You need absolute rock stars to build a strong sales team. That includes consistent quota hitters, thick-skinned rejection handlers, and persistent sales hunters, farmers, and trappers.
As the sales hiring manager, you know it’s risky to hire just anyone. The wrong candidates can keep your company from meeting important business goals.
To help you build a world-class sales team, we created this list of hiring-manager-approved sales interview questions so you can find the best candidates for your organization.
Table of Contents
- Technical Sales Interview Questions
- Situational Sales Interview Questions
- Inside Sales Interview Questions
- Fit and Motivation Sales Interview Questions
- Sales Director Interview Questions
- Software Sales Interview Questions
Download Now: 100 Best Sales Interview Questions
Technical Sales Interview Questions
Identifying candidates with strong technical skills is vital. These sales reps will be able to thoroughly understand your products. They can also explain your products in ways that meet customers' specific needs. Use these questions to identify those who know their craft vs. those who claim to.
1. How do you keep up to date on your target market?
Why This Question Is Important
With this question, you can gauge the candidate's level of preparation and understanding of the industry. It also shows if the candidate learns from renowned industry leaders and publications.
What to Look For
Even if the target market of their last job differs from yours, this will show their ability to find and keep up with relevant trade publications and blogs. Dig deeper and ask for recent information they’ve learned from one sales publication.
2. Explain something to me.
Why This Question Is Important
This question helps you evaluate the candidate's confidence and ability to think on their feet.
What to Look For
While this technically isn’t a question, assessing whether the candidate can effectively demonstrate a concept or process is essential. Listen to hear how concisely they can explain the topic.
3. In your last position, how much time did you spend cultivating customer relationships vs. hunting for new clients, and why?
Why This Question Is Important
Here, you'll assess the candidate's ability to balance and prioritize tasks. It also shows if the candidate is more of a sales hunter, farmer, or trapper.
What to Look For
Certain companies and roles call for people who are better at farming or hunting. However, you should look for someone who can do both, as these skills are essential to sales.
4. What are your favorite questions to ask prospects?
Why This Question Is Important
Here, you can assess the listening capabilities of the candidates. To ask good questions, reps must listen.
What to Look For
Good salespeople spend more time asking questions than pitching. Look out for reps who mention that they listen to understand a prospect’s needs before asking questions.
5. What’s your approach to handling customer objections?
Why This Question Is Important
You can see if the candidate has a thick skin to accept lots of rejection without losing momentum.
What to Look For
Preparing to deal with objections — instead of improvising — is critical. Listen for evidence of a process.
6. What role does social media play in your selling process?
Why This Question Is Important
This question helps you find candidates who follow sales trends and align with what’s working, like social selling.
What to Look For
Social selling is becoming critical in all industries. If the candidate has yet to use social channels to research prospects or look for leads in the past, make sure they are willing to learn.
7. What role does content play in your selling process?
Why This Question Is Important
You’ll find out if the candidate knows the role of content in building relationships, establishing credibility, and beginning sales conversations.
What to Look For
Again, it's not necessarily a deal breaker if the salesperson doesn’t actively share and engage with content on their social media accounts. However, they should be receptive to doing so.
8. How do you research prospects before a call or meeting? What information do you look for?
Why This Question Is Important
This question shows candidates who can identify excellent icebreakers, create a positive atmosphere for prospects, and personalize communication.
What to Look For
Neglecting to use LinkedIn to research clients is not a viable option in today’s sales environment. Ensure candidates are searching for personal commonalities besides professional information.
9. If we hired you, what would you do in your first month?
Why This Question Is Important
You can identify candidates with a heightened sense of ownership and those who know how to get things done without supervision.
What to Look For
The answer to this question doesn't have to blow you away. However, the candidate should have an action plan to get started. No matter how much training you provide, it’s still smart to hire a self-starter when you can.
10. What do you think our company/sales organization could do better?
Why This Question Is Important
Here, you can see which candidates can find gaps in your organization and propose solutions.
