I found a pile of papers on my desk that contained a few sheets of interview questions.  I don’t know where they are from, but I found myself reading them today.  Aren’t interview questions interesting to read?  I think most people like to see if they can find a good question to take for themselves.  At least that is my approach.

Some standard questions:

Why do you want to work here?

Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?

What good books have to read lately?

Why should I hire you? (I despise this question)

That is all pretty standard fare.  But I did find a few more interesting offerings:

Why aren’t you earning more money at this stage of your career?

Would you lie for the company?

What changes would you make if you came on board?

Looking back, what would you do differently in your life?

Tell me about something you did – or failed to do – that you now feel a little ashamed of.

Where could you use some improvement?

Tell me something negative you have heard about our company.

On a scale of 1 to 10, rate me as an interviewer.

That last questions would cause me to blow a gasket.  That is tough.  If the candidate isn’t sincere, they will appear to be either cocky, angry or schmoozy.  I’m not sure that is a word, but you get my point.  Some good, tough questions there.

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Quick hitter – say a candidate has worked at a particular company for 5 years.  When phone screening and interviewing them about that experience, it is important to determine if they have 5 years of unique experience or 5 years of the first year over and over.

That is a twisted sentence, but I hope you get my point.  We’ve run into this issue with salespeople in previous positions.  Did the salesperson grow in the position over their tenure or did they simply perform the same tasks repeatedly over their tenure.

Don’t underestimate the importance of this distinction.  We’ve seen decent salespeople go “stale” over time and, in most instances, it has been due to a lack of development in their position.

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Sales managers need to focus their team on specific objectives.  This requires the manager to gain commitment from each salesperson…on a regular basis.  It is an important aspect of successful coaching and empowering the employee.

Gaining Commitment
This ability develops and invokes a self-starting attitude in employees in their pursuit of goals. It is the capacity to motivate employees to do their best and to provide them with concrete, practical ideas and methods by which they can achieve their goals.

A sales manager with a strength in this trait will be able to effectively use empathetic ability, communication skills and leadership ability to create a sense of personal motivation to be successful in a given task. This motivation is instilled within the employee; therefore, they are acting on their own drive as opposed to simply responding to outside supervision.

A sales manager with a weakness in this area lacks the ability to effectively inspire another with the internal desire to succeed. They might fail to recognize the importance of such inspiration and rely instead on direct supervision to accomplish goals through employees.

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