it when you left?
18. Listening to customers is an integral part of sales. Outline an instance where your ability to listen to a client’s needs helped you rely information about your company’s product/service more effectively.
19. During a sales demonstration/presentation, what techniques do you use to repeat the prospect’s key concepts back to him or her?
20. Can you outline an example where you have had to come up with several solutions to a customer’s problem. What approaches did you use—brainstorming, research etc?
21. Tell me about your best long-term account? How did you get it and what have you done to retain it?
22. Do you generate you own leads? How would you go about identifying customers in a new market?
23. Tell me about a time when you almost lost a sale/customer and what steps did you take to salvage the sale/account?
24. What strategies do you employ to turn an occasional buyer into a regular buyer?
25. Time management is a necessary factor in personal productivity for salespeople. Can you give me an example of any time management skill, technique or tactic that you have learned and applied at work?

Tough interview questions are asked for two purposes: first, they add a measure of stress to the dialogue, and second, they may show qualities about the candidate not otherwise revealed. Selling can be a stressful business. Candidates applying for selling positions should handle a reasonable level of interview tension satisfactorily.

Please note: It is NOT recommended that you ask candidates all of the above questions. Pick only those questions that are important to you and whether the question will help you identify performance and success criteria identified in the job profile.

© Sales Resource Centre, Canadian Professional Sales Association, 2001.