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<\/p>\nWe were recently putting together the interview script for a sales hiring project we are working on and I was thinking about some of the nutty questions that have been popular over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat would you say was your weakest attribute?\u201d This is not an uncommon interview question and I can remember asking this myself back when I was a young hiring manager. I had replies ranging from the lame, \u201cI try too hard\u201d (but what did I expect?) to the forthright, \u201cnot having time for silly questions.\u201d (She got a job, by the way!)<\/p>\n
Not that long ago \u201ccute\u201d questions were considered illuminating and insightful. I am not quite sure what interviewers get from questions like that, but there was a time when, \u201chow do you fit an elephant in a VW Beetle?\u201d or \u201chow would you move a mountain?\u201d were popular. There is no \u201cright\u201d answer but how the candidate replied was supposed to shed light on the personality of a candidate and into how they would perform in a certain role.<\/p>\n
Things have evolved since then and today we rely more on \u201cbehavioral interviewing\u201d techniques; asking people to describe how they have behaved in relevant situations in the past. This line of inquiry gives us insight into how a candidate will react when confronted with a similar situation in the future. For instance, describe the activities you engaged in to open new accounts in your previous role or describe how you won over a customer that wanted to buy from an incumbent supplier. For a comprehensive list of sales interviewing questions, check this article out!<\/a><\/p>\n We also tend to avoid \u201cimaginary scenarios\u201d because they aren\u2019t that useful for separating the weak candidates from the strong ones. For example, any sales rep can provide a great textbook answer to a question like \u201cif you worked here, how would you open up a new account?\u201d<\/p>\n Quirky questions might have a place in trying to see measure someone\u2019s level of creativity or fit with an unusual culture, but for the most part they won\u2019t give you much proof of a candidate\u2019s ability to excel in the sales role for which you are hiring.<\/p>\n To your success!<\/p>\n Photo Credit: milos milosevic via Compfight cc<\/p>\n relpost-thumb-wrapper<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n close relpost-thumb-wrapper<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\nRelated posts<\/h3>\n
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