Interview: Senior Sales Professional
Before the interview, please review the candidate's assessment. Create custom questions that help address any weaknesses or questions that the assessment presents. A notes section appears in the "Strengths and Weaknesses" section for making notes about the candidate regarding these custom questions.
At the beginning of your interview, present the candidate with a little background about the company and explain the role of cashier within the organization to the applicant.
Strengths and Weaknesses
What do you see as your main strengths?
What do you see as your main weaknesses and how do you compensate for them?
What personal growth do you hope to achieve by working with our company?
What 5 key qualities do you think a lead sales professional for our company needs to have? Do you fall short on any of these?
Sales Knowledge
What do you describe as the anatomy of a sale? (If this is not understood): In other words, what makes sales happen?
Define what you believe are the major obstacles that diminish sales opportunities that you’ve witnessed in organizations you’ve worked with in the past and what you’ve done to overcome these obstacles.
What plan of action would you devise with your sales managers to help them achieve the sales goal we expect to achieve within the next year?
A salesperson at the store is consistently not achieving their goals. How do you remedy the situation?
Describe the anatomy of a sale. (If this is not understood): In other words, what makes sales happen?
In your past experience describe what factors diminished sales opportunities and how you sought to overcome them.
What plan of action would you devise with sales managers to help achieve our expected sales goals within the next year?
Presuming you've supervised salespeople who've not achieved their goals. What tactics you do feel are the most effective remedy?
Mechanical Ability
Are you mechanically inclined?
Do you change your own oil in your car?
Are you mechanically inclined?
Do you change your own oil in your car?
Effective Delegation
Consider this statement and react: It takes twice as long to train someone to do this job than it takes for me to do it myself.
Discuss 2 past experiences: 1 where you made a poor choice in delegation, what you learned; 1 where you effectively delegated.
Give a past example where you decided not to delegate a task you normally would and why.
Communication
Poor communication and ineffective communication are obstacles that plague most organizations, leading to lost productivity, high turnover, and lost money. What steps have to taken in your previous management positions to remedy problems with communication? And what steps do you think any company should take to work toward an effective communication policy?
What past history do you have communicating with people of different walks of life?
Give one or more examples of measures you've taken in previous supervisory positions to remedy problems with communication.
Discuss steps you've taken in the past to establish an maintain communication policy?
What past history do you have communicating with people of different walks of life?
Do you speak Spanish?
Overcoming Organizational Challenges
What tools/methods do you use to keep yourself as organized and productive as possible?
What tools/methods do you use to keep yourself as organized and productive as possible?
GM Hiring & Management Style
Describe a scenario from your past experience you feel would illustrate your management style.
What strategies have you witnessed as effective in lowering turnover?
What strategies have you seen increase employee satisfaction?
Self-Assessed Performance Metrics
Self-Assessed Performance Metrics: What metrics would you establish that to accurately determine, and evaluate your performance, justifying one year from now the salary we pay you? And how would you ensure these metrics accurately measure your personal performance and not simply efforts of other employees?