There’s a lot that goes into hiring the right sales candidates.
You need to assess their expertise, problem-solving capabilities, and whatnot.
What if you hire candidates and all they care about is their paychecks and commissions?
What if they have good sales expertise but lack resilience? A few rejections and they lose the motivation to do things right.
The stakes are high.
And the only way out is to carefully evaluate their skills by asking the RIGHT interview questions. Whether you’re hiring SDR or BDR, these interview questions will help you filter out those resilient, thick-skinned decision-makers who bring a lot more to the table besides hitting monthly goals.
We’ve curated a list of the top 7 interview questions to ask sales candidates to ensure you hire salespeople who consistently meet your business goals.
Let’s cut to the chase already.
7 Best Interview Questions to Ask Sales Candidates
The best way to see if they’re the right fit is to ask a mix of questions revealing their sales skills and problem-solving abilities.
Let’s look at these 7 interview questions to ask sales candidates and their expected answers.
Q.1. What strategies do you use to research potential clients before making a pitch?
Purpose: Assess the candidate’s research skills, and ability to personalize sales pitches.
What to Expect:
Understand whether the candidate uses specific strategies during the research process.
You might want them to mention tools like industry reports, LinkedIn, and customer databases for research purposes.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Hence the ideal salespeople should base their approach on the unique characteristics of each client.
Common Gaps to Watch For:
If your SDR isn’t emphasizing the need for proper homework and their approach heavily relies on generic scripts, know that they lack basic research skills.
Similarly, if all they do is Google things in the name of research, they’re not the ideal fit for your company.
These types of candidates will drain your resources, time, and efforts.
Fortunately, you don’t have to settle with them.
💡 Pavago helps screen the right candidate for you so that you don’t have to think about the best interview questions to ask sales candidates. We source and vet the talent that excels at using advanced research tools and crafting client-specific strategies.
Q.2. Can you describe your sales process from lead generation to closing?
Purpose: It is one of the best interview questions to ask a sales candidate and its purpose is to assess the candidate’s strategic approach and structured thinking.
What to Expect:
Ideally, the candidate should outline the whole process from lead generation to nurturing to closing deals.
They should have a clear framework and highlight all the stages of a sales cycle, including prospecting, qualifying leads, presenting solutions, and following up.
Common Gaps to Watch For:
Dismiss the candidate if their sole focus is on closing and disregard other stages like lead qualification. Their sale relied on luck or aggressive tactics instead of a methodical approach.
Q.3. How do you handle objections from potential clients?
Purpose: Objection handling is the core skill of SDRs. To assess this, you can use scenario-based sales interview questions to ask candidates that evaluate their patience and problem-solving abilities.
What to Expect:
The candidate should show understanding of the client’s concerns and not dismiss them, showing their emotional intelligence.
Similarly, a business development representative should show a structured approach. Meanwhile, they should listen to the objections before offering a targeted solution,
Common Gaps to Watch For:
If they try to convince the client without addressing the root cause of their concern or offering discounts as a solution, you don’t want to hire them.
The wrong candidates can eventually damage your reputation.
The solution is to conduct comprehensive assessments of candidates’ objection-handling skills.
💡 Apart from knowing, what interview questions to ask sales candidates, If you need help with hiring sales teams, Pavago is one of the leading companies that do a vigorous pre-screening of the candidates to ensure you get the talent that can tackle client objections effectively.
Q.4. Can you share any incident when you turned around a potential lost deal?
Purpose: Test problem-solving skills and performance under pressure.
What to Expect:
The best scenario here would be when the candidate shows creativity in their approach.
A good example here would be how the candidate convinced the client to proceed despite him being hesitant due to delivery timings.
Instead of making false or vague statements, the candidate collaborated with their operations team to deliver the work without compromising quality.
This shows they balanced internal team dynamics and external client needs.
Common Gaps to Watch For:
If they turned around a lost deal just by offering a discount, your product isn’t wrong.
Their approach is!
💡 At Pavago, we hire full-time remote sales reps who thrive in challenging environments. They’re not juggling different tasks and their only focus is on closing those seemingly impossible deals.
If they still need something, we’re here to provide them with proper sales training so they can excel from day one.
Q.5. What metrics do you track to evaluate your sales performance?
Purpose: Determine the candidate’s data literacy and results orientation.
What to Expect:
According to Hubspot sales report, 91% of salespeople engage in upselling, which contributes an average of 21% to company revenue. That means the right sales candidate tracks key metrics like conversion rates, average deal size, pipeline velocity, and customer acquisition costs.
They also go the extra mile and use these metrics to adjust their overall selling approach.
Common Gaps to Watch For:
“I just hit my quota” is a common response candidates give during interviews.
These are the sales candidates you need to avoid because (1) they lack depth in performance analysis and (2) they don’t care about your business goals.
One of the main reasons we don’t get the right candidate is because we’re searching for them in the wrong place.
💡 The USA doesn’t have data-driven sales professionals but countries like Pakistan, Malaysia, South Africa, and Latin America have. An offshore recruitment agency can help you hire and onboard the best remote sales candidates from these countries for 70% Less.
Q.6. How do you adapt your sales style when dealing with different customer personalities?
Purpose: Test adaptability and interpersonal skills.
What to Expect:
Your ideal sales candidate has to deal with different customer personas and should be well-versed in changing their strategies according to them.
For example, they would use factual evidence to convince analytical buyers and share testimonials with relationship-driven buyers.
Common Gaps to Watch For:
If the candidate uses the same script for all prospects, they don’t acknowledge different customer personas.
Q.7. How would you approach your first 90 days if you joined our team?
Purpose: Gauge the initiative and planning skills of your remote sales staff.
What to Expect:
The right candidate would present a 30-60-90 day plan covering everything from training to customer research to outreach strategies.
Common Gaps to Watch For:
If the candidate doesn’t show interest in the training and planning phase, it demonstrates their rigid approach and unwillingness to learn about the business.
You don’t want that.
💡 To make things easy, Pavago is your a-z recruitment solution. We have sales experts who meticulously vet SDRs and offer training to your new hires to ensure they stay ahead and bring results to your business.
Final Verdict
When you know the right interview questions to ask sales candidates, it will help you identify those resilient, goal-driven sales candidates who understand your market.
But can we be honest here? The hiring process can be challenging for small businesses.
Shifting through endless resumes, doing back-to-back interviews, and still not knowing if this candidate will work out is not only time-consuming but exhausting.
Finding top-notch Sales Candidates is Hard, especially if you have a limited budget.
A million-dollar tip to make your life easier? Outsource your sales recruitment to Pavago.
We hire the top 1% of remote talent who deliver results without needing micromanagement.
Whether it’s sourcing, interviewing, onboarding, or even training, Pavago takes care of everything.
All you have to do is get on a call with us to explain your needs and let us hire the best talent within 3 weeks!
The best part? You can get a Pavago membership at $500 annually and unlimited placements.
Looking for Your Next Rockstart Sales Rep? Let Us Handle the Sourcing, Interviewing, and Onboarding!
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