Finding talent is hard enough as it is - so don't let the weak link be your interviewing skills. Hire the right person the first time!! Here is a mini Ebook with over 200 interview questions for hiring, sales reps, sales managers and sales directors.

1. Intrepid Selling
Mini Series
Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales Interview
Questions
By Mike Adams
www.mikeadamscg.com

2. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales Interview
Questions
By Mike Adams
www.mikeadamscg.com 2
© Mike Adams 2014

3. Remember, that when you are
interviewing, you are “selling” as
well as buying…the interview
experience itself should make the
candidate want to join you…”
- Mike Adams
www.mikeadamscg.com
Contact Mike:
contact@mikeadamsCG.com
www.twitter.com/@SirMikeAdams
3
Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
© Mike Adams 2014

4. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Table of Contents
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………5
Section 1: For Hiring Sales People……………………………………………………6
Section 2: For Hiring Sales Managers………………………………………….…12
Section 3: For Hiring Sales Directors, VPs, Heads of
Sales………………16
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© Mike Adams 2014

5. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Introduction:
Hiring sales talent at all levels in the organisation is not only vitally important
but also very hard! A recent poll revealed that sales managers and sales staff
were the hardest positions to fill.
What follows are questions that you can ask during your interview process.
This is not an exhaustive list and it does not cater for out of the box, creative
scenarios and exercises that you might pose to your candidates.
This covers the basics; the pieces of information you must uncover to know if
they have the right capabilities and experience.
The key to successful hiring, lies in two critical areas: firstly, your hiring and
interviewing process and secondly the skill of the interviewer to ask
questions that test the veracity of the suspicions the interview might have
about the candidate; and then reveal who it is that is really sat in front of
them!
These questions will often, and by design, trigger follow on questions so that
you can go ”digging” beneath the surface level of their answers.
As I suggested earlier, your job as an interviewer is to uncover who it is that
is really sat in front of you.
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Enjoy.
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© Mike Adams 2014

6. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 1: For Hiring Sales People
Goals and Motivation:
1. Why do you want to work here?
2. What is it about this industry specifically that appeals to you?
3. What is it about this company that makes you want to work here?
4. Of all of the companies why this one?
5. Of all of the sectors or industries why this one?
6. What do you know about this sector?
7. What do you know about this company?
8. What is your impression of what this role entails?
9. Why does this role appeal?
10. When you left university what was the ideal job or role you had in mind?
11. When you think about where you want to go professionally, how does
this role fit into that journey/ path?
12. What is your ideal job?
13. What is your ideal company?
14. What is your ideal role?
15. If you had a choice, what would you be doing on a day-to-day basis?
16. What does the perfect job look like to you?
17. Why sales?
18. How do you like to sell?
19. What makes you interested in selling this product/service?
20. What are your personal goals? Why?
21. What are your professional goals? Why?
22. What are you career goals? Why?
23. How will this job specifically help you get where you want to get to?
24. Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?
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© Mike Adams 2014

7. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 1: For Hiring Sales People cont.
Personal and Professional Development:
1. What sales books have you read this year, week or month?
2. What personal development books are you currently reading?
3. What professional development books are you currently reading?
4. What are the lessons you have learnt from that book?
5. Are you ambitious? Give me an example of what you are doing to
develop and progress yourself..?
6. What sales leaders do you follow?
7. How many sales seminars or sales conferences have you ever been to?
8. How many sales seminars have you been to this year?
9. What was the last book you read?
10. What do you do outside of work?
11. What are your hobbies?
12. What have you done to progress yourself in that endeavour?
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Time out:
Why would you want to hire someone who doesn’t
invest in themselves? You are about to invest time and
money into them; they too should be invested in their
own success.
© Mike Adams 2014

8. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 1: For Hiring Sales People cont.
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Sales:
1. Why do you think someone would buy this?
2. What do you think the value proposition is for this offering?
3. Why do you think people wont buy this product/service?
4. Why do people buy from you?
5. Explain how you construct a sale?
6. What is your sales process?
7. How do you sell to people?
8. Take me through step by step the journey you take a customer through?
9. What is a typical deal size you have sold previously?
10. How long are your sales cycles?
11. If you had the choice would you prefer to sell over the phone or face to
face?
12. Where do you think your natural sales skills sit, face to face or phone
selling?
13. Do you like fast paced transactional deals or lengthier complex selling?
14. Would you say you are a product seller or a solution based sales person?
15. Are you a lone wolf sales person or a team player? why do you say that?
16. Can you give me an example of when you made a sale?
17. Can you give me an example of when you sold to a difficult customer?
18. Can you give me an example of when you turned around a ‘no’ into a
‘yes’?
19. Why do you think customers don’t buy from us?
20. How do you deal with this objection [insert objection]?
21. Who do you sell to?
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© Mike Adams 2014

9. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 1: For Hiring Sales People cont.
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Sales cont…:
22. What level of job role or title do you engage with?
23. How do you get past gate keepers to engage at the c-suite?
24. What are the main challenges with selling at that level?
25. Which sectors do you sell to?
26. What type of companies do you sell to?
27. How do you control your pipeline?
28. How do you manage yourself to get results?
29. What were/are your sales targets?
30. How often did you hit target?
31. What are you numbers over the last ¼?
32. What are you numbers over the last year?
33. How did you manage to hit target every month/quarter?
34. How are you ranked in your sales floor? 1st, 2nd 3rd etc
35. Why are you not the top sales person?
36. Who is the top sales person?
37. What makes them so good?
38. What makes you the top sales person?
39. What do you need to develop to become higher ranked?
40. How many meetings in your experience would result in a deal?
41. What was your conversion rate (CR) from proposal to deal?
42. That’s high (CR), how come it’s so high?
43. That’s low (CR) how come it’s so low?
44. What kind of questions do you ask your prospects?
45. How do you build value for your solution?
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© Mike Adams 2014

10. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 1: For Hiring Sales People cont.
www.mikeadamscg.com
Sales cont…:
46. What problems do you solve for customers?
47. How do you close deals?
48. How do you think we sell our solution?
49. What do you think is the value of what we offer?
General:
1. Can you talk me through the roles you have had?
2. Why did you leave xyz company?
3. What makes you stay at companies?
4. How do we manage you to get the best out of you?
5. How do you like to be managed?
6. What type of culture do you like to work in?
7. What do you bring to a sales culture?
8. Are you a team player? how can you be so sure?
9. What do you need to change to become better at selling?
10. Why did you miss target when you did miss?
11. Apart from targets how else were you measured?
12. Did you have any activity KPIs?
13. What KPIs did you have to meet?
14. Did you always meet your KPIs?
15. Why didn’t you hit your KPIs?
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© Mike Adams 2014

11. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 1: For Hiring Sales People cont.
General cont…:
16. Why did you hit your KPIs?
17. Have you ever had any formal sales training?
18. What kinds of sales training have you had?
19. When you have had sales training, what did you learn?
20. When you have had sales training what did you apply?
21. When you have had sales training what changed and what results did
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you get?
22. What do you think will be the main differences between the type of sales
you have done previously and this job?
23. What other jobs are you looking at?
24. What other interviews are you going on?
25. What types of companies are you interviewing with?
26. What types of jobs are you looking at?
27. Why would you pick us over another offer you might get?
28. What are your decision criteria regarding the next job you take?
29. What kind of money do you want to make?
30. What percentage of your current salary/package is commission based?
31. What is the most important factor in the next job you choose?
32. If I offered you this job would you take it? Why?
33. What questions do you have for us?
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© Mike Adams 2014

12. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 2: For Hiring Sales Managers
These questions specifically relate to interviewing managers and will not
duplicate the sales related questions in the previous section. You will need to
use some of the questions in the previous section when interviewing sales
managers.
www.mikeadamscg.com
Hiring:
1. How much recruitment have you done?
2. Did you recruit all of your team members?
3. What do you look for when hiring new staff?
4. What is your recruitment process?
5. Where do you source good candidates?
6. How do you know when someone isn’t going to make it on your team?
7. How do you manage the transition for somebody out of the business?
8. Have you ever let anyone go?
9. What is your turn over like in your team/business?
10. How do you retain staff?
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Time out:
A critical skill of sales managers is their ability to retain
good staff and reduce attrition. Second to that is their
ability to anticipate vacancies. Test that they have robust
process around these two skills.
© Mike Adams 2014

13. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 2: For Hiring Sales Managers cont…
Developing People:
1. How much training do you do for your people?
2. How much structured training do you do for your team?
3. What topics do you train on?
4. How do you equip your sales staff when they first join your team?
5. How do you get someone succeeding quickly in the role?
Team Motivation and Culture:
1. How do you motivate your team?
2. How often do you run sales meetings?
3. What’s the rhythm to your week, month quarter?
4. If I walked out onto your sales team floor what would I see/observe?
5. Do you manage through activity KPIs?
6. How do you measure progress of your people?
7. How do you get the best out of your people?
8. How do you structure the day for optimal performance from your
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people?
9. What is your intervention when someone is not performing?
10. How do you motivate someone who is already achieving acceptable
results?
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© Mike Adams 2014

14. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 2: For Hiring Sales Managers cont…
www.mikeadamscg.com
Sales:
1. What is your forecasting and pipeline management methodology?
2. How do you ensure that your team meet the overall team target?
3. How do you ensure that your people hit their personal targets?
4. Who sets their targets?
5. How do you arrive at their targets?
6. How do you compensate for your team when they are struggling to hit
target?
Personal and Professional Development:
1. What management training and development are you doing?
2. How do you stay ahead of your people?
3. How do you lead by example?
4. What personal development plan are you on?
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Time out:
Personal development for managers and leaders is not a
nice to have, it’s an imperative. If the candidate that you
are interviewing is not developing how on earth can
they develop and add value to their people?
© Mike Adams 2014

15. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 2: For Hiring Sales Managers cont…
General Management:
1. Can you talk me through your current management role?
2. How many people are you managing?
3. What type of manager are you?
4. What type of leader are you?
5. What do you see as the difference between a leader and a manager?
6. How do you structure the day for optimal performance for yourself?
7. How long have you been in management?
8. Where do you see your management career going?
9. Can you give me an example of when you were able to spot a sales issue
arising and intervened to fix it before it happened?
10. If I went to your people what would they tell me about your
management style?
11. How do you adapt your management style to cater for different
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personalities?
12. Do you have rules or a code of conduct for your sales team?
13. What disciplines do you insist on with your team?
14. Can you give me an example of when you performance managed
someone and it worked?
15. What are your greatest strengths as a manager?
16. What are you greatest weaknesses as a manager?
17. What do I get when I hire you?
18. How would you add to the management team if I hire you?
19. How do you manage up?
20. How do you like to be managed?
21. How do you manage conflict?
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© Mike Adams 2014

16. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 3: For Hiring Sales Directors, VPs, Heads of
Sales etc.
These questions specifically relate to interviewing senior sales leadership and
will not duplicate the questions in the previous section. You will need to use
some of the questions in the sales management section when interviewing
senior sales leaders.
1. Talk me through the structure of your business unit?
2. How many direct and indirect reports are/were there in your business?
3. What challenges do you have managing performance through a
management structure/team?
4. How do you manage managers?
5. How do you equip your managers to be effective?
6. What is your leadership philosophy?
7. Are you targeted on gross or net revenue?
8. Do you have full P&L ownership?
9. What have been some of the strategic initiatives you have had to
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implement?
10. How did you do that?
11. What challenges did you meet? And how did you overcome those?
12. Have you had any experience realigning a dysfunctional sales
department?
13. What were some of the major initiatives that you launched and to what
effect?
14. What is you philosophy on learning and development with your
department?
15. How is that cascaded through the group?
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© Mike Adams 2014

17. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 3: For Hiring Sales Directors, VPs, Heads of
Sales etc. cont….
16. Can you give me an example of any tactical initiatives you implemented
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and why?
17. How do you manage remote staff?
18. How do you deal with global time zone challenges?
19. What’s on your management dashboard?
20. How do you manage a region?
21. What are the fracture points that you are always looking out for?
22. What is your intervention when you spot something going off track?
23. Have you done any public speaking?
24. Have you ever represented your organisation at business events/
conferences?
25. Have you had any media training?
26. What do you think I need to see from you?
27. Given that we are a public company what impact do you think that has
on your role?
28. How hands on are you typically with your team?
29. At what level of your organisation do you spend most time?
30. Can you highlight to me your experience in dealing with cross-functional
stakeholder management?
31. What do you think makes the biggest difference in sales performance?
And how do you drive that through the organisation?
32. What do you see as the reasons for why sales departments fail?
33. What do you see as the biggest opportunities in our business?
34. What would be your first priority actions if you started with us?
35. How would you spend the first 30 days on board?
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© Mike Adams 2014

18. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Section 3: For Hiring Sales Directors, VPs, Heads of
Sales etc. cont….
36. How would you structure and what would you look to accomplish in your
www.mikeadamscg.com
first 90 days?
37. What do you see as the most significant threats to our sector?
38. From a sales perspective how would you combat those threats?
39. What do you see as the being the largest hurdle you will need to
overcome if you join us?
40. How do you run a regional team?
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In conclusion:
Firstly, use these questions to uncover the true
capabilities and personality of the person in the
interview chair. Candidates will always tell you what
they think you want to hear. Skillful interviewers get
beneath the surface level and access the real person.
Make sure you can do that.
Secondly, if you don’t have a robust process for hiring –
you will make wrong hires.
Thirdly, were there any topics covered in these
questions that you might need to implement into your
job?
Happy hiring!
© Mike Adams 2014

19. Mike Adams is a leading authority on revenue optimisation. As a
consultant Mike works advising CEOs, business leaders and
entrepreneurs all over the world & helps organisations and individuals
achieve outstanding levels of performance across many industries.
Mike’s skillset allows him to look into a sales organisation, identify the
fracture points, “see around corners”, fix performance issues and future
proof the organisation for sustainable sales execution.
A dextrous public speaker, trainer and coach he has a highly contagious
and motivational style; demanding and driving top performance from
those around him.
Author of Intrepid Selling© Blog and Podcast Series and the book “The
Intrepid CEO”. Mike’s bold and often contrarian views on business and
sales challenge conventional thinking.
As a speaker, audiences are never quite sure what they are going to get.
Highly motivational, at times confronting & habitually humorous, if you
need an injection of sales mastery, contagious energy & business smarts
you can hire mike for your next event.
www.mikeadamscg.com
19
© Mike Adams 2014
365 Days of Success Tips,
Tactics and Strategies

20. Sales Recruitment:
More Than 200 Sales
Interview Questions
Also by Mike Adams:
www.mikeadamscg.com 20
© Mike Adams 2014

21. High Impact Sales Results For
Organisations and Sales
Professionals
www.mikeadamscg.com