OPUSBOB: 3 Ways to Gain Information from your Candidate

You’re going to notice that I’m a little bit dressed up for today’s video blog and the reason for that is because we are going to role play a job interview and I’m the candidate, so you know I got to look good for my role play. What I’m going to do is I’m going to answer some questions that get asked sometimes in a sales interview and then comment about the three ways that we can really take advantage of gaining information about our candidate, questions certainly being one of them.

So, here we go:

Candidate:

Oh yes, I’m a very good hunter. I love to hunt, oh hunting that’s the best part of sales. Oh, sure be happy to share an example with you. It was Pierre Cardin Eyeware Designs, they are at 485 Madison Avenue. Yeah, they actually shared a floor with Mad Magazine. I never did see Alfred Newman but I wonder whether it was there but, you know. I knocked on their door actually called them first, got their name on a list. Had a chance to talk with the president of the company, a nice Frenchman by the name of Yves Farigier and took him through the whole sales cycle, ended up closing the deal and they became one of my key accounts in Manhattan and it became a great reference. Love hunting, just love hunting.

I’m an excellent closer, excellent closer. Let me tell you a great story. It was 3D Bed and Bath, Bernie Abraham, he was the CEO. I took my CEO to meet Bernie and Bernie just beat the heck out of my CEO. We are having some money problems at the time and Bernie was concerned about that. So, on the way back to the office my CEO let me have it. He told me these guys are not ready to buy from you. They are never going to buy, why did you waste my time for blah, blah, blah. Well, the next day I got to Bernie’s office at 5:30 at night and three hours later I’ve got a signed contract and a 10 percent deposit on two computer systems. I’ve got great closing skills.

Competitive, oh yes I’m a very competitive guy, absolutely. In fact let me share with you. I played Varsity Tennis for four years and I wasn’t that good and I lost plenty of matches to guys that were better than me. But if it was close I was going to win. We played best of three sets and there wasn’t one match in my four years that if went to a third set that I didn’t win. I’m as competitive and I’m as tough as you’ll find anybody.

Okay, time out. So, pretty classic interview questions that get asked. Are you a hunter or farmer? Are you a good closer? Are you competitive? And although they are not bad questions I much rather see you utilize your questioning time to get to information that you can’t get other ways. You can find out whether somebody is a hunter or a farmer by looking at their behavioral profile. Let’s face it, the behavioral profile is not going to lie and there is a very specific difference in what a hunter is and what a farmer is. You can go watch the Opus blog, it talks about them. Ask your candidate these questions and they are going to tell you what they think you want to hear. But you can get good answers to questions. Not every question is going to be positioned that way.

Ask them about how their pipeline got built when they worked at ABC company.
They are going to tell you and that will lead to whether that ties into how you built your pipe line.

Ask them about the nature of the competitive environment.

• Who do they compete with?
• How did they win against that competition? (Ask this in order to learn how they sold in that situation.)

Ask about the nature of the complexity of the sales process.

• Who did they sale to?
• Who did they need to meet with and how did that work?

What you’re trying to find out in your questioning is how similar a world has this person come from, as it relates to their behavioral nature. Are they a good closer? Are they a hunter? Are they competitive? Utilize the behavioral matrix that you have at your fingertips and utilize your power of observation.

You do not have to ask anybody whether they are a good closer or not. See if they close you. Ask yourself, if this person were a good closer what would they be doing right now in the interview process. Because a good closer doesn’t just mean that they ask for the job. It means that they ask for the job when they have earned the right to ask for the job and they are trial closing all along. Use your power of observation as it relates to closing skills, listening skills, speaking skills. Use the behavioral matrix to have a clear understanding to the behavioral nature of the candidate and ask questions that shed light on how the person has been involved in an environment that most likely mimics the environment that you will be putting them in. Thanks for your attention.

Tags: behavioral matrix, behavioral nature, behavioral traits, candidate, candidate assessment, closer, closing skills, competative, competative environment, hunter, Interview, Interview questions, interviewing, job interview, listening skills, sales process, speaking skills