A large proportion of people working in sales did not choose it. They fell into it after graduating, or moved sideways from customer service, or followed the money. Some of them are excellent. Many of them are quietly waiting to do something else, and that shows up eighteen months later as attrition you did not budget for.
Working out which is which is one of the more useful things an interview can do, and it is rarely attempted.
Ask about the choice, not the career
- Why sales, rather than the other things you could have done?
- What part of the job do you enjoy when the month is going badly?
- If your income were identical in a non-sales role, what would you do?
- What is the best conversation you had with a customer this year? Not the biggest deal — the best conversation.
The last one is the most revealing question in this article. People who genuinely enjoy selling light up. They talk about the customer, the problem, the moment something clicked. People who do not enjoy it default to the commercials, because that is the part they can describe.
Listen for where the energy is
There is a clear difference between someone describing a deal and someone describing a customer. Sellers who want to sell talk about the buyer as a person with a problem. Sellers who are enduring the job talk about process, quota and management.
Neither is disqualifying on its own. A seller who is motivated purely by money can be very effective in the right environment. But you should know which one you are hiring, because they need different management and they leave for different reasons.
Ambition has to be plausible
Ask what they want to be doing in three years, then ask what they are doing about it. A candidate who wants to lead a team but has never coached a colleague, never volunteered for onboarding and cannot name a management book, article or manager who shaped their thinking is describing a wish rather than a plan.
This is not a trap. It is just worth knowing whether the role you are offering is a destination or a waiting room.
The energy question
Ask what gives them energy at work and what drains it. Then compare the answer against the actual job. Someone who is drained by cold outreach and energised by long consultative relationships will not thrive in a high-volume outbound seat, however good their previous number was. That is not a character flaw; it is a fit problem, and fit problems are cheaper to catch before the offer.
Do not confuse enthusiasm with intent
Interview enthusiasm is a skill, and good salespeople have it. The test is whether the enthusiasm has any specificity in it. Detail is hard to fake; adjectives are not.
What this is really for
None of this is about filtering out people who came to sales indirectly. Some of the best sellers we place did exactly that. It is about hiring people who will still want the job in month fourteen, when the novelty is gone and the pipeline is thin.