Walk me through your sales background.
Overview
Interviewers ask this question for a simple reason: they want to uncover whether you’re actually good at what you do. It’s easy to be vague about your qualifications, both on your resume and in conversation. This question, however, is designed to draw out more specific, tangible evidence that you’ve got what it takes to succeed as a SDR.
Answer framework
Here’s some advice for answering this question:
Do not read your resume line-by-line.
It’s tempting, and many people often do this, but please don’t. Your interviewer is not expecting you to stare down at your resume and recite it back to them verbatim. They’ve probably read it already anyway, so there's no need to rehash all those details.
It’s good to let them know what motivates you. So, ask yourself: Why sales? How did you get there? What keeps you in the profession? What do you love best about working in the field that you represent or are interviewing for? Then tell them a story that lets them sense where you’ve come from—and how where you’re going might benefit them as well.
Pick a few relevant career highlights.
This is when you can provide some more color beyond what your resume tells them. So, say your resume mentions how you increased revenue by 40% last year and gives a quick overview of how you pulled it off. Here's where you might share some of the backstory or additional detail to give your sales background a bit more color and allow decision-makers to envision your career path.
Sample answers
As an extrovert who started out as an engineer at a robotics company, I'd always say “yes” when they needed a more technical rep to come along and answer complex questions. In one of those meetings, our client noticed both my technical and relationship-building skills. A few days later, he emailed me asking if I’d join his field sales team to help expand into some new regions. I was totally interested! He spoke with my employer to make sure hiring me wouldn't disrupt their business relationship. And I moved over from there. I spent the next three years building out our northwest territory. A few years later, I was recruited to join a promising startup in California and I took it. I've been in this position for four and a half years. And across that time I've grown our US sales revenue from 22 million to nearly 80 million dollars. I've also grown as a sales professional, especially when it comes to managing challenging personalities and negotiating contract terms. I still like to roll up my sleeves with the technical details. And that's my competitive advantage when I meet with people who want to dive in and explore the engineering aspects at a more granular level. But I've definitely found the right career path for myself in sales. Why this answer worked well:He walked the interviewer through both his sales and engineering background, which is a plus if engineering would help him with this job.He didn’t just read back his resume. Instead he carefully chose some specific performance details. He explained how he used technical knowledge as a competitive advantage.
Tips
- Talk about why you chose a career in sales.
- Share tangible evidence of your performance/successes.
- Don’t go line by line through your resume.