Ask a building products sales candidate six questions, each testing something you would act on, and phone screen first. Put the deal breakers, salary, area, travel and notice, on the phone before you book a room. The interview then tests capability, and you stop spending an hour on people you were never going to hire.
The hour is decided by what you do with the answers. So each of the six below comes with what I listen for, and what makes me ask a second question.
What should you sort out before anyone comes in?
The deal breakers, on the phone, before you book a room.
Four things, and if any one of them is off, there is no point dragging someone in and spending everyone's afternoon on it.
- The salary range. A range that either works or does not.
- Travel expectations. Nights away, the size of the area, how much windscreen time the job really involves.
- Office expectations. Days in, days out, and whether that is negotiable.
- Anything they have named as a deal breaker of their own.
This is a courtesy as much as a filter. Check those four items before asking a candidate to take time away from work for an interview.
On the money specifically. My own practice is to stop the process there when the confirmed budget cannot meet the candidate's stated minimum. Something else can close the gap. A stronger commission structure, a four-day week, an extra week of leave. Those are worth putting on the table if you have them, and worth naming early rather than at offer stage.
What are the six questions, and what is each one testing?
Six, each testing one thing you would act on: the week, access, process, numbers, defence and technical honesty.
If a question is not testing something you would act on, cut it.
| # | Question | What it tests | What I listen for | What makes me ask a second question |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Talk me through your average week | What the job actually involved day to day | Named activities with rough proportions, and a clear picture of where the selling time goes | A description that could apply to any sales role in any industry |
| 2 | Who are the people who decide, and how did you get to them? | Access, and whether it is theirs or inherited | Named types of decision-maker, how the relationships were built, how long it took | Company names offered as a substitute for method |
| 3 | Walk me through your biggest win in the last 12 months, start to finish | How the deal was actually worked | The origin, who else was involved, what nearly went wrong, what they did about it | A result with no process attached to it |
| 4 | What are you carrying, and how does it break down? | Whether the numbers are real and understood | Rough project values, roughly how many in an average year, and where the volume sits | Precision they could not possibly have, or vagueness on their own area |
| 5 | Tell me about an account you lost, or nearly lost | Defence, and what they do when an account is under threat | What the threat was, what they did, and honest ownership of the part that was theirs | Blaming the business, the price or the customer with nothing of their own in it |
| 6 | What do you do when you do not know the technical answer? | Honesty, and whether they are safe in front of a customer | Going away to check, naming who they ask internally, and coming back | Confidence about a product they have just told you they do not know |
Question 5 is the one I would keep if I could only keep one. Win stories are the easiest thing in the world to prepare. I want to hear what someone did with an account under threat, because that is the year three version of the job.
How do you probe a number without asking for confidential detail?
Ask for what they are permitted to share: a range, relative scale, or non-confidential context.
Say up front that you are asking only for information they are free to share. Project values, client names and annual volumes can be confidential. Respect that boundary and ask for a range, relative scale or other context they can provide.
Then ask for what is available. A ballpark range for the projects they work on. Roughly how many in a year, if they can give it. Failing either, relative scale: their area against the national number, this year against last, their biggest job against their typical one.
What you are listening for is whether they understand their own area. Someone across their numbers can talk about scale without hesitating and can tell you which end of the range a typical job sits at. If someone cannot, that is where I ask a second question rather than draw a conclusion. There are several reasons it happens, a genuine confidentiality line among them.
Which questions change by role type?
The six questions hold, and what changes is what I listen for under two of them.
For a specification role, questions 2 and 3 do most of the work, and you are listening for a different set of things. The specification pipeline and how they track it. CPDs delivered, to whom, and how often. Which associations and industry bodies they are active in. Their biggest specification wins and what it took to hold them. How much of the job is education rather than selling.
For a BDM, it is more direct. Who they call on, what they sell, how they open a new account, and how they defend an existing one when a competitor is calling. Question 5 carries real weight in this seat.
Everything else on the list stays put. A candidate who cannot describe their own week is a problem in either seat.
What about culture fit?
Ask about the working conditions you can observe and check.
How they like to be managed and how often. Whether they have worked somewhere with this much autonomy, or this little. What kind of team they have been effective in. Whether the reporting rhythm you run would suit them. All of that is checkable in an interview and in a reference call.
Business.gov.au's guide Interview and recruit employees recommends assessing applicants against the role requirements with a matrix. The Australian Human Rights Commission's Step-by-step guide to preventing discrimination in recruitment says to focus on the essential requirements of the job and apply the criteria consistently. Both pages were checked on 12 August 2026. Neither covers predicting sales performance.
What should you do after the interview?
Two things: get the candidate in front of the team, and give the recruiter a debrief they can act on.
Meet the team, or let the candidate meet them. I recommend twenty minutes with the people they would work alongside. And give the recruiter a debrief they can act on: the verdict, the evidence behind it, and a dated next step.
If you want the questions turned into something you can score consistently across a panel, the hiring scorecard does that. The candidate's side of the same interview, and what they are preparing for, is on the paired page.