What a sales screen is listening for
Sales interviews have always been partly a test of how you talk, and AI screens are no different. The questions check three things: whether you have hit targets before, how you deal with rejection, and whether you can explain your own sales process clearly. Energy helps, but specifics help more.
This is part 5, the last in our series on AI interview questions. Earlier parts covered general questions, software engineers, nurses and customer service.
Tell me about a time you hit or missed a target
Use your real numbers, and give context so they mean something: the target, what you reached, and over what period. If you missed, say so and explain what you changed. Inflated numbers tend to fall apart in later rounds, when a manager asks how you got there.
Last year my quarterly target was forty new accounts. In the first quarter I reached thirty-one, mostly because I was spending too long on leads that were never going to buy. I started qualifying harder on the first call with three questions about budget and timing, and dropping leads that didn't fit. The next three quarters I closed forty-four, forty-two and forty-seven.
How do you handle rejection?
Every sales screen asks some version of this. Saying 'it doesn't bother me' sounds untrue. Describe what you actually do after a no.
A no still stings for a minute. What helps is that I write down one reason I think it went that way before I make the next call, so the no turns into something I can use. Every Friday I look at the week's notes, and if the same reason keeps coming up, I change my pitch or ask my manager for help with that objection.
Tell me about an objection you turned around
This checks how you listen. The best answers show that you asked a question before answering the objection, and that the customer's real concern was different from what they said first.
A restaurant owner told me our booking software was too expensive. Instead of offering a discount straight away, I asked what he was paying for bookings now. It turned out he was losing two or three tables on busy nights to no-shows. I showed him the deposit feature and worked out with him what one saved table a week was worth. He signed up for the basic plan that month and upgraded later.
Sell me this
Some screens still ask you to sell an everyday object. They don't want a speech about features. They want to see you ask about the buyer's needs first. In a one-way recording you can't hear the buyer's answers, so say the questions you would ask and then show how you'd use a likely answer.
Before I tell you about this pen, can I ask when you last needed one and didn't have it? Say it was signing something at the bank and you had to borrow theirs. This one clips into a pocket or a notebook, so it's there the next time, and it writes on the first try. Would a pack of three cover your bag, your desk and your car?
Other questions to prepare
- Walk me through your sales process from first contact to close.
- How do you find new leads?
- Tell me about your biggest deal and how it came together.
- Tell me about a deal you lost and what you learned.
- How do you keep track of your pipeline?
- Why sales, and why this product?
Our sales representative practice page has more role-specific questions, and the salary questions guide helps with commission and base pay questions.
Practice the pitch and the stories out loud
Salespeople are often good talkers and assume they don't need to rehearse. Talking to a camera with no buyer reacting is a different skill. Record two or three answers, listen back, and check whether each one has a number, a method and a result. The STAR method keeps stories tight.
If you want spoken practice with an AI interviewer that asks about the numbers on your own résumé and follows up when they are vague, Hmmlo offers that, with a coach review afterwards.
