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“Be confident!”
“Show enthusiasm!”
“Research the company!”
Yeah, yeah… those things obviously matter. But they’re table stakes. Every candidate walking into a sales interview is confident, enthusiastic, and did their homework on the company’s last funding round.
The candidates who get offers aren’t always the most polished interviewers. They’re the ones who demonstrate specific, tangible skills that sales managers are desperate for.
Here are the five skills that actually get you hired in sales (and how to prove you have them.)
1. Outbound Prospecting (The Non-Negotiable)
We put this first because it’s the skill that matters most and the one that most candidates overlook.
Sales organizations have a dirty secret: marketing can’t keep up with quota. The pipeline marketing generates is never enough. That means sales teams need reps who can create their own opportunities from scratch.
Why hiring managers care:
Reps who can prospect don’t need to be babysat. When leads dry up, they don’t panic—they just build their own list and start outreaching. This makes them infinitely more valuable than reps who can only work warm leads.
How to prove you have it:
- Talk about campaigns you’ve run (even if it was for a side project, freelance work, or job searching)
- Share specific numbers: “I sent 300 personalized cold emails, got 43 responses, and booked 8 meetings”
- Discuss your process: list building, research, personalization, follow-up strategy
- Show tools you’ve used: LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, Hunter, email sequencing tools
If you don’t have experience yet:
Run a small campaign for anything. Reach out to 50 sales leaders for informational interviews. Track your metrics. That’s your proof.
Interview gold:
“In my last role, I noticed our pipeline was thin, so I built a list of 200 accounts that fit our ICP and ran a cold email campaign. Booked 12 meetings in three weeks, two of which closed.”
2. Objection Handling (But Not the Way You Think)
Most candidates think objection handling is about having clever comebacks. Wrong.
Great objection handling is about pattern recognition and diagnosis. It’s about hearing “It’s too expensive” and knowing whether that means “I don’t see the value,” “I don’t have budget authority,” or “I’m just trying to get rid of you.”
Why hiring managers care:
Top performers don’t get flustered by objections—they get curious. They treat objections as diagnostic information, not rejection. This is a learnable skill, but most reps never learn it.
How to prove you have it:
- Tell a story about a specific objection you turned around (be detailed)
- Explain your framework for categorizing objections
- Demonstrate that you ask clarifying questions rather than just responding
- Show that you’ve studied common objections for this specific role
The setup:
Research the company’s product before your interview. Think through the top 3 objections prospects probably give. In the interview, say: “I imagine prospects often say [objection]. How do your best reps typically handle that?”
This does two things: proves you’ve thought critically about their product, and gives you intel on how they want objections handled.
Interview gold:
“When I heard ‘We’re already working with a competitor,’ I learned to ask ‘What’s working well about that relationship?’ Instead of trying to overcome the objection immediately, I’d uncover whether they were actually happy or just being polite. Half the time, they’d reveal pain points I could address.”
3. Pipeline Management and Forecasting
This is the skill that separates quota-carrying reps from SDRs and separates senior reps from everyone else.
Pipeline management is about understanding velocity, coverage ratios, conversion rates, and how to accurately predict what’s going to close. It’s part math, part judgment, part CRM hygiene.
Why hiring managers care:
Reps who can manage pipeline accurately make their managers’ lives easier. No surprises at the end of quarter. No “I thought this was going to close” excuses. Just predictable revenue.
How to prove you have it:
- Discuss how you tracked your opportunities and forecast accuracy
- Mention specific metrics: “I maintained 3x pipeline coverage and forecasted within 10% accuracy”
- Talk about your CRM hygiene practices
- Explain how you prioritize opportunities based on deal stage and probability
If you’re new to sales:
Study the basics of pipeline management. Understand terms like coverage ratio, weighted pipeline, and commit vs. best case. Ask smart questions in interviews about how they manage pipeline.
Interview gold:
“I treated my pipeline like a portfolio. I knew I needed 3x coverage to hit quota, so if my monthly target was $50K, I made sure I always had $150K in active opportunities. I reviewed it every Monday and ruthlessly disqualified deals that weren’t progressing.”
4. Consultative Discovery (Not Just “Building Rapport”)
Everyone says they’re good at discovery. Almost no one actually is.
Real discovery isn’t about asking BANT questions or “building rapport” by chatting about the prospect’s college football team. It’s about diagnosing the prospect’s situation so thoroughly that the solution becomes obvious to both of you.
Why hiring managers care:
Reps with strong discovery skills have higher close rates, shorter sales cycles, and happier customers. They don’t waste time on bad-fit deals, and they don’t surprise customers after the contract is signed.