What to Look For
This sales interview question serves two purposes: You'll learn how much research the candidate did before meeting with you, and you can see their creative thinking and entrepreneurial capabilities.
11. How does [your company name] bring value to the customer?
Why This Question Is Important
This question reveals the candidate’s understanding of your company’s mission and their ability to communicate them to potential customers.
What to Look For
This is another question that shows how much research your candidate has done on the company. If they can’t even slightly articulate the benefits of your product/service, it might mean you need to move on.
12. What’s something you’ve taught yourself lately?
Why This Question Is Important
This question gives proactive, self-motivated candidates a chance to shine. You can see who has an excellent professional development ethic and who seeks ways to improve as a salesperson.
What to Look For
You want to hire salespeople who are hungry for new skills and eager to learn better selling strategies. This question helps you find those people. Listen to how thoroughly they describe what they’ve learned and ask which tools they used to learn about it.
13. What are three important qualifying questions you ask every prospect?
Why This Question Is Important
This question reveals candidates who know how to identify a prospect’s need, budget, and decision-making capabilities.
What to Look For
Answers will differ based on what the candidate is selling and whom they’re selling to. But their response lets you gauge how they qualify prospects. It also gives you a sense of their sales training and instincts.
Candidates must be able to ask focused questions that decipher whether a prospect is a good fit.
Situational Sales Interview Questions
Situational questions let you assess each candidate’s skills and personality. By asking these questions, you can learn what type of attitude the candidate can bring to the team and your customers.
14. How would you approach a short sales cycle differently than a long sales cycle?
Why This Question Is Important
Candidates can show their understanding of the sales process, their sales experience, and how they would adapt to different situations.
What to Look For
Short cycles call for reps that can close quickly, and long sales cycles require a much more careful, tailored approach. They’re drastically different, and your candidate should recognize this.
15. When do you stop pursuing a client?
Why This Question Is Important
Everyone can claim they are rejection-tolerant. However, this question sifts those who are from those who aren’t.
What to Look For
The right answer depends on your company's process. However, the more persistent a rep is, the better. Trish Bertuzzi, the founder of The Bridge Group, recommends six to eight attempts before throwing in the towel.
16. How do you keep a smile on your face during a hard day?
Why This Question Is Important
This question assesses the resilience and positivity of the candidate despite going through tough days.
What to Look For
Appraise the person’s attitude toward rejection. Do they need time to shake off an unpleasant conversation? Or do they bounce back immediately? Know the strategies they use to recover and move on.
17. Have you ever turned a prospect away? If so, why?
Why This Question Is Important
This question shows the candidate understands your product and is keen on having a strong, qualified pipeline of potential customers.
What to Look For
Selling to everyone and anyone — especially if a salesperson the prospect isn’t a fit — is a recipe for disaster. Make sure your candidate is comfortable turning business away if the potential customer isn’t a good match.
18. Have you ever had a losing streak? How did you turn it around?
Why This Question Is Important
This question uncovers highly motivated candidates who are driven to succeed and have a process for bouncing back from failure.
What to Look For
Everyone has had bad spells, so beware of someone who claims they’ve never experienced a downturn. There’s nothing wrong with a temporary slump, provided the candidate learned from it.
19. Ever asked a prospect who didn’t buy from you to explain why you lost the deal? What did they say, and what did you learn from that experience?
Why This Question Is Important
This question helps you know if the candidate uses customer feedback, rather than guts, to improve their sales process.
What to Look For
Following up on deals to learn how to do better next time boosts the odds of winning in the future. A salesperson who takes the time to learn from both their successes and failures will be a valuable addition to your team.
20. Describe a time when you had a difficult prospect and how you handled that situation to win the sale.
Why This Question Is Important
Everyone will have some difficult prospects. Knowing how candidates deal with this prevents you from hiring people who’ll lose valuable leads in your sales pipeline.
What to Look For
The answer to this question shows how candidates approach difficult prospects. If they can put aside their pride to move a deal forward for the company's greater good, that’s a great sign.
