What’s the most important sales job interview (and resume) tip?
Quantify Your Experience!
A sales rep’s job is to make the sale. So if you’re looking for a new sales job, your mission is to demonstrate that you can ring that cash register, and do it well.
Quantify your resume.
In order to get the interview, your resume should be a marketing document for you….your “brochure” that draws them into calling you for an interview. If you are in sales, the numbers you pull down (in terms of customers, dollar amounts of sales, sales rankings, and more) matter a lot. A sales resume is all about the numbers. That’s what hiring managers are looking for:
- What kind of numbers can you pull down?
- What’s your sales ranking? Did it increase?
- What does your customer/units sold/profit growth look like?
- What was your budget?
- What kind of revenue have you generated? (Either in actual dollar amounts, or percentage increases.)
Be prepared to answer sales interview questions with quantified examples.
Don’t just quantify your resume accomplishments–also quantify your interview answers. In order to crush the sales interview and get hired, you must show that you not only can talk the talk, you can walk the walk.
A great way for interviewers and hiring sales managers to find out what you’re really made of is to ask you behavioral interview questions. Your answers to behavioral interview questions give them a better picture of what you’ve done, what you can do, and what you’re like in everyday situations, as well as in difficult situations like the ones you’ll surely be in on the new job. They want to know exactly how you’ll represent the company in every circumstance.
Any sales rep worth his or her salt can talk a good game, but only a few can back it up. Practice answering behavioral interview questions with the numbers and data that provide evidence to strengthen your answers and crush your interview.