I’ve encountered a common question in recent interviews which pertains to the current level of performance from the existing sales team.  This economy is wreaking havoc on many salespeople in terms of their commissions.  Sales candidates are aware of this situation and are diligently asking the question regarding where the current team is performing.  I find it to be a most appropriate question.

The problem often lies within the hiring manager’s response.  It is simply difficult to hide a grossly underperforming sales team.  If the economy is cratering their success, the problem is even more difficult to contain in an answer.  This usually leads to a pseudo-answer that deflects the question.

A prime example – I heard the question asking how the current sales team was performing.  The hiring manager offered this statement back, “Our company revenue is up 8% which isn’t as high as it was the previous year, but it is still growth in this economy.”  A clever answer that went unchallenged by the candidate.  Unfortunately, the company was surviving on existing business that had expanded – not on new customer growth which was the prime directive for this position.

Another common response is quoting the top performer.  “Our top salesperson made $(fill in the blank) last year.”  This is truly a deflection.  What if the other 19 salespeople were all well below quota?  That would tell the candidate more about the state of the sales team than referencing the top performer.

My preferred answer for a hiring manager is to provide a range of performance – our top tier made $X last year, our second tier made $X and our bottom tier made $X.  Some variable of that construction provides good data for the candidate without going too specific.  A strong sales candidate will pursue the information further to clarify it which is simply good qualifying in my opinion.

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Let me be honest, I have sat in on some interviews that were borderline psychotic.  Questions from left field, overt anger and emotions, lying responses that were easily observed…and those were the good ones.  In all seriousness, interviewing is difficult and being a good interviewer is even more challenging.  Most managers do not spend their time honing their interview skills.  This fact often leads to bizarre questions.  It also leads to bizarre question patterns.

Every year there seems to be a list of the oddest interview questions from the year – it is a guilty pleasure of mine to read them.  Perhaps you would enjoy the list also?  To whet your appetite for frivolity:

1. If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?

As a mathematically-challenged person, I find this question downright perverse and evil:

7. Out of 25 horses, pick the fastest 3 horses. In each race, only 5 horses can run at the same time. What is the minimum number of races required?

Same goes for this one:

15. You are in a dark room with no light. You have 19 grey socks and 25 black socks. What are the chances you will get a matching pair?

You get the idea.  There are strange ones in the list is you read the article.  My point in bringing this up is that many sales managers would scream if their salespeople went into a sales call without a plan, a strategy.  Yet many sales managers that I see go into an interview with the intent of simply rehashing a candidate’s work history and then deciding if they like him or her.  This is not a strategy.  And asking math word problems should not be a part of your interview process.

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Do you know what I mean by “gotcha questions?”  These are the questions designed to trap, trick or zap a candidate.  These types of questions are often used by interviewers who believe they need to “win” the interview.  I know it sounds odd and uncommon (I certainly hope it is), but I have sat through interviews where the gotcha questions have been asked.

Interview questions are a tricky sort.  Almost everyone enjoys reading interview questions in hope of discovering an effective one.  However, we incorporate assessments into our process which provides an x-ray of the candidate’s abilities, motivations, aptitudes, style, etc.  The power in this approach is that it identifies the specific areas to pursue with the candidate.

I view the questioning approach as having two important approaches.  First, ask questions to probe the candidate’s weaknesses.  For 10 year I have been in search of the perfect sales candidate.  I haven’t found them yet.  Instead, I look for candidates who have the right blend of abilities to succeed in the position’s unique requirements.  This includes asking questions specifically designed to expose some of their weaknesses.  How intense are they?  Are they detrimental to this position?  (not all are)  How does this weakness show up in their day-to-day selling activities?

I don’t use gotcha questions, but rather simply constructed, open-ended questions or statements.  This is the most effective manner to dig into these difficult to identify areas.