Listen for a logical explanation of the situation, the steps they took to fix it, and the results of their actions.
21. How would you exceed expectations in this role?
Why This Question Is Important
The level of ambition and drive of a potential hire is crucial. You want people who can hit quotas but also those who’ll exceed their quotas by many miles.
What to Look For
Want to build a team of rock stars? Hire people who are thinking about going above and beyond their job description. This question is less about getting a certain answer and more about seeing how and if a candidate thinks outside their specific job duties.
22. If you started a company tomorrow, what would it be?
Why This Question Is Important
This question provides insights into a candidate’s motivation, interests, goals, and entrepreneurial spirit.
What to Look For
Many salespeople get into the profession because they’re aspiring entrepreneurs. You’ll learn about their future goals and motivators by asking candidates about a fictional company. You’ll also get a taste of how they pitch business ideas.
23. How have you handled working with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds?
Why This Question Is Important
You’ll find out if a candidate has cultural competence, can adapt to different communication styles, and can serve a diverse customer base.
What to Look For
Salespeople should be able to work with any customer, no matter their cultural background. By asking candidates how they’ve handled these scenarios, you’ll learn if they’re fit to work in a diverse and inclusive manner — and if they see the value of this skill.
Inside Sales Interview Questions
Finding candidates who understand the nature of inside sales is an advantage over reps without that type of experience. These questions are more complex and assess how the sales rep candidates have worked through adversity.
24. What’s the best way to establish a relationship with a prospect?
Why This Question Is Important
This question shows candidates who use data to back up their communication skills and move prospects down the sales pipeline without being sales-y.
What to Look For
Get insight into how they approach and maintain prospect relationships. Communicating over email or via the occasional voicemail is table stakes. But if a candidate claims to collect lead intelligence and build strong rapport over the phone, that’s a good sign.
25. Sell me something.
Why This Question Is Important
This question assesses the candidate’s ability to create innovative ways of pitching products instantly and addressing objections fast.
What to Look For
Anything. It could be the classic “Sell me this pen” or “Sell me what you had for lunch today.” Letting them choose what they sell turns a tired question into a glimpse of how well your candidate thinks on the spot.
A great candidate will ask qualifying questions like “What problem are you trying to solve?” and “What are you looking for in X product?” before selling the product.
26. Explain the steps you take from the beginning of the sales process to the end.
Why This Question Is Important
You’ll get insight into a candidate’s understanding of the sales process, their level of experience, knowledge of sales methodologies, and their ability to manage the sales cycle from start to finish.
What to Look For
Look out for how well your candidate understands and considers the sales process. They should also explain how they organize their thoughts and communicate complicated concepts.
Do they explain their process clearly? And do they cover the key steps: prospect, connect, research/evaluate, present, and close? These are two things you should look for in their answer.
27. Tell me about an objection you had trouble overcoming over the phone. How did you finally move the deal forward?
Why This Question Is Important
You’ll see how candidates handle objections and their ability to treat tough conversations with potential clients effectively. The ability to listen and show empathy takes center stage here.
What to Look For
Every salesperson has at least one objection that plagues them. Did the candidate listen to the prospect’s concerns? Did they validate them? Did they help them reach a different conclusion?
The answer to this question tells a lot about how your candidate solves problems and thinks strategically.
28. Teach me something.
Why This Question Is Important
This question helps you assess a candidate's ability to communicate, present product information clearly, and convince prospects to buy.
What to Look For
Selling is about more than listing a product's or service's benefits and features. This question lets your candidate show how well they can share knowledge and walk you through a new concept.
Can they communicate the concept effectively? Do they have a deep understanding of it? If they nail the description and are genuinely interested in explaining the concept, they should excel in explaining your product to prospects.
29. Share the steps you took to land your most successful sale.
Why This Question Is Important
This question highlights the candidates’ wins and shows how they closed the customer.
What to Look For
Aim to better understand the candidate’s thought process. Their answers should showcase their strengths using a real-life example.
