Hiring the right salesperson can substantially increase revenue, but it can be difficult to predict which sales candidates will be successful in the future and which ones will underperform. However, asking the right sales interview questions can help you reveal the top performers.
Research from Steve W. Martin of the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business reveals what separates high-performing salespeople from the underperformers who miss their quota. He examined the habits of over 1,000 salespeople and found that while organizational habits can contribute to success, top sales performance is dependent on the attributes of the individual.
One of the attributes top salespeople possess is an achievement-oriented personality.
“Eighty-four percent of the top performers tested scored very high in achievement orientation,” according to Martin in a Harvard Business Review article. And ver 85% of top salespeople played an individual or team sport in high school, according to the article.
While it may be easy to ask a sales candidate whether or not they played sports in high school, it should not be the only question you ask to see if a candidate is achievement-oriented.
We listed 10 of the top interview questions designed to reveal a candidate’s achievement-oriented traits.
Top 10 Sales Interview Questions that will Reveal Top Performers
- In your position, how do you define doing a good job? Are you doing a good job? How do you know?
- What are your standards of success in your job? What have you done to meet these standards?
- Tell me about some times when you weren’t very pleased with your performance. What caused the results to be less than great?
- What personal factors do you consider most important in evaluating yourself or your success?
- How have you gotten around obstacles that prevented you from completing projects? Describe the obstacle and what you did to get around it.
- Describe a situation in which your first attempt to sell an idea to your boss failed. Did you try again? What approach did you use the second time?
- Tell me about a time when you missed a deadline. What were the consequences? What did you do differently for your next deadline?
- Describe some situations in which you gave your all, but failed?
- What are some big obstacles you had to overcome to get where you are today? How did you overcome them?
- Give me an example of one thing in your life that you have worked on for what you consider to be a very long time with no distraction or break. What did you dislike most about that? How successful were you in completing it?
If you’re hiring a new sales rep, you want to make sure it’s the right one. Use these interview questions as a future predictor of success and find candidates who will overachieve.
For more great sales interview questions and interview preparation tips, check out our guide: How to Select Star Salespeople For Your Business.