Second, I use questions to confirm the candidate’s strength areas.  The assessment measures a strength area, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the candidate is using that strength.  I like to pursue the topic with them to get a feel for their use of the strength.  I have seen salespeople with great strength areas that they choose not to access.  Sometimes this questioning approach gets overlooked.

Again, all of these tasks can be accomplished because we incorporate the assessment procedure early in our hiring process.

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I have sat through some interviews which have been enlightening in terms of the struggles of hiring managers who do not hire often.  One of the blatant deficiencies I observed was this – a lack of good questions.  Is there anything more important than questions in interviewing an external candidate?  Even an internal candidate.

Here is one instance of what I observed – a rather inexperienced manager asked esoteric questions that left me scratching my head.  The candidate did a good job attempting to answer the question without embarrassing the hiring manager.  One question took almost 2 minutes for the hiring manager to ask!  The question included an analogy, an experience aspect and a hypothetical component…I think.

This interaction was a perfect example of the manager being too clever by half.

The most effective approach is to prepare for each candidate by writing down your questions for that candidate.  If your question takes more than 15-20 seconds to ask, cut it down.  If you choose to use an analogy, test it out on a coworker.  If they struggle with it, rework it (or scrap it).  The most effective questions are direct, succinct and open-ended.  Provide the candidate with the opportunity to navigate to the answer they would like to offer.  Pay attention to the topics they choose – there is much to discern in that information.

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I am a psych major.  As my mother likes to say, “I’ve never met a psychologist who didn’t need their own services.”  Although I am not a psychologist, I get the gist of her commentary.

In that vein, I was revisiting some of my antiquated text books in search of a professional explanation for why “bad” sales candidates can often smoke good interviewers.  I give you self-presentation or impression management.  The definition from Social Psychology-Understanding Human Interaction by Baron and Byrne:

…they flatter others, pretend to agree with them about various issues, or feign great interest in what they are saying – all in an attempt to create a favorable first impression.  Not surprisingly, persons who are skilled in self-presentation often make better first impressions on others than persons who are less adept in this regard.

That sounds just about right, doesn’t it?  The real hook, in my opinion, comes from the next section:

While skillful self-presentation often involves tactics such as the ones listed above, it may also rest, to an important degree, on the effective use of nonverbal cues.  As we noted above, certain facial expressions, patterns of eye contact, and specific body postures or movements convey liking or positive reactions to others.  Persons who are successful at self-presentation seem to be well aware of this fact.  Thus, they often seek to manage such impressions by controlling their own nonverbal behavior.  While interacting with target persons (ones they wish to impress), they smile frequently, lean forward, maintain a high level of eye contact, and nod in agreement on many occasions.  The result:  they often succeed in producing positive first impressions.

Exactly.  This fact is why we use a system for selecting sales candidates that incorporates phone screens and objective assessments before we ever meet the candidate.  Bad salespeople, ones who couldn’t sell ice water in the desert, can sometimes have these deceptive abilities.

The more dangerous candidate is the one who is mired in mediocrity.  These candidates often have decent to strong self-presentation abilities but they lack the overall sales abilities to succeed in your position.  Think of a salesperson who cannot qualify money, who chases dead-end deals or who has a tremendous need for approval.  These are the salespeople who bog down sales teams with underwhelming results.

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My wife was at an interview last week for a medical position that is similar to her most current role.  She walked into the lobby to find 4 other candidates there.  They were all called in to a conference room by the HR person.  They were then asked questions individually and asked to answer in front of the other candidates!

The 5 of them were then asked to role play certain situations while the rest observed.  Finally, they were given a tour of the clinic and then had to provide their own tour to a staff person.  The point, I guess, was to see how they handled prospective patient visits.

Suffice to say, I was laughing my way through the story as she told me later that evening.  But what of this?  What is the purpose for running a group interview?  Personally, I have never heard of such an approach.  The HR person was quite young and perhaps only a handful of years removed from college.  My wife was offput by the fact that she was not provided the opportunity to ask questions of the hiring manager regarding the position or the company.  Her characterization of the entire experience was that it was more like a silly game than a professional interview.