30. Tell me about a time you didn’t close a deal. What did you learn from that experience?
Why This Question Is Important
This question assesses a candidate’s ability to see loss as a learning experience.
What to Look For
Everyone loses deals, and it’s okay to talk about it. This question aims to dive into the lessons the candidate has learned and how they have improved their sales techniques from less-than-stellar deals.
31. It’s halfway through the month, and you’re trending below where you need to be to meet your quota. What action do you take during the second half of the month to ensure you reach your targets?
Why This Question Is Important
You’ll see the candidate’s ability to take initiative and bounce back to hitting their quota after a poor month.
What to Look For
Look for processes that showcase the problem-solving skills of candidates.
32. How do you deal with a full day of rejections?
Why This Question Is Important
Candidates can’t escape rejections. If this happens for an entire day, you need to know how they’ll deal with it.
What to Look For
Rejections are going to happen in this job, and this question can help you get an idea of the candidate’s mindset and how they motivate themselves during slumps.
33. Pretend I’m a prospect who didn’t answer the phone. Leave me a voicemail.
Why This Question Is Important
This question helps you know candidates who can introduce themselves quickly, establish rapport, and use a positioning statement to instigate a response.
What to Look For
Phone calls don’t always go through to the prospect or even a gatekeeper. Reps are going to encounter the voicemail inbox many times during the day. This question can give you insight into how the candidate turns a negative (no connection) into an opportunity.
Watch for how they pique interest and show value while setting expectations for the next touchpoint.
34. What’s your favorite question to gauge need and interest?
Why This Question Is Important
This question shows a candidate builds rapport, establishes trust, and gathers vital sales information from prospects.
What to Look For
While this question may be tough to answer on the fly without information about a company or product, the rep should still be able to provide an idea of how they’d qualify prospects.
Fit and Motivation Sales Interview Questions
These interview questions evaluate if a candidate has the right motivation for the job. You’ll learn what drives the candidate to work hard and gain a better understanding of their ability to perform.
35. What’s worse: not meeting a quota every single month or not having happy customers?
Why This Question Is Important
This question shows a candidate’s values and priorities. Some will opt for customer satisfaction over quota and vice versa.
What to Look For
Depending on your company’s goals, either answer could be right. But beware of reps who prioritize quotas over truly giving customers what they need — or withholding what they don’t.
36. What’s your least favorite part of the sales process?
Why This Question Is Important
This question helps you know if their weaknesses will be a problem. For instance, if cold calling is central to your process, a candidate who abhors it won’t be a fit for your company.
What to Look For
If their least favorite part is the most important part at your company, that’s probably a red flag. Ask them what they do to simplify their least favorite part of the process or make it more enjoyable. This question can also alert you to weak areas.
37. What motivates you?
Why This Question Is Important
This question helps you align and match a candidate’s core values with yours.
What to Look For
Money, achievement, helping customers, being No. 1 — there are a lot of potential answers to this question. What makes an excellent answer versus a bad one will hinge on your company’s culture.
For instance, if teamwork is an important aspect of your sales team, a candidate who is driven by internal competition might not be a great fit.
38. What is your ultimate career aspiration?
Why This Question Is Important
You’ll find out if you can provide growth opportunities at a pace that matches what candidates want.
What to Look For
A lack of growth opportunities can cause salespeople to look for new jobs. If the candidate expresses a desire to pursue a career move your company can’t provide, you might interview again sooner than you’d like.
39. What made you want to get into sales?
Why This Question Is Important
This question dives into the personal motivations of a candidate and helps you decipher if a candidate wants to be in sales for the long haul.
What to Look For
While perhaps part of the motivation, commission is not a brilliant response to this question. An excellent answer will include a personal story or real-life example illustrating why the candidate chose sales as a career path.
40. What’s your take on collaboration within a sales team?
Why This Question Is Important
This question identifies candidates who prefer to be lone wolves versus those who believe in teamwork.
What to Look For
Collaboration might be less important at some organizations than others, but candidates who aren't willing to collaborate at all likely won’t make pleasant co-workers. Their uncooperative attitude will also block knowledge sharing.
