A Guide To Asking Questions During A Sales Interview
In every interview, without fail, the interviewer will always ask, “Do you have any questions for me?”
How you respond will make or break your chances of getting the job.
If you scratch your head, look up at the ceiling, and try to come up with a few questions on the spot, you’re already dead in the water.
This demonstrates a lack of preparedness, a certain level of disinterest, and an inability to have an enjoyable back-and-forth conversation.
1. Write down your questions beforehand.
Which brings up another point: you should always bring a small notebook and pen to take notes during your interviews—this shows that you’re prepared and organized.
When the interviewer asks if you have any questions, don’t be embarrassed about opening up your notebook and going down your list. Again, this shows that you took the time to prepare.
You can find a list here of the best questions to ask in a tech sales interview.
2. Use the entire remainder of the interview time slot to ask questions.
If the interview is from 2-3pm, and the interviewer asks if you have any questions at 2:45pm, then you should be asking questions for 15 minutes. Wear a watch so you can keep track of the time. By the time it’s 3pm, you should ask the interviewer, “I have just a couple more questions, but I know it’s 3pm and I want to be respectful of your time. Do we have five more minutes?”
This is a power move. You’re in control of the conversation. Not in a forceful way, but in a way that is probably a relief to the interviewer. If you do this correctly, the last half of the interview should be effortless and enjoyable for the interviewer, so that they walk out of the room thinking to themselves, “Hmm, that was kind of fun. I enjoyed answering their questions. I like that person.”
3. Don’t sound like a robot when you’re asking questions.
Don’t just ask questions one after another without paying attention to the responses. Instead, engage with the answer to each question and ask follow-up questions. You’ll get deeper-than-surface-level answers this way and you’ll also show your skill as a conversationalist.
4. Avoid asking the same question twice.
You will have multiple interviews throughout the interview process with any one company. In some cases, you will have an on-site interview with the same person that interviewed you on the phone.
This is another reason to be taking notes. You need to be able to remember who at the company you already talked to, what questions you asked them, and what you talked about in general.
Don’t count on your ability to remember. It will be easy to get your interviews confused if you are interviewing with multiple companies at the same time.
5. Refer to one interviewer’s answer in another interview.
For example, if you’re talking to the CEO, you might mention, “I was talking to Casey. She’s the Head of Product, right? I was talking to her about the ABC feature and she told me XYZ. Could you tell me a little more about that from your perspective?”
This demonstrates that you’re a quick learner with an ability to assimilate with the team and get up-to-speed quickly.
Finally, remember why it’s important to ask questions in an interview.
On one hand, you want to convince the company, “I’m a candidate that you should hire.”
The questions you ask and how you ask them will send signals to the interviewer that will impact their judgment of your candidacy. For example, if the first question you ask is about salary, this might send a signal that you just care about the money—not a good look. If you ask questions about the culture and team collaboration, you send the signal that you’re a team player that cares about getting along with their coworkers.
This is especially important for a sales interview. An ability to ask questions is part of the job description. Even if your long-winded answers about yourself were well-rehearsed, if you can’t demonstrate an ability to keep a conversation going while playing the part of the questioner, you won’t pass the test for natural sales skills.
On the other hand, you want to be asking yourself, “Is this a company I want to work for?”
In a sales encounter, qualifying is the process used to determine if a prospect has the potential to become a customer. This is achieved by asking questions. You want to do the exact same thing with your questions during an interview to determine if a company has the potential to become your employer.
If a company doesn’t fit what you’re looking for, you can move on to the next one. You only have so much time to spend job hunting, and time spent talking to one company comes at the opportunity cost of time spent talking to another company. There are plenty of companies out there that need your talent.