Sales People, Your Interview Is a Sales Call, so Sell Yourself!

As a sales recruiter we spend most of our days and sometimes nights looking for good sales people who are interested in new opportunities for our clients. We get so excited when we find candidates that fit the criteria for our clients. Sales people, you have to know we’re always looking for the best of the best to submit. Once we find a candidate, we go through a very thorough interview process trying to find just the right sales person to submit to our client. As a good sales person, you should know how to promote your most valuable product — yourself and the ability to sell yourself. You should prepare for a sales interview in the same way you’d prepare for a sales call. Take the time to do your homework and become familiar with the company. Review their website and make sure you can speak to what the company does. Look up the person interviewing you on LinkedIn and learn something about them. Do a search to look for recent articles about the company. Know if they recently received funding for their next growth stage and MENTION IT. Listen closely to the person interviewing you and if they don’t ask about your most recent achievements, figure out a way to bring it into the conversation. Continually sell yourself and make sure you have a story to share about yourself so they understand what VALUE you can bring to their team. Be energetic and show your hunger but don’t be pushy. Hopefully you know the difference between being hungry and being pushy. Don’t be a know it all and make sure you breathe, which means you are taking the time to listen and not continually talk about yourself. Mention companies you know and some of your connections, how you’re a team-player, and a good strategist. But mostly sell them that you are someone who can sell their product. So if you can’t figure out how to sell yourself to the company you want to hire you, it’s a reasonable bet you won’t be able to figure out how to sell the company’s products.

Above all, sales isn’t about features of the product but finding the pain of their customer, so be consultative. You need to help companies find a solution to their problems instead of just pushing your product. And the first solution you have to sell my client on is the solution to their sales problem and that would be YOU. At this point, you should have sold yourself pretty well but there are two more steps in the process. Ask intelligent questions like those suggested in a previous blog I wrote or do some research and find your own questions. Just make sure to ask relevant questions. Last but not least, close the interview by asking what the next step in the process is and don’t forget to tell your interviewer that you want to job. Now, pay attention and go get that job!