41. Describe a time when you had to collaborate with someone who had a different cultural/personal background than you. How did you account for these differences?
Why This Question Is Important
This question reveals candidates' interpersonal skills, which are crucial for building and maintaining relationships with team members.
What to Look For
Conducting a business means working with all types of salespeople. You want a candidate who recognizes and respects these differences. Their response can tell you if they’re ready to join a winning team full of diverse individuals.
42. Whom are you most comfortable selling to and why?
Why This Question Is Important
This question shows candidates who researched your company and know who you sell to.
What to Look For
Look for responses that describe an ideal buyer versus a demographic with no tie-in to the buying process. Depending on your product or service, the second type of response might pose a problem.
43. What’s your opinion of the role of learning in sales?
Why This Question Is Important
This question identifies candidates with a growth mindset.
What to Look For
Being thrown for a loop by this question is a sign your candidate isn’t a lifelong learner — an increasingly important trait for salespeople. An ideal candidate should communicate their willingness to learn and grow in their role.
44. What are three adjectives a former client would use to describe you?
Why This Question Is Important
This question proves customers love the awesome personality of your potential hire.
What to Look For
Listen for synonyms of “helpful,” as a consultative sales approach is becoming important in modern sales. It’s a plus if the candidate provides examples of when they exemplified each trait.
45. How would you describe the culture at your last company?
Why This Question Is Important
This question gives you an overview of a candidate’s last employer.
What to Look For
You’ll learn a lot about what the candidate values, how they work with others, and what kind of leadership they thrive under. If they complain about long hours or rigid goals and your company thrives off the energy created by late nights and challenging numbers, it’s probably not the right fit.
You’d also want to know if their previous employer had a culture that was inclusive or accepting of people from different backgrounds. You want to bring on talent that is already familiar with your team culture. If the client was not in an inclusive environment, look for a constructive response on how the last company could have done better.
46. Describe your ideal sales manager.
Why This Question Is Important
This question dives into a candidate’s expectations from their management. It also tells you the management and leadership style a candidate vibes with.
What to Look For
Asking a candidate to describe their ideal manager shows you how autonomous they are, how they approach working relationships, and how they overcome challenges. Look for a candidate who can work independently and is comfortable taking direction from their higher-ups.
47. What core values should every salesperson possess?
Why This Question Is Important
This question shows candidates who may have the exact values you want in a salesperson.
What to Look For
To learn where their moral compass lies, look for answers like “putting the needs of the prospect first,” “patience,” and “humility.” You want candidate values to align with company values to ensure a good fit.
48. Which accomplishments in your life are the most important to you?
Why This Question Is Important
This might seem like a huge ask, but the answer illustrates your candidate’s values and motivations.
What to Look For
If the candidate tells a story of overcoming great odds to achieve a specific goal, that signals a driven and highly motivated salesperson. If a candidate’s most valuable accomplishment is finishing all seven seasons of The West Wing, you should probably move on.
Sales Director Interview Questions
Sales directors must be capable of developing and implementing strong sales strategies for a team. Use these questions to gauge their understanding of the market, trends, and their confidence to deliver.
49. How would you describe your management style?
Why This Question Is Important
You can see which managers help their teams hit their quotas.
What to Look For
An effective sales executive should be able to manage and inspire a team. As they share attributes about their management style, consider if these traits fit your company culture and the needs of your team.
50. Tell me about a time you had to motivate an underperforming team member.
Why This Question Is Important
You can identify managers who can turn underperforming reps into quota crushers.
What to Look For
Sales leaders are often responsible for inspiring and motivating reps. The answer to this question should give valuable insight into how they would develop their team members who need a little extra help to reach their goals.
51. Can you describe a situation when you had to implement a new process or system? How did your team respond?
Why This Question Is Important
This question reveals a candidate’s ability to enact change and handle resistance from reps who want to stick to the old processes.
