Hiring sales people can be tough, and since the turnover for a sales team is about 40% per year, you probably have to do it often. When you do hire someone, you wan them to be able to stick around for the long haul which means you need to start by hiring the right candidates. If you don’t want to hire a sales recruitment agency and would rather do the hiring yourself, here are four essential questions to ask sales people for hire.

How good are your communication skills?
Communication skills are one of the most important assets a sales person can have. Your sales team is going to need to be able to communicate well with you and other departments, as well as clients in person and in writing. This ensures that your clients have reasonable and accurate expectations of what they are going to get from your product or service, and help ensure that all internal communications are clear.

Are you tech savvy?
Another important skill a good sales person is going to have is to be able to use different types of technology well. Clients these days have come to expect professional presentations using technology, and if your candidate doesn’t even know how to make a Powerpoint presentation, you’re going to be in trouble. Furthermore, since many companies use some type of internal system for keeping track of business and whatnot, your new sales person will need to be able to learn to use it quickly and efficiently.

What personality traits do you have?
This will be easy to gauge just from talking to a candidate, but you should still ask them what personal qualities they have. Good sales people have certain specific qualities that will help them succeed at their jobs. Good sales people are outgoing and can converse with people easily. Sales people should be charismatic and be effective problem solvers.

Are you able to adapt easily?
Another question that you need to ask sales people for hire is how adaptable they are. Sales is not always a consistent job that has a lot of routine, so being able to work with change is essential. Furthermore, you might introduce new products or services, which means that your sales team needs to be able to learn about them and change their sales tactics accordingly to be able to sell well.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these will help you gauge a potential hire’s suitability for the job. Can you think of other important questions to ask sales people for hire? Let us know in the comments. More on this.