10 Question to ask your candidate in an Inside Sales Interview before you hire them.

 

Your company is growing, and you want to build your Inside sales team. Search is ongoing to find the best hire for your business. Your HR is finding the right fits for your company from different job portals and trying to select the best one for your organization.

 

Now the question is how you will know the candidate is the best hire for your organization?

 

The hiring process is time-consuming and requires the support of many people from the same department. If the new joinery left your organization after few days, then you be in stage 0 again and start finding the best hire.

 

I would like to recommend few questions by asking which you can identify whether the candidate is the right fit for your business or not.

 

Question - 1:
 
How do you define Inside Sales? What do you like most about Inside Sales?

 

By asking this question you will identify his/her overall understanding of inside sales and the part of it he like most.

 

You may identify his interest in this kind of job and why he wants to pursue it as a carrier.

 

Nevertheless, this is the first question only and do not judge the candidate based on the answer to this question.

 

Question - 2:
 
How comfortable you are with Inside Sales tools? Do you like using the CRM tool on a day-to-day basis?

 

Here you will understand how comfortable the candidate is with different technology.

 

An ISR (inside sales representative) must use different email marketing tools daily such as MailChimp, Sendinblue for an email campaign, and Fast2SMS for an SMS campaign. So, an ISR needs to be comfortable with technology.

 

Having excellent MS Excel skill is always an added advantage for any candidate. Excel is not a nice to have skill but a compulsory skill for all ISR as it used for reporting, activity preparation, account progress tracking as many more.

 

Having experience in CRM tool for an ISR is not compulsory as it can be taught later.

 

Now based on the above answer we should not reject anyone, it just the beginning of our interview questions.

 

Question 3:
 
Do you consider Email Marketing is an important part of Inside Sales? If yes, then why?

 

Email Marketing is an excellent tool to generate quality leads and is essential for ISR folks to master this.

 

If you hire someone good at Email Marketing, then it is a great advantage for the sales department.

 

But this skill can be trained as well. So, if the candidate is not good at this, the company can provide training to help him master the skill.

 

Question - 4:
 
Cold calling is an essential skill or an optional skill for an ISR?
 

We all know that cold calling is not an optional skill for ISR but most of us hesitate to make cold calling as it involves more rejection.

 

Still, we wanted to know whether the new hire will feel comfortable doing cold calling or not.

 

Question - 5:
 
Imagine yourself in a situation where your sales are down, your sales performance is decreasing day by day and your reporting manager starts criticizing you. How do you respond to this situation?

 

The best answer would be - I will stop imagining!!! Lol - jokes apart 😀😀😀. 

 

Even though there is no right answer to this imaginary situation, you will get to the way, your candidate can handle a difficult situation. How much patience he has or from where he will get the motivation to be loyal with the job and try to overcome the situation by bouncing back to the track.

 

The quality of being persistent will test in this question. Persistence is required in personal and professional life for continuous improvement. We know that we learn, and we fail and when we fail, we get the experience. This experience is required to be persistence and keep moving on despite the different situations.

 

Question - 6:
 
What is your opinion on the use of LinkedIn in the Inside Sales process?
 

 

So, this is a very good question to know how much importance the candidate gives to the best tool for lead generation i.e., LinkedIn. How much he or she wanted to use it and what is the opinion for using social sites in the process of Inside sales. The free and premium version of LinkedIn is very useful in lead generation and lead qualifications.

 

A newbie interested to use social media to reach out to the potential customer is a good sign for an organization.

 

 

Question - 7:
 
How you maintain your time slot? Is there any time slot you define based on the day-to-day activities?

 

I believe that maintaining a time slot increases the productivity of an ISR. This time slot or calendar usually filled with the type of activity a salesperson wants to do. Like the first 2 hours for email marketing, the next 2 hours for cold calling. Some time for research about the prospects before calling, some time for competitor analysis, some time for reading the case study, and so on.

 

When you have a ready calendar for a complete month you do not need to think about what activities to do, you have to follow the calendar only.

 

 

Question - 8:
 
How you improve the skills required to be an ISR?

 

 

Here we can identify whether the candidate believes in continuous improvement and pursue different certifications or reading books for the same.

 

Many online certifications can add value to a candidate’s profile such as advanced Excel certification, Business email writing certification, and soft skill certification.

 

 

Question - 9:
 
What is your opinion about your previous employer and why you move on?
 

 

This is the hardest question to handle for any candidate.

 

Here we can see how positive the candidate in his approach. He can be loyal and mentioned all the good things of the previous employer and what went wrong between them that he must move on.

 

Are there any monetary reasons to leave? Are there any conflicts that happen? Is the working environment being very stressful?

 

There can be the reason for someone to leave the organisation but mostly it's the reason of thought process. Your reporting manager wants you to do things in a certain way and you are not comfortable with that. Many organisations are flexible to understand the thought process of the candidates too, but many are not flexible.

 

We can not select or reject a candidate based on his previous record.

 

 

Question - 10:
What do you know about our company and the uniqueness of our solution offerings?

 

Even though this is the first the candidate is visiting your company it is expected that the candidate must have gone through your company website and social media sites to understand your company culture and the solution offerings.

 

I have seen many people do a competitor analysis along with understanding the solution offering by the company. These types of dedication are surely an added advantage, but a candidate should not be selected basis on these criteria only.

 

 

 

Conclusion -

 

By asking the above 10 questions you will have a fair idea of the candidate's knowledge in terms of Inside Sales and the mind share of the candidate. But let me ask you 2 questions -

 

 1. Can you get a perfect candidate for your Inside Sales role?

 2. Is there any Inside Sales skill that can not be taught?

 

What I know to say is that even though the above questions help you to identify the mind share of the candidate but if your candidate has the below 3 qualities then you should hire him or her

 

• Wanted to learn.
• Wanted to fit into your organization.
• Wanted to be successful as an Inside Sales Representative

Thanks all for now from my side!

 

Let I know your thoughts on the comment section.

 

Thanks for reading.