The Sales Interview Process

An alternative recruiting process for sales

Here is some insight into the process we used when I was at my last company. We have improved upon this process in the following articles, but we wanted to give you a baseline understanding of what another process could look like.

Interview One: Recruiter Screening

The recruiter does a phone interview with a potential candidate that applied or was referred. Anyone deemed to have A-level potential is then brought in for an in-person interview.

The purpose is to weed out as many B and C-level players as possible.

Interview Two: Manager Assessment

The manager that has a talent need interviews the potential candidate for thirty to sixty minutes. A second manager does the same, and they then compare notes. If the candidate is still deemed to have high performer potential, they then move onto a field-ride.

This is where a manager gets into the dirt and digs and hunts to find the real character of a candidate. All candidates lie about who they are and what they stand for. The purpose of this interview is to figure out who they are and if they are just good at interviewing or if they are a real A-player.

Level Three: Associate Field Ride

An Presidents Club level associate or an associate that is on a leadership path takes the candidate out on a field ride for either a half day or full day depending on how the candidate has been faring.

On this ride there are three objectives:

1.Show the candidate what an actual day in outside sales looks like (not many people can knock on a random door and ask that person for their business)

2. Sell them on the idea of ADP

3. Assess their potential to be a top performer.

Level Four: VP & Manager Role Play

Give the candidate twenty minutes to review a sales package we offer, and they then are given twenty minutes to sell us on it.

This has multiple purposes — see how they fare under pressure, figure out if they are coachable, know if they take no for an answer, and if trained, will they be able to sell?

This is similar to the method used by Smart & Street but varies in a few significant ways, which we will get into in the next few posts.

Lucas is the founder of Spark xyz, platform management software for incubators, accelerators, Angel groups, and VC’s.