Page 119 - Oscar Adler - Sell Yourself in Any Interview_ Use Proven Sales Techniques to Land Your Dream Job (2008)

ANSWERING QUESTIONS WITH OUTSTANDING BENEFITS

CHALLENGING QUESTIONS
THAT MEAN THE INTERVIEWER
IS INTERESTED IN YOU

If the interviewer starts to extol the virtues of the company
and tries to sell you on why you should take the job, it is
pretty obvious that you are at or near the top of the list. This
is the best-case scenario. Unfortunately, it’s not always clear
how the interviewer feels about you.
In the high-stakes game of hiring, it is often difficult to
pick the best candidate. In a typical interview situation, it can
be almost impossible to determine how a potential employee
will react under stress or when left to work unsupervised. I
have hired many outside salespeople who would be working
in the field with minimal supervision. To test their mettle, I
often used a tactic that helped me to learn how a candidate
would handle rejection and whether he or she would be per-
sistent in the face of that rejection. Near the end of a success-
ful interview, I would look the candidate in the eye and say,
“Well, thanks for coming in, but I don’t think you are really
what we are looking for.”
Most candidates were stunned. After all, up to this point,
things had been going along smoothly. Why would I do this
at the end of a successful interview to a candidate whom I felt
had real potential? Sounds mean, right? It wasn’t. You can
look at it as a kind of test. The number one issue a salesper-
son faces on a daily basis is rejection. The successful sales-
person stares that rejection down and figures out how to turn
it around. He or she figures out how to find the benefit that the
buyer needs to turn the visit into a sale.
In my example, if a sales candidate shook my hand,
thanked me for my time, and headed for the door, I knew that
he or she probably would not be successful in sales. In con-

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