This tool provides a framework for standardized interview questions to evaluate prospective employees from a sales and marketing perspective. The questions are designed to elicit situational, behavioral, attitudinal, self-awareness, skills-based, and knowledge-based responses. The questions sample covers topics such as problem-solving abilities, leadership experience and attributes, communication style, complex projects, handling disagreements, goals, teamwork, policies, persuasiveness, management skills, education objectives, and independence.

1. Interview Questions Tool
Purpose
The purpose of this tool is to facilitate the development of standardized interview questions
that highlight Situational, Behavioral, Attitudinal, Self-Awareness, Skills, and Knowledge-
Based responses from your prospective employee.
Scope
This tool will provide a simple framework for evaluating prospective employees from a Sales &
Marketing Management perspective. The following questions are a sample list of good core
questions; be sure to add or delete, as you deem necessary.
25 Key Interview Questions
1. Describe how you spent your time in school in as much detail as possible.
a. What were your grades like in school?
b. What subjects did you excel in?
c. What subjects bored you? Why?
d. What did you take into consideration when selecting your major?
2. Describe your transition from College/University to work?
a. What was the most difficult part of the transition?
b. How did you overcome this challenge?
3. What steps do you take to analyze a problem before making a decision?
4. In your opinion, what are the most important attributes of a leader?
a. Which of those attributes do you personally want to develop?
b. Which of those attributes do you believe you have already developed well?
c. What experience do you have in a leadership role?

2. 5. How would others describe your communication style?
a. In what situations are you the most comfortable communicating?
b. In what situations are you the most uncomfortable communicating?
c. How have you actively developed your communication skills?
6. What is the most complex project you have worked on?
a. What was your role?
b. What was the outcome of the project?
7. Describe a situation in which your results were not up to your professor or supervisor's
expectations. What happened? What action did you take?
8. Discuss a situation where your colleagues/peers disagreed with your ideas on a group
project. How did you handle the situation? What was the outcome?
9. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
a. What are your key goals?
b. What are you going to do to make sure you reach your goals?
10. Can you recall a time where a project team member was not completing their share of
the work? What did you do to resolve the situation for the group?
11. What was a large life goal you accomplished and how did you achieve it?
12. Provide an example of a policy you conformed to but didn’t agree with.
a. Explain your thinking/rationale for conforming.
13. Describe a situation when you really had to push for results.
a. How did you feel?
b. Were you successful? If so, what contributed to your success?
14. Describe a situation when you had to be process oriented.
a. How did you feel?
b. Were you successful? If so, what contributed most to your success?
15. If you had to chose between researching and analyzing market data for the

3. President’s new pet project, or developing implementation strategy for your Vice
President, which would you chose and why?
16. Describe a situation where you used logic to solve a complex problem.
17. Would you consider yourself to be a persuasive person?
a. Provide an example of situation where you had to be persuasive.
b. What were the things you had to take into consideration when developing your
approach?
18. What is the salary range you are expecting for this position?
19. What previous experience will help you do this job?
20. Do you have any gaps in your skills that you need to focus on for this job?
21. How much do you know about our business?
22. Have you ever worked with a team where the personalities involved were very diverse?
a. Think about those personalities and describe their behaviors. How did each
behavior contribute to the success of the team? How did they pull down the
effectiveness of the team?
b. How did each of these behaviors affect you?
23. In you opinion, what are the most critical skills of a manager?
a. Which of these skills do you consider your strengths?
b. How did you develop these skills?
24. What is your next educational objective and what do you expect achieve afterwards?
25. Do you see yourself as being very independent and self-motivated? Why?