There are three key points a sales or sales management professional should focus on when interviewing for a new position.
1. Provide specific examples about what makes you successful. For example, if you tell an interviewer you work harder than everybody, it is incumbent upon you to provide real-life, specific examples of how you worked harder than everybody to become successful. Saying you worked harder than everybody else doesn’t quite cut it. Always remember to provide specific answers. This is what is also known as behavioral-based interviewing. It revolves around providing real-world examples to effectively answer an interview question.
2. Many times there is what I call, “the question behind the question” meaning that a person asking you a question is really trying to find out something else about you and masking it behind a different or more vague question. For example, if a person asks you… “What’s your favorite business book?” The “question behind the question” could be… “Do you read business books in general?” Or… “Do you believe in self-improvement?” Or… “Are you a dedicated business professional?” Sometimes, we are so quick to answer the question, we miss the opportunity to “read between the lines” in an effort to ascertain the real meaning of the question being asked.
3. Remember that when answering a question, it’s all about the interviewer not the person being interviewed. When you answer a question, make sure you properly communicate the “what’s in it for them” when providing an answer to a question. Too often, job candidates focus too much on themselves in terms of what they want out of the interview, but they fail to spend enough time telling a hiring manager what they are going to do for them if hired.
Tom Mangini / Founder / The Sales Advisory Board
