How to ACE Your Sales Interview

What hiring managers are actually listening for

You finally got the call. A recruiter wants to talk, or you’ve landed aninterview with the hiring manager.

Now what? How do you move from that initial screen to the next interviewand ultimately, to an offer?

After more than 20 years working with early-stage startups, growth-stage businesses, scaling organizations, and Fortune 10 companies, I’ve found some common themes in what hiring managers look for in sales candidates.

And I see it every day. Here at Pursuit, our team talks with roughly 500 candidates a week as we help our clients find the right talent. We hear how candidates explain their experience, and we hear the feedback when clients decide who moves forward.

From that seat, three things come up consistently.

I call the framework ACE: Achievement, Craft, and Energy.

Can you show what you’ve accomplished? Can you explain how you succeed? And can you create a connection that makes someone want to keep talking with you?

Here’s what that looks like.

A: Achievement

Know your numbers and show your success

Energy and enthusiasm can make a strong first impression. But at somepoint in the interview process, someone is going to dig into your results.

You need to be ready for that conversation.

I remember interviewing a candidate for an account executive role while I was helping an organization build its GTM function. He was energetic, outgoing, enthusiastic. He had a lot of life to him and was fun to talk to.

His résumé looked promising, too. He’d generated roughly $1.4 million inrevenue and described himself as one of the organization’s top salespeople.

Okay. Let’s talk about that.

I started with the basics. What were his daily and weekly activity goals?What was his monthly or quarterly quota? What was his average deal size? How long was his sales cycle?

Then we got into annual quota and attainment.

His annual quota was $1.2 million. But the $1.4 million on his résumé represented revenue across roughly 16 months at the company.

When I asked what he had achieved during the actual 12-month quota period, the answer was $800,000.

He was $400,000 short of his annual target.

He eventually acknowledged that he had missed quota. But I still hadn’t heard a clear explanation of where he had demonstrated success. He kept coming back to that total revenue number.

Ultimately, I didn’t move him forward.

Here’s the distinction I want candidates to understand: missing quota doesn’t mean you have no achievement to share. But you have to show me where you succeeded.

Timing, seasonality, territory changes, and other circumstances can affect performance. You may also be early in your career or have a limited history in a particular role.

Be realistic about your body of work.

If you don’t have several years of annual quota attainment, what can you demonstrate? Did you exceed your quarterly goal? Consistently achieve your monthly pipeline target? Meet the weekly prospecting goals that led to qualified opportunities?

Start with the strongest evidence you have. Explain the goal, the result,and the period it covers. Then connect your activity to the business itproduced.

In this candidate’s situation, a more useful conversation would havesounded something like:

“I missed my annual quota. Here’s the context, here’s what I takeresponsibility for, and here’s where I did show consistent achievement.”

Then he could have supported that with specific quarterly, monthly, orweekly results, whatever his actual record showed.

That would have given me something concrete to evaluate.

Before your interview, be ready to explain:

• Your quota and attainment over the same period.
• Your performance across the quarters or years you’ve worked.
• Your ranking against peers, including the size of the team.
• Where your pipeline came from and what you generated yourself.
• The shorter-term goals you consistently achieved, if your longer-term record is limited.

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Activity numbers add context. They become more meaningful when you canexplain what they produced.

You don’t have to manufacture a perfect career story. You do need tounderstand your own performance well enough to explain it clearly.

Make it easy for the hiring manager to see your achievement.

C: Craft

Can you explain how you succeed?

One of my favorite interview questions is simple:

“Walk me through a deal, from the lead all the way to the close.”

Pick a real deal. Tell me where it started.

Was it a marketing-generated lead? Did an SDR or BDR source it? Did you find it yourself?

If you sourced it, how? Were you using Apollo, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, or another tool? How did you identify the right account and the right person?

Then walk me through what happened.

How did you get the conversation? What did you learn in discovery? How did you decide there was a real opportunity? Who else needed to be involved? What challenges came up, and how did you work through them?

And how did you get it closed?

When someone can explain that clearly and concisely, I get a much better understanding of their craft. I can hear the decisions they made, the process they followed, and their contribution to the outcome.

Your achievement tells me what happened. Your craft helps me understandhow you made it happen and whether you can do it again.

This is also where your sales methodology comes into the conversation. Whatever approach you use, show me how you apply it. What does it help you uncover? How does it shape your next step with a prospect?

The same goes for how you organize your work.

How do you plan your day? Protect time for prospecting? Build pipelinewhile managing active deals? Prioritize activities around when your customersare available and when you do your best work?

And how are you continuing to improve? What are you reading, listening to, practicing, or learning outside your company’s training?

I’m listening for someone who takes the profession seriously. Someone who understands their process and keeps getting better at it.

If nobody asks you to walk through a deal, find an appropriate opening tooffer a brief example:

“I can share a deal that shows how I approach that.”

Then keep it focused and leave room for questions.

E: Energy

Let your passion for the work comethrough

Energy doesn’t require you to be the loudest person in the room.

I remember speaking with a candidate who had a very steady presence. There wasn’t a big, high-energy opening. But as we talked, their enthusiasm became clear.

They told me about a prospect they had sourced and a decision maker they had identified. The early outreach didn’t generate interest. They stayed consistent with their follow-up over an extended period.

What stayed with me was how they talked about that experience.

They were engaged in the details of the work: finding the prospect, identifying the right person, following up, and staying with the process when there wasn’t an immediate result.

They showed passion for the sales process itself.

That distinction mattered to me. I could hear that they appreciated their craft and understood the consistency it takes to create an opportunity.

Their energy came through in a calm, steady way. The more they talked about the work, the more engaged I became.

That’s what I mean when I say energy is created by connection.

Are you actively listening? Are you curious? Do your questions build onwhat the other person just said? When you describe your work, can someone hearthat you care about it?

You can demonstrate enthusiasm through the attention you give a conversation, the thoughtfulness of your questions, and the way you explain a challenge you stayed with.

The interviewer is also getting a sense of what a customer conversationwith you might feel like.

Would someone feel heard? Would they trust you to understand theirsituation? Could they see you becoming an advisor?

Bring your own personality to the conversation. If you’re naturally outgoing, that can come through. If you’re more reserved, your interest, preparation, and conviction can be just as memorable.

Put ACE to work in your next conversation

In an initial screen, make it easy for the recruiter to understand your results, how you work, and why you’re worth a deeper conversation.

As you move through interviews, support those points with more detail: a clear performance history, a real deal walkthrough, and thoughtful questions that create a connection.

Before your next call, ask yourself:

Achievement: Can I clearly explain my goals, results, and the context behind them?

Craft: Can I walk someone through how I succeed?

Energy: Does my interest in the work come through in the conversation?

Your job is to give the person across from you evidence they can trust and confidence in what you could bring to their team.

That’s how you put yourself in a stronger position to move forward.

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