Interview Question: How would you describe your skills as a salesperson?

Sales InterviewIn a sales interview, behavioral questions shouldn’t be a surprise. Hiring managers want to explore your abilities in the key competencies needed to be successful in a sales job. When asked about these skills during the interview, it is important to know specific key points.

While preparing for this interview question, you must be willing to realize that not all salespeople are born salespeople. Every salesperson has had to go through tough times in order to succeed.

Here are some factors you might want to consider to help you craft a solid answer:

Evaluate your skills. This may sound easy, but knowing why you’re good at sales requires confidence, honesty and being true to yourself. Perhaps you have good communication skills or you’re a great team player. Whatever skills you may have as a salesperson, list them all on a piece of paper and practice some reflection.

Accept. As a salesperson, confidence (and acceptance) are important, especially if you’re on your own and travelling most of the time. You need to know and accept all your strengths and weaknesses as a salesperson to know how you can improve. This pushes you to be a greater salesperson than you already are.

Here’s a short list of what recruiters look for in a salesperson:

- Confident

- Funny

- Outgoing

- Structured

-Driven

- Relational

- Focused

- Assertive

Learning how to develop these skills is important if you’re building your career for success.

Believe. After accepting your flaws and strengths, believe and be confident that you have what it takes to be an excellent salesperson for the organization or company you’re applying for.

Share your past experiences. To get your point across, tell the recruiter about your past experiences — it will focus his or her attention on your positive skills. Perhaps you were able to close a big deal. Focus on experiences like these to impress the recruiter during the interview.

Adapt. After letting the recruiter know your good points, make sure you are willing to take on new challenges that come with the job. Prove that you can adapt to changes easily no matter how challenging circumstances may become.

Good salesmanship requires being able to consistently look for a better way, and adapt to each customer.

Prepare for your next sales interview with these tips. Be confident, believe in yourself, and get the job!

Read 8326 times Last modified on Tuesday, 09 February 2016 14:16
Alan Carniol

Alan is the creator of Interview Success Formula, a training program that has helped more than 80,000 job seekers to ace their interviews and land the jobs they deserve. Interviewers love asking curveball questions to weed out job seekers. But the truth is, most of these questions are asking about a few key areas. Learn more about how to outsmart tough interviewers by watching this video.