I personally think this was some textbook theory that sounds “progressive” in college but fails in the real world.  My experienced wife was not impressed.  In fact, she was laughing about the comical nature of the entire event.  She has shared her experience throughout much of her network (to their great delight).

I appreciate new approaches, but I find this one to be a bridge too far.

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You heard me right, that is an indirect quote from this Inc.com article.  This topic comes up often in our sales hiring activities as the conventional wisdom is that extroverts make better salespeople.  Not true.  Successful salespeople have a wide variety of abilities that go far beyond their communication style.  And that is the point here, introvert/extrovert is more of a communication style than anything else.  It is important to know a salesperson’s style, but it is not predictive of sales success.

Here is some excellent advice from the article (emphasis mine):

“When selling as an introvert, use your abilities as a good researcher to really know audience, know what matters to them, and figure out a product match before you go in. You’ll be meeting with people, so rest up before social interactions with those you are selling to or speaking in front of. Prepare and practice because as an introvert you will think before you speak – as opposed to extroverts who speak as they think. So having a few lines ready, or thoughts composed in advance will be beneficial. Rest, prepare and practice is the magic formula because of the way introverts are wired.”

Extroverts need to start talking to get to their point.  Introverts have to think of their response before they speak.  This point is never more obvious than when you are interviewing sales candidates.  When I sit in on interviews with my customers, I always make sure to tell them if the candidate is more extroverted or introverted.

My experience is this – an introverted hiring manager will be unimpressed by an extroverted sales candidate in terms of communication.  The hiring manager has a tendency to comment on the candidate’s rambling answers, long-windedness and tangential topics.  At this point I explain that the candidate is extroverted and needs to start talking to get to his or her response.  If they are strongly extroverted, they will have to rev up their answer a bit before delivering the point.  This isn’t necessarily a weakness, it is simply a style issue.

I have seen a recent rise of the introvert in one key sales area – relationship selling.  The reason is this:

Introverts do well with deep relationships and conversations rather than chit-chat.

If you have a relatively long or extended sales cycle, an introverted selling style is probably a more natural fit for your sale’s requirements.  As sales move away from one-call closes and on to relationship-based deals, introverts will play a prominent part in a sales team’s success.

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Yes, the title is a bit quirky, but it is true.  A significant portion of successful hiring involves being a good detective.  I have always taken that approach when helping our customers find the right salesperson for their position.  To be a good detective, you need to be a bit skeptical.

Sales candidates blow sunshine.  Few have ever missed quota, most state their primary weakness is being a workaholic and all have earned everything they have accomplished.  Right.  In reality, most have missed their sales quota at some point, many have real weaknesses discussing money and handling rejection and most have benefited from somewhere be it marketing, territory, company market share, etc.

Sales hiring is the most difficult hiring in which to succeed in that the candidates have interpersonal skills that disarm hiring managers.  In a way, this is a good thing since you want your salespeople to have this ability when qualifying prospects.  However, the hiring manager needs to focus like a detective during the hiring process.

I’m an old Hill Street Blues fan.  I watched almost every episode of NYPD Blue (it got weird at the end).  Even Magnum PI had some interesting tips.  Here are a few tips based on techniques incorporated by these detectives:

-Drill down – do not accept the candidate’s first answer as the complete answer.  Too often I see hiring managers accept theoretical answers to direct questions.  Ask for specific examples and then ask follow-up questions that require more detail from the candidate.  This approach will be most enlightening in regards to understanding if the candidate is being truthful or not.

-Interrupt – ok, don’t be a jerk, but interrupt the candidate gently.  The goal here is to shake them out of a canned, memorized response.  Prospects do this in sales calls.  I always do this in an interview.  Interviews should not be easy for sales candidates because selling isn’t easy.  This approach will show you how quick the candidate is on their feet.