What to Look For
You can gain valuable insight into how they handle change management. You want to ensure your sales leaders can effectively manage the implementation of new systems and that they can address the concerns of your sales team during said transitions.
52. What is your leadership superpower?
Why This Question Is Important
This question highlights a candidate’s leadership strengths and lets them share what differentiates them from other sales leaders.
What to Look For
Look for specifics. An excellent sales manager must have done many appraisals and identified their superpower over the years.
53. Tell me about a time you had to adjust your sales strategy to reach your targets.
Why This Question Is Important
This question allows the candidate to provide insights into valuable lessons learned.
What to Look For
Every successful sales professional has had to pivot at some point. Keep an eye out for the unique lessons they share.
54. How do you establish trust with members of your team?
Why This Question Is Important
This question vets for team builders who every rep can count on.
What to Look For
As a leader, establishing trust with a new team is essential to the job description. The answer to this question will tell you how your candidate approaches building trust and how important teamwork is to them.
55. What’s one way [your company] could improve our sales strategy?
Why This Question Is Important
This question gives you insights into what kind of innovation the candidate is bringing to the table.
What to Look For
You want to bring in the best and the brightest. So look out for thoughtful answers to show preparation and familiarity with your company’s current practices.
56. What is the most difficult piece of feedback you’ve ever received? How has that shaped your approach as a sales leader?
Why This Question Is Important
This question shows how the potential sales director uses feedback to iterate on their processes and drive results.
What to Look For
Although difficult feedback can be challenging to give and receive, it can be necessary to grow in one’s career. Having the candidate share feedback they’ve taken to heart and acted upon lets you glimpse how they’ve grown over time.
57. Would you rather have a toxic overachiever or a supportive underperformer on your team? Why?
Why This Question Is Important
This question gives insight into how a candidate thinks about the problem and the steps they’d take to correct the toxicity, underperformance, or both.
What to Look For
In a management or executive role, the candidate will frequently face situations like this. On the one hand, you want your team to meet their targets. On the other hand, a toxic team member can bring negativity into an organization (even if they’re exceeding quotas).
There’s no right answer to this question; it will depend on the candidate and the situation.
58. How do you know it’s time to let someone go?
Why This Question Is Important
This question reveals a potential manager who can make the tough call when necessary.
What to Look For
See how the candidate approaches team management as a leader, even when there are tough decisions to be made.
Software Sales Interview Questions
You need to bring on sales reps that will advocate for your product on a technical level. When asking software sales questions, assess the candidate for their experience, understanding of metrics, and their ability to create a strong narrative behind the software for a client.
59. Share the steps you take to learn about a new piece of technology.
Why This Question Is Important
This question helps understand which candidates can learn about products quickly.
What to Look For
The field of tech is constantly changing. This question gives you a good idea of how your candidate would take steps to learn about new product offerings.
60. How would you explain the features of a complex piece of software to a prospect who is not as well-versed in technology?
Why This Question Is Important
This question assesses the communication skills of the candidate.
What to Look For
The ability to explain complex concepts is an art for software sales reps. Have the candidate discuss a hypothetical situation where they explain a software offering to you in easy-to-understand terms.
61. What is one improvement [your company] can make to [featured piece of software]?
Why This Question Is Important
You’ll see which candidates can find gaps in software and propose solutions.
What to Look For
You want a team of creative problem-solvers and innovators. This question allows your candidate to share their ideas, which ideally translates to how they would share ideas as a member of your team.
62. What was the last book you read or podcast you listened to?
Why This Question Is Important
This question identifies candidates with a growth mindset who learn from the sales industry's best.
What to Look For
Individuals committed to continuous learning make inspiring team members. By asking this question, you get a glimpse into what kind of content the candidate consumes and how they continue to build their skills.
Bring On the Right Talent in Your Next Sales Interview
To hire a well-rounded sales rep, you have to ask the right questions to see how a candidate really thinks. This will help you improve your team’s performance and help you hit your business goals.
We hope you’ll use this guide in your next round of interviews — and find the candidates you’ve been looking for.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
