Hiring a salesperson is different from hiring anyone else, for one uncomfortable reason: the interview is the job. Presenting well under pressure is the exact skill you are buying, so a great interview tells you almost nothing.
Charm is not evidence. These five questions dig past it.
1. “Walk me through a deal you lost that you thought you would win.”
Open here, not with a win story. Everyone has rehearsed the wins.
Strong answers name a specific deal, identify where it went wrong, and take some ownership of the miss. You want to hear about a stakeholder they never reached, a qualification step they skipped, or a signal they read wrong.
Weak answers blame procurement, pricing, or the product. One deflection is fine. A pattern of them tells you what your pipeline reviews will sound like.
2. “What was your quota, and what did you actually close?”
Ask for four numbers in one answer: quota, attainment, average deal size, and sales cycle length.
The point is not the headline percentage. It is whether the numbers agree with each other and with the territory they described. A rep quoting 140 percent attainment should be able to tell you how many deals that was, at what size, over what period.
Vagueness here is the single most reliable warning sign in a sales interview. Good reps know their numbers cold, because their income depended on them.
3. “How do you research a prospect before the first call?”
This separates people who prospect from people who wait for leads.
Listen for a repeatable process: where they look, what they look for, what makes them disqualify an account before spending a call on it. Specific tools and sources are a good sign. So is a clear disqualification rule.
“I check their LinkedIn” is not a process. It is a habit.
4. “Tell me about a time you walked away from a deal.”
Most reps have never done this, and the answer reveals how they think about pipeline quality.
Strong candidates describe qualifying out early to protect their time, and can explain the criteria they used. That is a rep who will keep your forecast honest.
Reps who have never disqualified anyone will fill your pipeline with deals that never close, and your forecast will be fiction by month three.
5. “Sell me on your last company as a place to work.”
Better than the exhausted “sell me this pen.” It is a real thing they know well, so you are testing structure rather than improvisation.
Watch whether they ask you anything first. A rep who pitches without discovery will do the same to your prospects. A rep who asks what you care about before answering is showing you their actual method.
Run the same five for every finalist
Sales interviews drift more than any other role, because strong candidates steer the conversation. That is their job.
Use the same five questions, in the same order, for every finalist on the same opening. Consistent questions support consistent evaluation, which is also what EEOC guidance asks of employers: apply the same standards to applicants for the same position.
Then write the answers down while they are fresh. Debriefs that run on memory reward the most charming candidate, which for this role is the least useful signal you have. More on that failure mode in how to avoid rubric drift in candidate debriefs.
Turn answers into comparable evidence
For each finalist, log the four numbers from question two, the lost deal from question one, and whether they ran discovery in question five. Those three data points compare cleanly across candidates. Impressions do not.
Use JobCraft to publish the quota and territory expectations in the job post, so candidates self-select before you spend interview time. Use InterviewGen to generate follow-ups aimed at the gaps in a specific candidate’s background. Use DecisionHelper to compare 2 to 4 finalists on the criteria you actually published.
Hiring for other roles? See our interview question guides or the interview scorecard template you can copy into any process.
Frequently asked questions
What should I ask a sales rep in an interview?
Ask about deals that did not close, the exact numbers behind their last quota, and how they research a prospect before the first call. Sales candidates rehearse the win stories. The useful signal is in losses, specifics, and process.
How do I check if a sales candidate's numbers are real?
Ask for quota, attainment, average deal size, and cycle length in the same answer. Real numbers are consistent with each other. If someone says they hit 140 percent on a 30,000 euro average deal with a two week cycle, the maths should match the team size and territory they describe.
Should I run a mock sales call in the interview?
Yes, but give them the brief in advance and let them prepare. A cold roleplay tests improvisation under artificial pressure. A prepared one tests discovery, listening, and whether they ask questions before pitching, which is what the job actually is.
What is the biggest mistake when hiring salespeople?
Hiring for charisma and interviewing without a scorecard. Sales candidates present better than any other role because presenting is the skill being hired. Without the same questions and the same criteria for every finalist, you are comparing performances rather than evidence.