Interview Questions To Find The Peak Performing Sales Rep.

Use the process carefully...choose you final question with care!

Interview questions fall into four categories;

1. Functional Skills - Those "know how" skills that are necessary to perform tasks that are routine.  There are valuable questions here that can expose the candidates education, and training.  Some deeper questions can help you uncover the interviewee's perception of their role, and understanding of sales process.  This is a particularly important field of questions for small to medium sized companies that may not offer in-house training.
2. Product knowledge - Just how important is product knowledge?  Does a communication sales rep need to know what reports a call center system is capable of generating?  Does a cabinet sales person have to know how a compound joint is fastened?  The depth and breadth of product knowledge required is really driven by how your customers make buying decisions. 
3. Industry knowledge - Is it necessary for your sales people to understand your industry, and your customer's industry? 
4. Leadership skills - This is the most overlooked line of interview questions, yet this competency is the primary driver of the sales person's success.  Just because a sales rep does not have direct reports does not mean they do not need leadership skills.  Self leadership is the fuel that drives the sales person to utilize all those functional skills.  These are the "soft" skills that are more difficult to train.  Entrepreneurial drive, impact & influence, self-confidence, effective communication and identifying the needs of the prospect come to mind.

There's no one question that can ensure you make the best hiring decision.  However, your hiring process should be organized enough so that you ensure that all four categories of interviewing focus are covered in the process.  If the last interviewer is asking the same line of questions that the first person asked are you really making the best use of the process?  Think of the interviewing process as a funnel where 100 candidates begin the process and 96 are eliminated.  So perhaps the first step is a 10 minute screening interview where the candidate's industry knowledge is explored.  The next step may be a 30 minute interview focusing on product knowledge and some fundamental sales skills.  A traditional one hour interview is required to dive deeper into functional skills.  These interviews should always be conducted by a field sales manager.  If the field of candidates is still large I would advise that another field manager conduct a second interview drilling down further into functional skills.

So if your interviewing process is working correctly you now have reduced the number of candidates from 100 down to 4.  And now there is time to change your focus from product, industry and functional knowledge to self leadership skills.  To this point you have narrowed the field to those candidates that are capable of doing the job.  Focusing the final interview on self leadership will help you make the best selection not on capability to succeed, but on the likelihood of that success.  Which is the one candidate that is most likely to succeed and become a peak performer?

Having interviewed thousands of sales candidates, hiring hundreds and seeing those people succeed I would offer this advice.  The one leadership competency that seems to always differentiate average performers & peak performers is entrepreneurial drive.  The only way to determine if a candidate possesses this leadership competency is to ask a situational question, and to listen closely for the behaviors that exemplify this competency.

So what is my favorite all time final interview question?  "Tell me about a time when you were driven to acheive a goal, you faced substantial resistence, and had little internal support."  This one question should take 30 to 45 minutes to discuss.  And now for the hard part.  You must listen for the candidate's behaviors.  You must guard against directing them towards an answer, and you can only give them credit for what they did.  Too often "we" slips into the conversation.  No credit for "we" in this interview.  So what behaviors are you listening for?

• The candidate set their own objectives (probably higher than expected), and competed against a self defined standard of excellence.
• Tirelessly pursued attainment of that goal, perhaps for years.
• Showed tenacity by persisting, taking numerous, sustained actions over time in the face of obstacles.
• Identifies the resources needed to attain the goal, and then takes entrepreneurial action to obtain those resources.
• Never gave up.

In the end you're looking for that special person with the attitude of Gene Kranz...remember him?  Ed Harris played Gene Kranz in the movie "Apollo 13."  Gene's most remembered quote was "failure is not an option."  I believe that in every great sales person there's a common theme.