3 Keys To Identifying A Sales Achiever In A Hiring Interview

How can you identify the great salesperson in a job interview? Well, it’s not easy.

First of all, true sales virtuosos are scarce, even though there are many good salespeople and sales is one of the most common and necessary types of jobs. Also, research shows that the job interview is notoriously unreliable as a predictor of job performance. And it’s even worse if you are interviewing salespeople. Because if there is one thing that all salespeople – from the great ones to the average ones – have in common, it is the ability to interview exceptionally well.

So, how can you use an interview to increase your “hit rate” in hiring the best salespeople? Naturally, you want to look at their history, references, performance on pre-employment tests, and the like. You want to ask the usual interview questions (Tell me about yourself. Why did you leave your last job? What are your strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures? Etc.).

But salespeople are experts at getting past a typical interviewer. So here’s your challenge: How can you turn the odds in your favor? How can you interview in a manner that will reveal whether the person sitting across the desk from you will be first string on your sales team or will be a sales underachiever?

As a psychologist who has spent decades interviewing and counseling salespeople, I have learned that there are certain patterns that keep coming up so frequently in interviews that they have become highly predictable. Using the power of communication, here are 3 powerful interview tools to add to your interview approach:

C. Look for evidence not only that the applicant can perform the sales task, but also that he or she can do so on an ongoing basis. For example, if the job requires cold calling, and the applicant says they are good at cold calling, ask how much they cold call (how many hours a day or week, how many months on a consistent basis).

Adding all of the above ideas will increase the depth of your interview and give you more specific and better information to help you make a good sales hiring decision. And if you find that some variation works better for you in your particular situation, by all means use it.

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

Dr. Sander Marcus is a clinical psychologist with the Center for Research & Service at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. Specializing in motivational, career, and business areas, he has co-authored two books on underachievement and a nationally used sales test (the SalesAP, Sales Achievement Predictor), as well as dozens of articles. He can be contacted at marcus@iit.edu, 312-567-3358. The IIT Center website is www.center.iit.edu

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