35 best sales behavioral interview questions (+ answers to look for)

Finding the best candidate for a sales job takes careful preparation and consideration. Resumes don’t tell the whole story, and generic interview questions fail to pinpoint the best candidates for your sales team.

Adding behavioral interview questions into your interview process will give you a clearer picture of what drives each job applicant and what they value. This will help you find candidates who will thrive in your organization.

In this article, we break down the 35 best sales behavioral interview questions – plus answers to look for – to help get you started. 

What are behavioral interview questions?

Behavioral interview questions ask candidates to explain how they’ve handled specific situations. By looking at how they behaved in the past, you can get a sense of how applicants would handle challenges in the future. 

These questions shed light on how candidates apply skills like task prioritization and customer service. They can also identify behavioral traits that could be an asset or liability for your business.

Behavioral questions can’t replace skills-based testing to assess job candidate abilities. However, they are useful for identifying how each prospective hire approaches their job and interacts with others. This knowledge, combined with insights you gain from skills assessments, can help you find candidates who will thrive in your unique business environment. 

Why ask behavioral questions during a sales interview?

Sales roles greatly benefit from behavioral interview questions. Sales staff must manage relationships, solve problems, and demonstrate resilience and persistence. To avoid mis-hires, you need to gauge each sales candidate's ability to communicate well, develop creative solutions to issues, and persevere when facing unexpected obstacles. 

Not every candidate is well suited for a sales role. Asking behavioral questions gives the candidate a chance to detail how they approach sales-specific obstacles. For example, asking how they organize reaching out to clients will signal how well they can keep up with your client outreach expectations. Insights like this help you find the best candidates to succeed on your sales team. 

35 behavioral interview questions for sales & answers to look for

Teamwork behavior questions for collaborative sales teams

All sales team members work toward closing sales, but individual team members may take different steps to reach that goal. While some teams embrace competition to motivate sales staff, a collaborative team prioritizes sharing ideas and brainstorming strategies.

To find a sales candidate who can fit with a collaborative team, look for:

• An ability to work together despite differing opinions

• Drive to succeed as a team rather than individual accolades

Candidates highly motivated by their individual results or unwilling to compromise with others are unlikely to fit well in a collaborative team environment. On the other hand, candidates who prefer team-based work and motivating others will do well on a collaborative team.

Ask these questions to find candidates whose behaviors align with a collaborative sales team dynamic:

1. Have you ever had to work with a team member you disagreed with?

2. How do you motivate other members of your sales team?

3. Do you prefer working as part of a team or on your own?

Customer service behavior questions for sales

Sales staff must blend client targeting and customer service skills to ensure their prospects become happy customers. The best sales employees will have experience resolving customer issues, building strong relationships, and exceeding customer expectations. 

Gain valuable insights by prompting candidates to provide examples of how they've achieved this in the past. This will enable you to assess a candidate's empathy, communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and commitment to customer satisfaction.

Identify your candidate’s commitment to customer service with these behavioral interview questions:

1. Have there been times you’ve needed to work with a challenging customer? How do you manage that?

2. Tell me about a time when you converted a difficult sale.

3. How do you prepare for a first meeting with a new prospect?

Negotiation behavior questions for sales

Behavior has a strong impact on sales negotiations. Behavioral interview questions can identify top sales candidates with exceptional negotiation skills. Look for examples of candidate experience where they have:

• Navigated challenging negotiations

• Reached mutually beneficial agreements

• Resolved conflicts that helped close a sale

Asking behavioral questions about negotiations will help you assess the candidate’s persuasive ability, adaptability, and strategic thinking. Assess a candidate’s approach to negotiations with these questions:

1. How did you approach your last client negotiations?

2. Tell me about a time when you negotiated with a difficult customer.

Problem-solving behavior questions for sales

Behavioral interview questions delve into candidates' past experiences and actions to evaluate their ability to tackle challenges head-on. For sales candidates, this means identifying examples of how they:

• Closed sales despite challenging circumstances

• Overcame obstacles or found innovative solutions

• Identified potential issues early in the sales process

Behavioral interview questions help you identify sales candidates who can effectively navigate the dynamic sales landscape, adapt to changing circumstances, and deliver successful outcomes for the organization.

