The AHS Sales Hiring Interview Module

Client Jay Siff at MovingTargets offered a comment the other day in a regular client service that caught me by surprise. Jay’s a smart guy, runs a couple of successful businesses and has been a client for over six years now.

We were reviewing some profiles together on his sales candidates. I reminded him to use the 4-Part AHS Interview Module. Jay asked “What’s that?”

I was a bit shocked that after six years he didn’t know about the Interview Module. Its one of the most important pieces of the Advanced Hiring System. Its also one of the most valuable parts of the AHS System. It is free to clients.

Maybe that’s the problem. We should charge for it. Ten years ago the CEO of an executive search firm told me the 4 Part AHS Interview Module would be a $10,000 consulting project if they did it. True.

So what is this valuable Interview Module?

The Interview Module is a step by step interview strategy. It contains four separate interview scripts together with the answers and rationale behind what you are looking for.

Using the AHS system profiles, you have filtered your applicants down to the three best candidates. If you have less than three good candidates before you start interviewing you should go back to the Recruiting stage.

In the Interview stage you want to be comparing applicants. That’s one of the keys to hiring a top sales performer – you want be interviewing more than one “Money Motivated Persuader” applicant.

The Interview Module gives you a way to compare and grade the quality of your applicants You want to interview each applicant according to the script contained in the module. Don’t ad lib your sales hiring interview. Deliver the script so you can get past the deadly “they handled themselves well” or “they got past our screener well.”

The point of the interview is to find whether your applicant has demonstrated the qualities of:

• Stick-to-it-iveness
• Follow through
• Ability to overcome adversity
• Ability to manage their internal state
• Entrepreneurialism

Applicants who can give you examples in their life experience where they have demonstrated these personality characteristics are who you are looking for. The best salespeople have these qualities in spades. And you need them – especially now after the morons in Washington have gotten done wrecking the economy.