How to Ask the Right Interview Questions to Identify a Sales Candidate’s Listening Skills

At SalesDrive, we focus on how to effectively hire sales reps for your company.

While our goal is to help you find salespeople that possess Drive and ambition, we also understand that there are other skills that matter.

At the top of this list is listening. Let us take a look at the importance of active listening — what it is, how you can identify good listeners and avoid poor ones.

What is active listening?

Active listening means listening with all of your senses. It requires paying full attention to what your customer is saying. That means using verbal and non-verbal cues to show signs of listening, taking the time to understand the customer and then thoughtfully responding. 

This ability to listen and listen well is one of the most important sales skills. A well-trained listener can also pick up subtle emotional signals, which is important since buying decisions are primarily driven by emotions. It might sound easy, but a study conducted in the financial services industry found that in a typical sales call, the salesperson spoke a whopping 80% of the time.

Why? 

Salespeople get pumped up, nervous and they want to make sure to get all the material covered. The trouble is, speaking 80% of the time is not collaboration — it’s domination, and customers do not like it. 

There is an old saying in sales relative to a conversation with the customer: “Selling is like tennis… as long as the ball is in the other person’s court, you cannot lose.” The same goes for listening. Encourage the customer to do most of the talking and listen actively as they guide you toward the essence of their needs and, ultimately, the sale.

So how do you find good listeners for your sales team? 

While active listening skills can be developed through sensitivity and training, it really starts with identifying the quality during the interview.

Top Qualities to Look for in Sales Interviews

When interviewing potential sales candidates, there is much to consider. Ideally, you should know exactly what you are looking for prior to conducting any actual interviews.

The criteria may change based on the industry you operate in and sales needs you have, but it will generally contain some basic qualities:

• Confidence. This is one of the easiest qualities to spot. You can recognize confidence – or lack thereof – as soon as a candidate walks in the room. Look for a strong posture, steady voice, firm handshake and appropriate eye contact.
  
• Clarity. How well does the candidate speak and do they clearly convey their ideas? Clarity is everything in sales, and you want an employee who can turn thoughts into compelling words.
  
• Creativity. It is important that a salesperson possess some level of creativity. Asking questions that make your candidates think will help you gauge how they act in unique situations.
  
• Passion. Passion is one of those characteristics that comes out naturally. You cannot really ask specific questions related to it, so you will have to wait for it to come out in candid responses.
  
• Listening. Listening is extremely important, and you want salespeople that can consider advice and respond appropriately.

How do you gauge whether a candidate has good or bad listening skills in a brief interview or a one-time meeting?

Three Signs of a Bad Listener

As important as discovering positive listening skills is, weeding out candidates who are bad listeners is even more crucial. When hiring sales reps, be aware of the following three signs of bad listeners:

1. Does the candidate interrupt you? A candidate can be a little nervous and overeager. However, a consistent habit of interruption suggests that the candidate puts their needs and agenda first. A good active listener will patiently wait for you to finish speaking before providing a response. A bad listener will cut you off and follow their own initiatives.
   
2. Is the candidate a “motor mouth”? If you have a long-winded candidate, see if you can get them to be more concise when communicating. Pause the interview and gently ask if the candidate has ever gotten the feedback that they can be long-winded at times. Gently remind them about the time constraints of the interview process, and politely ask that the responses be shortened. Note whether the candidate can achieve this. If so, you know that they can improve with feedback about listening skills. If not, but the candidate is selected, pay attention to this developmental need and provide the training to help them improve.
   
3. Bad body language. You can tell much about a person’s listening skills by looking at body language. Good listeners will make direct eye contact with you while you are speaking and acknowledge what you’re saying with nods, facial expression or verbal agreements. A bad listener does not maintain eye contact, fidgets and is clearly disengaged and preparing for a chance to speak.

Use This Question to Identify a Sales Candidate’s Listening Skills

One of the best tools you have at your disposal when determining whether or not someone is a good listener, is asking targeted questions during the sales interview. While it is best if the interview process takes on a conversational tone, there are times when direct questioning is best.

You will want to ask questions that uncover the specific traits you are looking for, and it is best to go with unique queries that require candidates to be creative.

However, if you only had the chance to ask one question, the following should be your go-to:

“Tell me about a time when you had to read between the lines to find out what was important to a customer.”  

How a candidate responds to this question should tell you everything you need to know about their listening skills.

Look for the candidate’s degree of cleverness in both identifying the customer’s real needs and asking sharp follow-up questions to go deeper.

If the answer is broad and vague, you can see that the candidate did not truly listen to the question. If the candidate spends the time to truly dissect the question, they likely have what it takes.

Creative questions that ask for specifics allow you to see how well a candidate can follow directions.

Our Behavioral Interview Course

The good news is that unlike Drive, listening skills can be taught. Nonetheless, it helps to diagnose listening challenges from the start, so that you clearly understand the type of salesperson you are hiring.

Our course on behavioral interviewing equips you with all the materials and questions you need to determine a candidate’s listening skills from the get-go and identify whether or not they will sell for you.For more information on our courses or our sales assessment, The DriveTest®, contact us today. We would be happy to discuss our products and services and how we have helped past clients find long-term salespeople through our psychology-backed hiring methods.