Try these questions to identify candidates with traits that support problem-solving:

1. What is your process for ensuring you close sales?

2. Tell me about the most challenging sale you’ve closed. How did you overcome the challenges?

3. How do you qualify a new prospect?

Adaptability behavior questions for sales

The sales industry is subject to changing market conditions, customer preferences, and trends. For that reason, the best sales professionals are adaptable. 

They should be able to identify and respond to market trends, handle expected challenges effectively, and quickly adjust sales strategies to address changing needs. During a behavioral interview, they should provide examples of when they’ve done this successfully. Ask these questions to assess your candidate’s adaptability:

1. Tell me about a time when you lost out on a sale. How did you handle that?

2. Have you ever had to work through a major market or industry change? What did you do to get through it?

3. How do you manage customers that are still identifying what they want? 

Initiative behavior questions for sales

Assess a candidate’s initiative by delving into experiences that demonstrate their proactiveness and self-motivation. Dedication to continuous improvement can also indicate a candidate who will continue to grow their skills. Look for answers that highlight:

• Times when they went above and beyond their responsibilities

• Self-motivated career improvements

• Seized opportunities in difficult times

  

Behavioral interview questions help you select sales employees who can take charge and drive results. These questions can help you identify candidates with strong initiative:

1. Describe the last step you took to educate yourself on your target market.

2. How do you cope with slow sales periods?

3. What is the hardest part of the sales process for you?

Communication behavior questions for sales

Effective sales requires effective communication. Sales candidates with strong communication skills should be able to effectively explain products and services to prospects, develop sales pitches that answer prospects’ questions and deliver results, and keep communication open when new contacts step in.

The right behavioral interview questions will prompt answers that show how each candidate communicates and approaches people. This way, you can assess each candidate’s clarity, persuasion, and active listening skills. These skills are essential in sales employees who can articulate ideas, build rapport with clients, handle objections, and convey information that influences customers.

Try these questions to evaluate each candidate’s communication traits:

1. What is your process for delivering sales presentations?

2. Have you ever had a key customer contact change before a sale closed? How did you ensure the new contact stayed in the sales pipeline?

3. Tell me about a time when the way you communicated with a customer influenced the sale. 

Motivation and values behavior questions for sales

Each candidate you interview has unique motivations and values. Asking questions that identify what drives the candidate will help you find candidates who will be fulfilled working in your organization. 

To get to these insights, ask candidates to give examples of how they:

• Find ways to motivate themselves

• Persevere in the face of challenges

• Find and value integrity in their day-to-day work

These questions will help you assess the candidate’s passion for sales, determination to achieve targets, and commitment to your organization’s offerings. 

Questions that can highlight motivation and values include:

1. Do you set goals for yourself in your work? If so, how do you define them?

2. What about our product or service encouraged you to apply for this sales role?

3. What do you like and dislike about sales? What made you choose this career?

Ethics and integrity behavior questions for sales

Closing a sale may not be the best outcome if your sales employee misled your customer. Identifying candidates who behave ethically will help ensure your customers have faith in your organization – and help your business avoid legal issues.

Sales employees may also interact with customers and coworkers from many cultures. It’s important to ensure employees are capable of effective cross-cultural communication. 

You can evaluate ethics and integrity by asking questions where candidates can share when they have demonstrated:

• Honesty in sales situations

• Ethical conduct when doing the right thing wasn’t easy

• Patience and understanding when dealing with someone different from them

These questions will help you assess the candidate’s commitment to ethical behavior, ability to handle ethical dilemmas, and ability to maintain relationships.

Consider these questions to uncover a candidate’s commitment to ethics and integrity:

1. Tell me about a time when you stopped pursuing a client? How did you decide not to continue pursuing them?

2. Have you ever realized a prospect is the wrong fit for the product or service you were selling? If so, how did you handle that?

