A guide to sales job interview success

When recruiting for sales professionals the interview panel will, first and foremost, be looking for strong communication skills and a quick, inventive mind. “Someone who comes across as ill-prepared and short of things to say probably won’t be selected for a second interview, ” points out one sales recruitment expert.

So what’s the answer? Preparation of course, and that means planning answers to popular interview questions well before you set off for the sales job interview.

So Simply Sales Jobs has compiled the ultimate interview best practice guide. We take a look at the different types of interview question you can expect to have thrown at you, and provide ideas for answers that will help you land the job.

Preparation for the sales job interview

The golden rule of being interviewed is to be prepared! It sounds simple but so many sales job seekers make the mistake of arriving for interviews without preparing properly in advance, expecting their gift for talking to ensure they walk into the job.

Do all the research on the company that you can. Spend time going through the company website and if possible ensure you get a copy of their latest published accounts (normally these are available to download from a companies’ corporate website). Google is, of course, a fantastic tool for finding out some interesting facts about the marketing company you’re hoping to work for.

“What do you know about our company?” is one of the most commonly asked interview questions, so having to scrape around for something to say instantly looks bad. If the information is on their website, there is no excuse for not knowing about it, and having pre-prepared opinions about recent business activities and marketing campaigns.

Areas of the business you must research:

• What the company does

• Its products and services

• Current marketing strategy

• Growth plans for the future

• Main competitors

• Financial performance

• Recently published trade news

Ask the recruiter!

If you are working with an external recruiter ask them for the information. The recruiter should be able to give you all the information you need, ensuring you go into the interview prepared. If there is anything you are not sure about – ask.

Find out about the interview process, company culture, size of the existing marketing team, current management, working conditions, and the challenges faced by the team in their day-to-day work. The better prepared you are, the better your chances of impressing the interviewer.

Presentation

First impressions really do count. Ensure that you are dressed for the job you want, rather than the job you already have. Always overdress rather than risk being underdressed.

Studies show that often the average length of time between a candidate entering the interview room and a decision being made is just under four minutes. After this time, recruiters are often looking for evidence to support the decision that (perhaps subconsciously) they have already made. If you are at all unsure about the dress code ask the recruiter.

Punctuality

As a professional, you don’t need to be told to arrive on time, but if you have interviewed extensively yourself you’ll know just how many job seekers still arrive late.
Make sure you find out where you are going and plan how you are going to get there. If you are unsure of the exact location of the interview print, out a map, again often found on the company’s corporate website or available online from one of the many online map providers.

Allow plenty of extra time in case of travel delays, particularly if you are heading into central London, or any other major city for the job interview. If you arrive very early find a nearby café and collect your thoughts and make any final preparations e.g. ensuring you have your mobile phone turned off before you go into the interview etc.

Sales Job Interview: The Questions

Many people fall down here, simply because they haven’t spent sufficient time thinking through answers to fairly straightforward questions. Here are a few classics that will remind you of what to expect at a sales job interview and what kinds of answers to give.

Why do you want to work for us?

The interviewers want to know you are genuinely interested in the company and the opportunities this job provides. So it will be necessary to demonstrate that you understand what makes this company different from its competitors, and what you think will be the interesting/challenging/rewarding things about working there. Think carefully about what really appeals to you about this job and company and how you can stand out from the other people who are applying for this job, and come up with at least three points – e.g. the brands are powerful and widely admired in the marketplace; it’s an award-winning company; you’ve read fantastic client testimonials on the company website.

How would you describe yourself?

Whatever you say it’s important to be honest and genuine. You want the interviewer to feel confident that they are seeing your true personality rather than telling them what you think they want to hear. Remember to give plenty of evidence to back up statements or claims about yourself. Rather than telling the interviewer you are ‘target driven’, give live examples of when you have hit or exceeded targets and describe the steps you took to ensure targets were never missed.

What are your strengths?

The interviewer wants to know what your key strengths are in relation to this particular sales job. Make sure you choose examples that are relevant to this job but also examples that set you apart from other applicants. Try to have four or five strengths available in case the interviewer asks for some further examples. Remember that for most jobs you will want to include an example of working well as part of a team, and fitting in well with others.

What is your greatest weakness?

Of course, be careful not to say anything too negative about yourself – such as you struggle to concentrate, or are badly organised. You can talk about a weakness that you have overcome – for instance, your time management skills have improved in recent years. “I used to accept too much work in an effort to please everybody, but soon discovered that I was diluting my focus and not performing as I should…. Today I try not to be superwoman, but explain carefully to colleagues why I must prioritise my workload.”

How would you deal with criticism?

It’s useful to say you try to look for the positive inside any criticism that comes your way. For instance: “I find constructive criticism a way of analysing my work, with a view to finding and correcting any problem.”

Name your skills which would benefit this company?

Have a least five examples of sales skills you can bring – have you got experience of interpreting business performance data, can you use social media for generating sales leads, are you particularly good at giving presentations, or winning clients with great pitches? You might want to talk about your ability to manage, focus and motivate staff.

Here are 10 sales job interview questions you might want to think about:

• What do you like and dislike about your sales process and why?

• What attracts you to this industry?

• What type of sales cycle is most rewarding to you? A long cycle for a big ticket item or a series of smaller, more frequent sales?

• In your current sales job, how much time do you spend directly with prospects and customers throughout the sales day and what specifically do you do with them?

• Describe a situation with a client or prospect where you made a mistake. How did you handle the error?

• Describe a couple of instances, big or small, where you took a different tack in achieving an objective than was the company standard?

• What sales skills do you think are most important to having success in sales?

• What are your top three open-ended questions for initial sales calls?

• What is the largest group you’ve presented to (externally/ internally)?

• How do you organize a presentation?

Whatever you do – ask questions!

You may have the opportunity to ask questions as the interview progresses, it is normal interview practice for the interviewer to give the job seeker the opportunity to ask questions for the last part of the interview.
Asking insightful, pre-prepared questions when given the opportunity is as important as any of the answers you will have already given during the interview, this is well worth remembering. Not having relevant questions or squirming uncomfortably as you try to think up an intelligent question on the spot will make you look badly prepared and disorganised.

Have 10 questions prepared before you go into the sales job interview. As the interview progresses several of these will no doubt be answered as part of the general interview dialogue. However, when it is your turn to ask questions, pick the 3 to 5 questions that seem most relevant at the time.

Good questions to ask might include:

• What is the company’s approach to training and development?

• How would you describe the company culture?

• What is the biggest challenge facing your company currently?

• How will my success in this role be measured over the next 12 months?

• How long would you expect someone to stay in this position before being considered for an internal promotion?

At the end of the interview

When the interviewer has indicated that the interview is about to end ask the interviewer about additional stages the interview process, ask for an indication of timescale for feedback (rather than asking them for direct feedback on the spot).

Finally, ensure that you thank the interviewer for their time.

Following the Interview

If you are working with an external recruiter, it’s important that you provide timely and frank feedback about how the interview went. They will be able to help you build on this, if not successful this time. The recruiter will also give you some insights from the interview panel.

You can also ask for feedback directly from the HR department, which is particularly useful if you failed to reach the next stage of the recruitment process. Regardless of whether the feedback is positive or negative try to view it objectively and think about how you can improve your interview technique in the future.

For any sales job interview, be prepared, speak clearly and remain positive and upbeat throughout. Good luck!

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