Interview questions

What questions should be asked when interviewing a sales manager?
Here’s a helpful list for the recruiter 🙂

1. What can you tell us about our company?
2. After reviewing our website, please name one thing you would like to change and why?
3. Having learned about our business (before the interview), what opportunities do you think we might be missing?
4. Since you have decided to change jobs, what criteria do you use to choose your next employer?
5. Why are you planning to leave your current position?
6. When choosing between sales and sales management, why do you prefer sales management?
7. For you, is sales a team sport or an individual sport? Why?
8. What is more important for a sales manager: to be liked or to be respected?
9. What do you see as the primary function of a sales manager?
10. Please provide an example of a time when you had to make a tough decision. What was it like? What was the outcome? If you had a second chance, what would you change?
11. Describe your ideal corporate culture.
12. In what management style will you be able to thrive?
13. Provide an example of a time when you had to “fight” within the company to help your salesperson close a deal. What obstacles did you encounter, and how did you overcome them?
14. What do you like the least about your current manager?
15. What is your approach to collaborating with marketing?
16. What comes first: sales strategy or marketing strategy? Why?
17. Sales and back office often conflict. Can you provide an example of when you experienced this conflict? How did you resolve it?
18. What three words would your subordinates use to describe you?
19. If I had to speak with your manager, what would be the one thing they would point out as your biggest weakness?
20. What has a greater impact on sales: the salespeople or the sales process?
21. What was the most challenging management experience for you? How did you handle the situation?
22. Please provide an example of a time when you had to break the rules. What was the outcome?
23. What do you feel is the difference between a sales leader and a sales manager?
24. If we were to make you an offer, what would you like to know in order to make a well-informed and thoughtful decision?
25. Please provide an example when your ethical principles were challenged. How did you resolve the issue?
26. Name one factor that is key to your success?
27. How do you search for candidates for sales positions?
28. They say that employees don’t leave the company, they leave their manager. What do you do to retain your most talented salespeople?
29. Why do sellers want to work for you?
30. What is your approach to evaluating potential candidates for a sales position?
31. What questions do you ask when interviewing potential candidates for a sales position?
32. What do you look for in candidates that indicates they will succeed in your team?
33. What is the most effective technique for evaluating a salesperson’s skills?
34. What distinguishes your philosophy of hiring salespeople from that of your competitors?
35. Scenario: The star candidate demands a salary that is 10,000 hryvnias higher than the base salary of your best salesperson. Will you agree to the higher salary, reject the candidate, or is there another option?
36. What approaches have you used to successfully recruit new salespeople for your team?
37. How do you create a positive experience for new salespeople on their first day at work?
38. What is the biggest challenge when hiring a new salesperson?
39. What tools do you use to assess the performance of new salespeople during their probationary period?
40. What valuable things do you provide to your salespeople?
41. If you could improve just one skill to enhance your effectiveness, which one would you choose? What impact would that have?
42. What does a salesperson need to succeed?
43. Sellers often complain about the economic situation. How do you handle such issues?
44. How would you describe your leadership philosophy?
45. How to build trustful relationships with a sales team?
46. What is your secret to motivating salespeople?
47. What is your approach to managing top salespeople?
48. How do you manage underperforming salespeople?
49. Scenario: The best salesperson is leaving. What do you do?
50. Scenario: You have had two face-to-face meetings with a below-average performing salesperson to discuss their activity. What will you do next?
51. What are your expectations of salespeople regarding their personal development?
52. How often do you meet with your salespeople one-on-one? What is the structure of the meeting? What do you hope to achieve?
53. Scenario: One of your salespeople comes into your office and expresses concern that there are no prospects for finding clients if the price of the product doesn’t go down. What do you do?
54. What do you think is the best way to manage salespeople?
55. If the deal fell through, how can you turn this fact into a positive experience for the sales manager?
56. When you go to a meeting with a client alongside your salesperson, what is your role? How do you measure success? How do you ensure feedback?
57. Scenario: During a call with a client, you notice that your salesperson is arguing. What do you do?
58. Scenario: Your salespeople are citing the economic situation as the reason for not meeting their targets. What do you do?
59. Scenario: Out of the blue, a request for a commercial proposal appears on the seller’s desk. What advice would you give to the seller?
60. What leads a seller to failure?
61. Based on what you know about our company, what do you think enables our salespeople to succeed?
62. What is the most common objection your salespeople hear in your current company? How does the sales trainer help them deal with it?
63. Provide an example of when you created a sales process for your salespeople.
64. What is your approach to developing processes for your sales department?
65. What processes do you think should be established to achieve success in sales?
66. What is your approach to forecasting?
67. How do you use metrics to influence or change the behavior of salespeople?
68. What CRM systems have you used? What do you prefer? Why?
69. What methods did you use to encourage your salespeople to use the CRM?
70. Scenario: Your top salesperson is ignoring your requests to use the CRM for managing contacts and tracking deals. What do you do?
71. What is your secret to conducting a successful sales meeting?
72. When you take over your sales department, what will you try to achieve?
73. What was the best sales meeting you ever had? What made it so special?
74. What experience do you have in developing a reward system?
75. What is your approach to developing sales incentive systems?
76. What is your philosophy on using drawings in sales and when working with salespeople?
77. What is your vision for the relationship between the rate and the commission for sellers?
78. Scenario: After the implementation of the new payment system, some members of the sales department are disappointed with the changes. What do you do?
79. What are you doing to become a better sales leader?
80. Who was your best mentor? How did they influence you?
81. What sales management websites do you visit to hone your craft?
82. What books have had the greatest impact on your career?
83. What does it take to be a successful sales leader?
84. How would you describe your sales management style?
85. No one is perfect… What are you working on to improve this in yourself?
86. What is your greatest achievement in sales management? What made it so special?
87. What motivates you to get out of bed and inspires you for the whole day?
88. Please provide an example of goals you have set and how you achieved them. What do you consider your success?
89. Give an example of a goal you set but were unable to achieve. Why were you unable to? What did you learn from it?
90. Please provide an example of a time when you needed more flexibility than you could afford. How did you handle it?
91. One of the things that makes our business successful is our timely response to market conditions. This means constant change. How do you handle change?
92. How do you manage to stay organized?
93. What do you think about participating in exhibitions?
94. How to prepare your sales department for a trade show?
95. How do you manage the leads obtained from the exhibition? How do you assign responsibilities? How do you track the results?
96. What is the greatest challenge for a person in the role of a sales leader?
97. Based on what you know about our company, what obstacles do you think are hindering the improvement of our sales performance?
98. What can you tell us about yourself and your skills that gives you the confidence that this position is the right fit for you?
99. Please describe how you plan to spend the first 90 days in our company. How will we know that you have been successful during this period?
100. What questions would you like to ask me?