The summer has been dry for interviewing. I was amazed that I got 2 interviews in the same week (about 2 weeks ago). One of those interviews I generated from making direct contact with a regional manager. Polite introduction and just the luck that their staffing was low. They had promoted quite a few employees and their bench strength was low. I am hoping to get a chance. It is all about sales and servicing the client. I thrive on this environment.

Side note/ back to the topic:  We can share some interview questions and get everyones feedback on what the recruiter is looking for and how to answer it by calling on our own experiences. It is critical to have examples that you can use. In the interviewing I have completed, the majority of the questions asked for describe a situation/ give me an example of a time....

I have a local 40plus group that focuses on interview questions. They provide some good feedback.

Rich

The most important part is to take some of the hard questions and disect them. What are they looking for?

What kind of answer can I provide? But each of us should take the answer to a difficult question and fashion it to our situation.

Then it becomes real. Many of the questions I have been asked are requiring an example.

Make a list of the tough questions and prepare examples for them. These examples can be what you call PARS, SOAR, CAR statement.

Each of these has a meaning for each letter and is meant to help you prepare your example stories to be short, complete, and right to the point.

Family visiting, I will revisit and pull some questions for each of to chime in on and build each other up for success.

Jimbo, my ears are more than wide open and am excited to know what the letters mean and to see some questions.  That would be awesome!

Thanks James I am not in search of a job however knowing what they stand for still might come in handy one day

CAR

this is under the same principal as PAR. The ancronym is meant to give you a way to consolidate you situational accomplishments so you can be prepared for an interview with a clean concise description for the questions of :  Give me an example or a situation when you did this....

C     Challenge                      (Discribe the situation)

A      Action taken                   ( What did you do)

R     Results                           (what happened as a result of your action)  save company money, increase sales, etc... (be measurable)     

Well hello there stranger welcome back. What have you been up to?

Another point....

Since you never know when you could be let go, or that you want to pursue a different opportunity.

Take the steps necessary to document your successes. You can use PAR or CAR format and that will help you remember them for future interviews.

Why should we hire you?  

One of the most interesting answers I have seen on this was as follows:

"If you dont hire me, your competitors will. "

It is a pretty bold statement. If you use it, make sure you are confident in where you are at and what you doing.

Fellow Sales HQ'ers, how would you answer this question.

Give me an example of a time that one of your best clients is upset with your product/services, what was it and how did you handle the situation to get the client back to feeling comfortable with your products/services?

Tell me about a time that you didn't work well with a supervisor. What was the outcome and how would you have changed the outcome?