Head of Sales – Sample Interview Questions

ROLE: Head of Sales

Sample Interview Questions

• Assess how competitive, hungry, courageous they are. Were they competitive athletes? Have they won President’s club awards or exceed quotas regularly? Have they done something exceptional that required dedication/hard work/relentless determination.
• How do they hire, mentor, retain/reward and fire their team. Have them provide specific examples of how they have hired, how they have coached their team and how they have fired under-performers. Also ask who has followed them in prior/current jobs (who would be the first 3 people he/she would hire). What is their hiring methodology? How do they build & drive culture?
• What are examples of successful Go-To-Market strategies that they have built? Also test for bets that weren’t right and test for course-correction (they don’t always have to be right, but they should quickly spot the winning story, discuss with the Exec team and allocate resources appropriately).
• What systems have they built / optimized? Do they have a repeatable process? Do they collaborate with Marketing, Lead Gen and Product? Do they present to the Board & CEO?
• Do they personally sell deals themselves or have they moved into a pure management role? Are they hunters or farmers?
• Are they selling to similar customers? Selling similar velocity? Similar deal sizes/structure?
• How big a team do they think they need immediately?
• Who were/are their mentors?