Sales Interview Questions

Here are some Sales interview questions you can use to help you prepare for job interviews. We suggest practicing with a partner or your Career Coach to seek feedback to improve your answers. When practicing alone, make sure you answer the questions aloud. Writing your answers or thinking about your answers will not fully prepare you for answering questions verbally in an interview.

1. How do you go about relationship selling?

2. How would you handle an objection?

3. How would you handle rejection?

4. What is your strongest sales skill?

5. What do you like about sales?

6. What do you dislike about sales?

7. Describe your sales experience.

8. Describe how you would handle the negotiation phase of a sale.

9. Tell me about the most difficult sales call you ever had to handle.

10. Everyone experience “call reluctance” from time to time, how do you overcome it?

11. When is it time to let go of a potential sale?

12. Tell me about a time when you handled an unhappy customer.

13. Who do you report to at your company?

14. How do you go about achieving your goals?

15. Who are the customers you are targeting?

16. What clients have you brought on?

17. How big is your book of business?

18. How many clients do you manage?

19. How do you build rapport with your customers?

20. What do you enjoy doing the most, managing clients or developing new territories?

21. What sales achievement are you most proud of and why?

22. What are the most common objectives that you face?

23. Tell me about a difficult sale and how you handled it. How could you have prevented the problem from arising?

24. Give me an example of when you had to deal with an angry customer?

25. How often do you prepare sales reports and how do you do that?

26. How active are you in civic, networking, etc.?

27. How do you seek out new customers?

Sales Manager Interview Questions

1. Describe your management style.

2. How would your past staff members describe your management style? 

3. How would they describe your strengths and weaknesses as a manager and supervisor?

4. How do you hold employees accountable?

5. Describe how you’ve dealt with underperformers in the past.

6. Describe the work environment or culture and its management style in which you have experienced the most success.

7. Describe your sales management philosophy.

8. Describe a time when you had to give a performance review that you found particularly challenging to give.

9. What do you feel is a secret to a successful sales team?

10. What is your current percent of travel?

11. What percent travel are you willing to do?

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