3. How do you manage working with clients or colleagues from a different cultural background than your own?

Persuasion behavior questions for sales

Persuasion is at the heart of sales. It’s helpful to supplement sales skills and experience with behaviors that strengthen persuasion. For example, a candidate who excels at active listening can better identify customers' needs and values.

Prompt candidates to give specific examples of how they successfully persuaded customers, overcame objections, and built rapport with customers. This type of questioning will give you valuable insights into their persuasive abilities. 

Evaluating the behaviors that support persuasion helps you identify candidates who can establish credibility and convey the value of products or services. This can help ensure your sales team builds long-lasting customer relationships.

Try these questions to assess persuasion behaviors in your sales candidates:

1. How do you approach a brand-new prospect?

2. Tell me about a time when you sought a new prospect and brought them from initial talks to closing.

3. How do you identify what a prospect needs or wants?

Prioritization behavior questions for sales

Sales employees often have independence in prioritizing their day-to-day tasks. Employees who thrive in sales can stay organized and meet internal and external deadlines. 

As different prospects may need more or less attention before closing a sale, sales employees must be able to divide their time effectively.

Assess a candidate’s ability to prioritize tasks by asking for examples of how they have:

• Successfully organized their workload

• Met deadlines

• Handled competing priorities 

Questions that ask candidates to share how they have dealt with priority changes are also beneficial. This will show that they can re-prioritize as needed. 

These questions will help you assess your candidate’s ability to prioritize successfully:

1. How do you organize your work priorities?

2. Tell me about a time when you had to pivot priorities to meet a customer's needs.

3. Do you prefer seeking new clients or building existing relationships? How do you decide which is more important?

Leadership behavior questions for sales

Identifying sales employees for leadership roles can be tricky. Many successful sales employees operate independently and may struggle to motivate or mentor others. Behavioral interview questions can help identify leadership potential and behaviors that will help them lead a successful sales team.

Useful behavior questions for sales leadership uncover examples of when a candidate has:

• Identified ways to motivate team members

• Taken initiative

• Mentored others

• Drove team success

Asking these questions enables you to assess a candidate's ability to motivate and inspire others, foster collaboration, and make strategic decisions.

Try these questions to identify leadership skills in your candidates:

1. What kind of commission plan do you find most effective?

2. Tell me about a time when you had to motivate your team through an unpopular change.

3. What was the culture like on your last sales team?

How to roll out behavioral interviews

Sales experience tells only part of the story. You need a comprehensive approach to identify the best sales employees for your business. Behavioral interviews can complement multi-measure assessments to ensure you look at the whole candidate.

With TestGorilla's extensive library of pre-employment screening tests, you gain access to a range of assessments tailored for evaluating sales professionals. These include skills tests on lead generation, B2B and B2C sales techniques, and customer relationship management (CRM) technology. 

You can mix and match tests to create a bespoke assessment and add custom questions to tailor assessments to your business’s unique needs and goals.

TestGorilla also offers numerous personality tests to help you evaluate how candidates will fit into your company culture. Combine objective test results and personality insights to build behavioral interview questions that narrow in on the best candidate for the role. 

Our one-way video interviews can streamline this process further. Candidates access the one-way interview at a time convenient for them. They then respond to pre-set interview prompts. One-way interviews allow you to ask all candidates the same behavioral interview questions and review candidate responses at the time that suits you.

Conclusion

By conducting behavioral interviews, you can gain a deeper understanding of candidate motivations and values. This helps you identify candidates who will thrive in your organization.

Behavioral interview questions ask candidates to explain how they have handled past situations. This gives you insights into their problem-solving abilities, communication skills, adaptability, and more. When hiring for sales roles, these questions enable you to identify prospective hires with the skills and traits necessary to thrive on your team.

When you combine behavioral interviews with skills assessments, you can ensure a well-rounded assessment process. TestGorilla makes it easy to implement behavioral interviews into your hiring process, and our one-way interviews streamline the interview process.