How to prove you have it:
- Describe your discovery framework (even if you learned it from a sales book)
- Give examples of questions you ask to uncover pain points, budget, decision process, and success criteria
- Tell a story about a time you disqualified a deal because discovery revealed it was a bad fit
- Discuss how you use discovery insights to customize your pitch
The power move:
In your sales interview, treat it like a discovery call. Ask thoughtful questions about their challenges, their customers, their sales process. This demonstrates discovery skills in real-time while also showing genuine interest.
Interview gold:
“I had a prospect who seemed perfect on paper, but during discovery, I asked about their decision-making process and learned that final approval required a committee of 7 people with no single sponsor. Their timeline was 2 weeks. I told them honestly that our typical sales cycle was 6-8 weeks with that complexity, and we should reconnect when they had a clearer internal process. They appreciated the honesty and came back three months later when they were actually ready.”
5. Coachability and Self-Improvement
This is the meta-skill that accelerates everything else.
Sales is one of the few professions where you get constant, measurable feedback on your performance. Great reps use that feedback to get better every week. Average reps keep doing the same thing and wonder why their results plateau.
Why hiring managers care:
A coachable rep with average skills will outperform an uncoachable rep with great skills every single time. Managers can teach product knowledge and refine pitch. They can’t teach someone to accept feedback and iterate.
How to prove you have it:
- Share a specific example of feedback you received and how you implemented it
- Discuss how you’ve tracked and improved your own metrics
- Talk about sales content you consume (books, podcasts, courses)
- Ask for feedback during the interview process
The ultimate signal:
After your first interview, send a follow-up email asking: “What’s one thing I could have done better in our conversation?” Then reference their feedback in your next interview: “You mentioned I should have asked more about your sales cycle, so I’d love to dig into that today.”
This shows coachability in real-time.
Interview gold:
“In my first quarter, my manager noticed I was losing deals at the pricing conversation. We role-played different approaches, and I realized I was apologizing for our price instead of anchoring it to value. I started quantifying ROI earlier in the sales process. My close rate on qualified opps went from 18% to 31% over the next two quarters.”
The Skills You Don’t Need (Yet)
Notice what’s not on this list:
- Perfect product knowledge (you’ll learn it)
- Years of industry experience (transferable skills matter more)
- A huge network (you can build one through prospecting)
- Advanced negotiation tactics (most entry-level sales roles don’t involve complex negotiations)
Those things are nice to have. But hiring managers will train you on product. They’ll teach you the industry. They’ll introduce you to their network.
What they can’t easily teach is prospecting discipline, objection handling instinct, pipeline hygiene, discovery rigor, and the hunger to continuously improve.
How to Actually Demonstrate These Skills in Interviews
Knowing you need these skills is one thing. Proving you have them is another.
Here’s the formula that works:
1. Prepare specific stories using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) for each skill. Numbers matter. “I increased my conversion rate” is weak. “I increased my conversion rate from 12% to 23% over 8 weeks by implementing a new discovery framework” is strong.
2. Treat the interview like a sales call. Ask discovery questions about their challenges, their team, their sales process. This demonstrates consultative skills while also helping you qualify whether this is a good fit for you.
3. Show your work. Bring a one-page document showing: outbound campaigns you’ve run, metrics you’ve tracked, or frameworks you use. This level of preparation signals professionalism and systems thinking.
4. Ask for the job. At the end of the interview: “Based on what we’ve discussed, I’m confident I can hit the targets you’ve outlined. What are the next steps to move forward?” This demonstrates closing skills while showing genuine interest.
The Real Secret
Here’s what most candidates miss: sales hiring managers aren’t looking for perfection. They’re looking for potential plus proof.
They know you’ll need training. They know you’ll make mistakes. What they need to see is that you have the foundational skills to build on and the self-awareness to know what you need to work on.
So instead of trying to be the smoothest talker in the interview, focus on being the most prepared. Show that you understand what the job actually requires. Demonstrate the skills that actually matter.
Because at the end of the day, sales managers don’t hire people who interview well. They hire people who can sell. And the way you show you can sell is by demonstrating these five skills, before you even get the offer.
Don’t Have These Skills Yet? Get Certified.
If you’re breaking into sales and need to build demonstrable outbound experience, Outbound Sales Pro’s Cold Calling Certificate Program gives you hands-on training in prospecting, pipeline management, and consultative selling. Complete real campaigns, track real metrics, and earn a certificate that proves you can do the work, not just talk about it in interviews.
