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Sales and account management

7 questions for quota-carrying and customer-facing roles. The italic line under each one is what it is actually testing.

  1. What was their quota, and what did they actually close against it?Ask for the number and the period. Vagueness here is itself information.
  2. How much of their pipeline did they source themselves?Separates a closer from someone who lived on inbound or inherited accounts.
  3. Walk me through a deal they lost that they should have won.Anyone in sales has one. Listen for whether they diagnosed it honestly.
  4. How did they behave in the last two weeks of a quarter they were behind on?Pressure reveals whether discounting, sandbagging or misrepresentation appear.
  5. Did customers they signed stay? Any that churned early?Tests whether they sell a fit or sell a signature.
  6. How did they work with the people who had to deliver what they sold?Chronic friction with delivery is expensive and rarely shows on a resume.
  7. Would you give them your own accounts to cover while you were out?A trust question disguised as a logistics question.
Before you dial. Ask the candidate for the reference and tell them you intend to call. Confirm the reference's relationship to the work. Nothing here asks about protected characteristics, and you should not go there if a reference volunteers it — steer back to the work and do not write it down.

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