{"id":69,"date":"2006-06-01T05:39:46","date_gmt":"2006-06-01T10:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=69"},"modified":"2006-06-01T05:39:46","modified_gmt":"2006-06-01T10:39:46","slug":"questions-when-hiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/06\/questions-when-hiring\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions When Hiring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.typepad.com\/t\/trackback\/5001982\" target=\"_blank\">Jill Konrath has a great post<\/a> about salespeople who come on &#8220;like a bull in a china shop&#8221; when trying to sell to prospects.  Her cure for these salespeople:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You need to create conversations with decision makers. And, there&#8217;s only one way to do this. You need to ask questions to engage prospects in a dialogue, then shut up and listen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I couldn&#8217;t agree more.  I want to take that point and apply them to sales hiring.  We use the entire hiring process to observe the salesperson in action.  We particularly observe their question pattern &#8211; are they trying to determine how they would sell the company&#8217;s value proposition if they were in the role?  Or are they simply trying to sell themselves to get on the company payroll?<\/p>\n<p>We value sales candidates who attempt to discover the hiring company&#8217;s value proposition, how they go to market and what are the parameters of a typical sale.  Pay attention to the dialogue a sales candidate attempts to create with you in the hiring process.  Questions, especially sales-focused ones, help to reveal the candidate&#8217;s abilities and selling strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, she wraps up her post with this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If you don&#8217;t plan questions ahead of time, you&#8217;ll get caught in &#8220;premature elaboration.&#8221;  Before you know it, you can&#8217;t stop talking &#8211; even though you know better. Your prospects will slowly start backing away to protect themselves from your onslaught.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Now that is the way to turn a phrase . . . I&#8217;m still laughing at it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jill Konrath has a great post about salespeople who come on &#8220;like a bull in a china shop&#8221; when trying to sell to prospects. Her cure for these salespeople: You need to create conversations with decision makers. And, there&#8217;s only one way to do this. You need to ask questions to engage prospects in a dialogue, then shut up and listen. I couldn&#8217;t agree more. I want to take that point and apply them to sales hiring. We use the entire hiring process to observe the salesperson in action. We particularly observe their question pattern &#8211; are they trying to determine how they would sell the company&#8217;s value proposition if&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/06\/questions-when-hiring\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hiring","category-sales-techniques"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-17","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":126,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/06\/hiring-experience\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":0},"title":"Hiring Experience","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm putting the finishing touches on an article we are going to release next week that deals with hiring salespeople based on experience vs. talent. We advocate sales talent first. A couple of points to whet your appetite: First, the vast majority of resumes are embellished. We have written about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1382,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/use-anti-bonding-when-hiring-salespeople\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":1},"title":"Use Anti-Bonding When Hiring Salespeople","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is an interesting article from Columbia Business Times titled The Mysteries Of Hiring Salespeople Unlocked.\u00a0 Good title.\u00a0 The short article has some excellent advice and some marginal suggestions.\u00a0 From the excellent column (emphasis mine): 3. Unlearn your present interviewing system. First, throw away the hiring profile assessment you are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2608,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2015\/07\/2-habits-that-undermine-salespeople\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":2},"title":"2 Habits That Undermine Salespeople","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Supposition \u2013 something that is supposed; assumption; hypothesis Think of supposition, in sales parlance, as being synonymous with stereotyping.\u00a0 This is a dangerous approach to sale in that once you start making assumptions, you start derailing your qualifying skills.\u00a0 In most prospect situations, once you stop truly qualifying you are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":970,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/sales-is-more-than-5-things\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":3},"title":"Sales Is More Than 5 Things","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Top five traits you gotta have to sell! The top five traits of a successful salesperson! Discover the 5 key behaviors of sales superstars! You have probably seen these amazing statements across the web.\u00a0 Isn't it interesting how \"5\" seems to be the magic number for sales traits, behaviors or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2105,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/09\/q-is-for-qualifying-questions\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":4},"title":"Q Is For Qualifying Questions","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I come across this often \u2013 a company wants to hire a superstar salesperson and the hiring manager\u2019s first instinct is to find a loquacious talker.\u00a0 Perhaps you have seen this approach too?\u00a0 Clearly no readers of the Hire Sense would administer this approach in their hiring. Right? Ok, maybe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":281,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/09\/salespeople-who-cant-discuss-money\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":5},"title":"Salespeople Who Can&#8217;t Discuss Money","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 5, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Another CareerJournal article - When It Comes to Job Offers,It Pays to Ask for More Money - that discusses strategies for negotiating pay in the interview process. The short article has good suggestions for candidates but I want to take a myopic view of the article for sales candidates. First,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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