Sales Interview Questions and Answers

Sales Interview Questions

Here is a list of commonly-asked sales interview questions. These questions can help analyse personality traits such as self-awareness, empathy, ambition, conscientiousness, optimism, etc. A candidate’s answer to these questions can be subjective and will depend on their own experiences. 

1. What skills do you possess that distinguishes you from other members of your team?
2. Explain a creative idea you use, to close a sale.
3. How do you conduct a typical sales call?
4. What difference can you make to this organisation if you are hired?
5. Have you lost a deal? If yes, elaborate on that experience?
6. What was the key take away from a deal that you lost?
7. What is your opinion about making cold calls?
8. What motivates/drives you?
9. What was your most successful sale, and how did you achieve it?
10. Sell me this “product”? (Now, this could be the classic pen or any other product of your choice.)
11. Do you have any long-term career goals?
12. What do you know about the products we offer in our company?
13. What is our organisation’s USP?
14. What makes you interested in this sales job?
15. What is your opinion about long and short sales cycles
16. What is the most rewarding factor about a sales job
17. How do you update your knowledge of the target market?
18. Do you use social media platforms for research, if yes, how?
19. What are the steps you take to generate more leads
20. What are the strategies you use to handle a demanding customer? 
21. What forms of communication do you use to follow up with clients?
22. How do you build and maintain rapport with a prospective client?
23. What are the essential skills a salesperson must-have?
24. What is the least exciting thing about a sales job?

The candidate’s response to the interview questions should include personal examples of their sales achievements. Their answers should also reveal how they can help your organisation achieve its sales goals.

Use Online Assessment Tests to Evaluate Sales Skills

It is not an easy task to assess all of the above behavioural traits and skills through written tests or face to face interviews alone. Traditional recruitment methods are time-consuming, and they do not facilitate an elaborate analysis of character traits. Online assessment platforms simplify this task. It provides many sophisticated tools that enable secure, quick, and accurate sales candidate assessment. There are many sales interview questions available on these platforms that can be used to administer tests quickly and efficiently.

Applications of MeritTrac assessment solutions - hiring and workforce development

Assessment platforms create a dramatic shift in the way recruiters test, engage, and hire candidates. Finding the right sales talent is easier when you have the right tools. With readily available sales interview questions on assessment platforms, recruiters can cut down their hiring time in half. You can conduct a detailed analysis of the test results that are tabulated automatically to ensure accuracy and eliminate the chance of any bias in the evaluation. With such fast results, you can complete the hiring process quickly and improve your organisation’s sales outcomes.

MeritTrac’s assessment solutions also help you understand the training needs of existing employees. With timely assessment, you can quickly identify any skill gaps. The insights in the comprehensive test reports help to create training and development programs that can help sharpen the sales skills of the employees.