{"id":670,"date":"2007-02-16T15:29:50","date_gmt":"2007-02-16T21:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/02\/assessing-the-behavioral-based-interview\/"},"modified":"2007-02-16T15:29:22","modified_gmt":"2007-02-16T21:29:22","slug":"assessing-the-behavioral-based-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/02\/assessing-the-behavioral-based-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Assessing The Behavioral-Based Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Selling Power discusses behavioral-based interviewing in On Your Best Behavior<\/a>. The article covers the main points of this interview approach and it is certainly an approach we incorporate – to some extent.<\/p>\n

First, if you are relying on the face-to-face interview to make a strong sales hire, you are taking unneeded risks. Even bad salespeople can be good at building rapport. Other salespeople may be silky smooth talkers but nothing more – they can shine in the interview but never close a deal once they make it on to your payroll. An over-reliance upon the interview is the number one reason for a bad sales hire. You must use a system for screening and assessing candidates<\/a> before<\/em> you meet them face-to-face.<\/p>\n

To prepare for a behavioral-based interview, Opton says to research what characteristics you want from a candidate<\/strong>…what’s the one thing that this person has to have? This will help you to determine the “must-haves” versus the “nice-to-haves.” Focus questions around those characteristics. Center questions on specific examples of strengths and weaknesses without specifically asking people, “What are your strengths and weakness?” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Objectively assess them first. Our view is heavily influenced by salespeople since that is our expertise. Many weak candidates are still able to “read” a behavioral-based question and adjust their answer towards the interviewer’s preferred response. Take a look at this example question from the article:<\/p>\n
Can you tell me about a time when you were able to penetrate a major national account with a new product? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As a crafty sales candidate, I know that I need to shade my responses towards new business development with a strong emphasis on large accounts. I would also know that I need to incorporate pieces of a new product or service in my responses. If I have been in sales long enough, I can come up with examples of these scenarios, and I may even embellish them. Unfortunately, these scenarios may not be my strong suit. No matter, I’m going to overplay my skills on these topics and minimize the fact that most of my experience revolves around selling existing products to repeat customers.<\/p>\n
Too easy for the candidate. If the interviewer has a detailed report on this candidate’s skills, motivations, talents and style<\/a>, they can probe for specific traits within the behavioral-based question. Clearly, the more data you have going into the interview, the better read you will get on the salesperson’s true abilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Selling Power discusses behavioral-based interviewing in On Your Best Behavior. The article covers the main points of this interview approach and it is certainly an approach we incorporate – to some extent. First, if you are relying on the face-to-face interview to make a strong sales hire, you are taking unneeded risks. Even bad salespeople can be good at building rapport. Other salespeople may be silky smooth talkers but nothing more – they can shine in the interview but never close a deal once they make it on to your payroll. An over-reliance upon the interview is the number one reason for a bad sales hire. You must use a… 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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,2,16,10],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-aO","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}