How does one gauge autonomy in a sales interview?

You can usually gauge autonomy in a sales interview through the questions you ask while speaking to 1) the hiring manager and 2) members of the interview team who are currently in the role you are interviewing for. 1) Questions you can ask the hiring manager to gauge autonomy: How would you describe your leadership philosophy and style? If I were to ask members of your team to describe you as a leader, what would they say? Can you tell me about a time you helped one of your current reps close th ...Read More

There's a few different ways to gauge a candidate's autonomy in a sales interview. Behavioral Questions: Ask situational questions that require candidates to describe times where they had to work independently to achieve sales targets or overcome challenges. For example one of my go to questions is, "What's the most creative, out of the ordinary, or above and beyond thing you’ve done to win a customer?" Past Experience: Review the candidate's resume and ask about specific examples where they dem ...Read More

I believe you're referring to assessing the level of autonomy you will get in the sales role you're interviewing for. In most instances, autonomy and flexibility are given to top performers who consistently hit or exceed their numbers in Sales. It is expected for a manager to be way more prescriptive if you are underperforming. That said, here are some questions you can ask the hiring manager to assess their management style and to see how much autonomy other top performers are currently getting ...Read More

This is hard to place in a 60 minute interview, let alone the proverbial 30-min call, it thats all you get.  But a simple trick I like to use is to frame up questions that get at the bottom of following three things - 1. Is this person resourceful? 2. Does this person posses an executive presence? 3. Is this person curious about my business?  I like to ask questions that help me guage examples of above behavior - because, and I suspect this is obvious, I need these to be clear and present when m ...Read More