-Wait – there is nothing quite like an awkward, pregnant pause to add some pressure to a discussion.  Silence is fine as it forces the candidate to work.  Their job is to impress you enough to continue in the hiring process.  Your job is not to make them completely comfortable.  At ease, yes; comfortable, no.  Use silence at times to force the candidate into a longer answer.  This approach will reveal how disciplined they are at controlling a conversation.

These are just a few techniques I incorporate.  Of course, one great tool for guiding you through an interview is a sales assessment.  If you aren’t using any such tool today, please contact us at your earliest convenience.  We’ll show you just what you are missing in making your hiring decision.

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This article from Yahoo’s Hot Jobs contains 5 hiring myths designed to help candidates perform better in an interview.  Myth #1 is excellent for the hiring manager:

Myth #1: Be prepared with a list of questions to ask at the close of the interview.

There is some truth in this common piece of advice: You should always be prepared, and that usually includes developing questions related to the job. The myth here is that you must wait until it is “your turn” to speak.

By waiting until the interviewer asks you if you have any questions, “it becomes an interrogation instead of a conversation,” says Greene.

Greene recommends that you think of an interview as a sales call. You are the product and you are selling yourself to the employer. “You can’t be passive in a sales call or you aren’t going to sell your product.”

How true!  We always treat an interview (either phone or in-person) as a sales call.  As a hiring manager for a sales position, the interview is a natural sales situation.  The interview is the perfect opportunity to play the role of the prospect to watch how the sales candidate qualifies and closes you.

This approach, using the interview to see the sales candidate in action, is the foundation for repeatable, successful sales hiring.  Salespeople are naturally good at…selling!  Granted, some are not, but they eventually get broomed.  The problem is that many hiring managers are not adept at being the disinterested prospect in an interview.

Many hiring managers (including many sales managers) are inexperienced interviewers.  Their preparation may consist of nothing more than pulling out a resume 5 min. before the interview and then asking the candidate to walk them through their resume.  This approach reveals nothing more than the candidate’s pre-canned talk about their mostly unverifiable past.  We’re they really the top salesperson?  Did they truly turn around an under-performing territory?  Did they close 50 new accounts?

No, the better approach is to treat the interview as a sales call and put some pressure on the candidate – see how they handle it.  Interrupt them (graciously, of course) and change topics quickly.  Can they move with the discussion?  Question some of their statistics and look for visible signs of emotions.  These unexpected moves knock them off of their script and if you have been in sales you know it is impossible to script a sales call.  Ideally, the candidate can handle your “objections” and respond with good qualifying questions.  Now you can actually see the candidate in action which will reveal more about their abilities than any resume.

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Don’t flame me on the title, there is a method to this madness.  I like cliché questions for sales interviews.  There, I admitted it.  Now, I should clarify, I’m not talking about an entire interview of these questions, but rather some strategic ones sprinkled into your question list.

Here is why – if the question is cliché, the candidate should have a sparkling answer.  Their answer may be well-rehearsed – that is fine.  You, as the interviewer, simply need to drill down on their response to get to the unvarnished truth.

However, the catch to this approach is when they don’t have a strong answer.  I am always concerned about candidates who provide weak answers to expected questions.  They should have expected some of these questions and, more importantly, should have prepared for them.  This lack of preparation is often indicative of how they will prepare for an initial meeting with a prospect.

Here is one I often incorporate, “Tell me about a time when you had to go well beyond your normal responsibilities to close a deal.”  Simple, cliché, but here is why it works – I want to hear a good, real example.  I’m looking for what they perceive as being a stretch for their role.  There is much to be learned in their response.

There are many sales prima donnas who have a high maintenance attitude.  Some tasks, in their opinion, are beneath them.  I’m always looking for where they draw the line in that I don’t want a salesperson who tries to do everything themselves either.  There is a happy medium that works for your position.  My experience has shown that smaller companies expect salespeople to do more tasks while larger companies expect more specialization.

Keep those cliché questions handy next time you interview a strong sales candidate.

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