Common interview questions for retail sales career
By Peermuhammad AmeerAli
Retail sales everywhere is posting impressive gains, despite the economic meltdown and the associated market depression. To consolidate these gains, it is only natural that recruiters in this sector should look for certain specific traits in the candidates aspiring for careers in the retail sales. The following questions help recruiters properly evaluate the candidates’ attributes and their ultimate suitability for a career in the retail sales.
Of course in any interview the first question is going to be the all-too-common “Tell us about yourself briefly.” The ideal answer for this question would be to give a crisp description about one’s academic achievements including training for the retail sales, if any, and the extracurricular activities. More important and relevant is the mention about one’s soft skills or the so-called “social-skills”, which is going to be of greater interest to the interviewers.
Test for aptitude:
It has been rightly said, “One’s aptitude decides one’s altitude.” This is more relevant to sales than to any other profession. Unless one has the proper aptitude towards sales and an interest to learn and master its techniques, it is very difficult for them to shine in this line. So there will be grilling questions like, “What do you know about sales?”,”Why do you prefer a sales career?”, “What makes you think you will be successful in the retail sales line?” One must have a convincing answer to all these questions before he can hope to proceed further with the interview.
The next important attribute a successful salesman should have is effective communication skills. Ordinary communication skills just won’t do. An excellent and effective communication skill is the minimum prescription. To test this, questions like, “What is the difference between effective communication and ordinary communication?”, “What particular steps do you take to improve your communication skills on a continuous basis?”, “Tell us why we should select you in preference to so many others who are out there waiting?” are usually asked to ascertain the language skills as well as his presence of mind. In addition, they might give an extempore topic on which the candidate may have to speak for two minutes or so, to give an idea of his presentation skills.
Test for customer handling skills:
Of particular importance in retail sales is one’s ability to handle customers at close quarters because retail sales involves face-to-face sales presentation, doubt clarifications and sales closure. So, one has to be adept at interpersonal skills, particularly in the areas of answering customer queries and handling some of the most difficult customers, like irate, angry and indifferent customers. What do you know about customer care?”, “What are the different types of customers and what kind of service can you offer them?”, “If a customer abuses you or uses unparliamentary words, how would you react to them?”, “Who do you think are the most difficult customers and how do you propose to handle each of them?” are some of the questions that a candidate can expect in this connection.
Retail sales involves a never-ending array of products and to handle them efficiently, one needs to keep learning the product details and their benefits on a continuous basis, so that he is ready to present the relevant details at the snap of a finger, which will convince the customers to make a buying decision. To test one’s learning abilities, questions like, “How quickly can you learn new techniques and skills?”, “What are the professional courses you have pursued recently?”, “How good is your number -crunching ability?”, “How reliable is your memory power?” are fielded.
Test for innovation and creativity:
Innovation and creativity provide the oxygen for sustained sales success in the retail trade. One can come up with a lot of creative ideas in window dressing, product presentation and shelf arrangements to attract the customer attention and thereby to increase sales volume. “How often can you come up with creative ideas?”, “Can you cite any previous instance where your innovative ideas paid you rich dividends?” Such questions can easily draw out the creative potential of the candidate.
Test for positive thinking:
A positive thinker always produces more and better results than a negative thinker and this is more obvious in the retail sales segment. An optimistic sales person has the inherent resilience to put up with any number of rejections and failures in sales efforts, and still comes up with an impressive overall success record. So recruiters are prone to seek out the positive thinkers from the rest of the crowd for coveted positions in the retail trade. Questions like “What do you understand by the term positive thinking?”, “How has positive thinking helped you in the past to achieve your desired goals?”, “What would be your reaction if you are not selected in this interview?” could be nerve-racking, but still really positive oriented candidates can successfully wriggle out with convincing answers and bag the job.
Retail sales, with its impressive potential for faster growth rate, beckons to really meritorious youngsters with the right aptitude and attitude, to come and make a fortune while the tide is still in its favor. Bright individuals, with a little bit of smart preparation, can certainly jump onto the bandwagon, and create a lucrative career for themselves in this flourishing sector.
