Best Sales Interview Questions to Ask
Twenty questions to ask in a sales interview, aimed at the numbers that decide whether the job is worth taking: quota and how many people hit it, how the plan pays, where leads come from, ramp, territory changes and clawbacks. For candidates weighing a quota-carrying role.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What is the quota for this role, and how was that number set?
Why ask it
You want the figure and the reasoning. A quota built from last year's actuals plus a growth factor is a plan, while a quota derived from a board target divided by headcount is a wish, and the difference shows up in your income.
What percentage of the team hit quota last year?
Why ask it
The most important number in any sales interview and the one most likely to be dodged. If well under half the team hit it, the on-target earnings figure in the job posting is a marketing number rather than an expectation.
How does the compensation plan pay at 100 percent of quota, and what does it look like above and below?
Why ask it
Ask about accelerators, caps, thresholds before commission starts, and whether commission is paid on booking or on collection. A plan that pays nothing until 70 percent of quota is a very different job from one that pays from the first deal.
Where do leads come from for this role?
Why ask it
Inbound, outbound, partner referrals and existing accounts require different skills and produce different close rates. A hiring manager who cannot break this down by rough percentage has no visibility into their own funnel.
What is the average deal size, and how long is the sales cycle?
Why ask it
These two numbers tell you how many deals you need in flight and how long a bad quarter takes to correct. A nine-month cycle with a quarterly quota means your first two quarters were decided before you arrived.
Who is the buyer, and who actually signs the contract?
Why ask it
Selling to a practitioner who then has to persuade a procurement committee is a different job from selling to an owner with a card. Vague answers here usually mean deals stall late, which is the most demoralizing way to miss a number.
What does ramp look like, and how long before a new rep closes their first deal?
Why ask it
You are checking for a reduced quota during ramp and for a realistic first-deal timeline. If reps typically take five months and quota starts in month two, you will be behind from the start through no fault of your own.
How are territories and accounts assigned, and how often do they get changed?
Why ask it
Frequent redistribution is how reps lose pipeline they built. Ask when the last reshuffle happened and what triggered it, since a company that re-cuts territories every year is one where good years do not compound.
What tools does the team run on, and who keeps the CRM current?
Why ask it
If reps do all their own data entry, enrichment and sequencing, a real share of your week is not selling. The answer also tells you whether the forecast is based on anything, which determines how much pressure lands on you each month.
How much of the pitch is standardized, and how much do reps build themselves?
Why ask it
Existing decks, call scripts and case studies shorten ramp considerably. Building your own materials from scratch can be an opportunity or an unpaid second job, and you should know which one you are signing up for.
What does marketing hand over, and what do reps say about the lead quality?
Why ask it
The gap between how marketing describes its leads and how reps describe them is one of the most reliable signals of internal health. A manager who repeats the marketing line without hesitation has not been listening to the floor.
Who do you lose deals to most often, and why?
Why ask it
You want a named competitor and a specific reason: price, a missing feature, an incumbent contract. If the answer is that deals are only ever lost to no decision, the product may not be solving an urgent problem.
How much time do you spend on calls with your reps?
Why ask it
Asked of the hiring manager directly, this separates a coach from a forecast administrator. Specific answers, two call reviews a week, ride-alongs on late-stage deals, mean help exists when you are behind.
What happens when a rep is behind: what does support look like, and when does it become a performance plan?
Why ask it
Every sales team has a mechanism, and you want to know whether it starts with coaching or with paperwork. Ask how long the plan runs, because in some organizations it is a genuine chance and in others it is a notice period.
What is the clawback policy if a customer cancels or fails to pay?
Why ask it
Commission recovered months later can turn a good quarter into a debt, and the terms are often buried in the plan document. Ask specifically about the window and whether it applies to churn as well as non-payment.
What happened to the person who had this territory before me?
Why ask it
Promotion, resignation and termination each tell you something different about the patch you are inheriting. Ask what pipeline is left behind: an empty territory means a longer ramp than any onboarding plan assumes.
What has turnover on this team looked like over the past year?
Why ask it
Sales turnover runs high everywhere, so you are looking for outliers. Several departures from a small team, especially of people who were hitting their numbers, is the clearest warning available to a candidate.
What does your top rep do differently from the middle of the team?
Why ask it
A good manager can describe behavior: prospecting discipline, multithreading, a particular vertical. If the answer is only that they are naturally talented or work harder, nobody has identified what actually works here.
Who have you hired recently who did not work out, and what went wrong?
Why ask it
The honest answer tells you the failure mode of the role, which is more useful than the success profile. Managers who take some responsibility in the story are usually better to work for than those who blame the hire entirely.
If I do well here, what does the next role look like?
Why ask it
Ask for an example rather than a ladder diagram. Someone who moved from this seat to enterprise, to team lead or to customer success in the last two years means the path exists, and the absence of any example is the answer.
Interviewing for a Quota-Carrying Role
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to Run the Conversation
Treat the interview as a discovery call
In a sales interview, how you ask is part of what is being assessed. Open with context, ask a real question, follow the answer, and take notes. A candidate who runs a clean discovery has already demonstrated the skill.
Get the comp plan in writing before you accept
On-target earnings mean very little without the quota, the thresholds, the accelerators and the payment terms. Ask for the plan document and read the clawback and leaver clauses specifically.
Do the arithmetic in front of them
Take the average deal size, the cycle length and the quota, and ask out loud how many deals that implies per month and whether the pipeline supports it. If the numbers do not reconcile, you will see it in their face before you hear it in their answer.
Ask to speak with a current rep
Fifteen minutes with someone carrying the same quota is worth more than three rounds with leadership. A confident sales organization will arrange it, and reluctance is itself informative.
Numbers to Leave With
- 1Quota, and the percentage of the team who hit it last year.
- 2Base salary, target commission, and what commission is paid on.
- 3Average deal size and average sales cycle length.
- 4Ramp period and any reduced quota during it.
- 5Where leads come from, split roughly by source.
- 6The clawback window and what triggers it.
- 7How long the role has been open and how many reps have held it in two years.
Common Pitfalls
Accepting on-target earnings at face value
The figure assumes you hit quota, and in many teams most people do not. Multiply the commission portion by the actual attainment rate you were told, and use that number when comparing offers.
Asking only about culture
Culture questions are easy to answer well and impossible to verify. In a commission role the compensation mechanics, the lead flow and the territory rules affect your life more than the offsite does.
Skipping the questions that sound confrontational
Quota attainment, turnover and clawbacks are normal things for a professional seller to ask about. A manager who takes offence at them has told you something useful for free.
Not asking why the role is open
A territory left by someone promoted is a different opportunity from one left by three consecutive resignations. This is the cheapest question on the list and the one candidates most often forget.