by Peermuhammad Ameerali

Created on: October 05, 2009

Retail sales everywhere is posting impressive gains, despite the economic meltdown and the associated market depression. To consolidate these gains, it is only natural that recruiters in this sector should look for certain specific traits in the candidates aspiring for careers in the retail sales. The following questions help recruiters properly evaluate the candidates' attributes and their ultimate suitability for a career in the retail sales.

Checking the candidate's background:

Of course in any interview the first question is going to be the all-too-common "Tell us about yourself briefly." The ideal answer for this question would be to give a crisp description about one's academic achievements including training for the retail sales, if any, and the extracurricular activities. More important and relevant is the mention about one's soft skills or the so-called "social-skills", which is going to be of greater interest to the interviewers.

Test for aptitude:

It has been rightly said, "One's aptitude decides one's altitude." This is more relevant to sales than to any other profession. Unless one has the proper aptitude towards sales and an interest to learn and master its techniques, it is very difficult for them to shine in this line. So there will be grilling questions like, "What do you know about sales?","Why do you prefer a sales career?", "What makes you think you will be successful in the retail sales line?" One must have a convincing answer to all these questions before he can hope to proceed further with the interview.

Test for communication skills:

The next important attribute a successful salesman should have is effective communication skills. Ordinary communication skills just won't do. An excellent and effective communication skill is the minimum prescription. To test this, questions like, "What is the difference between effective communication and ordinary communication?", "What particular steps do you take to improve your communication skills on a continuous basis?", "Tell us why we should select you in preference to so many others who are out there waiting?" are usually asked to ascertain the language skills as well as his presence of mind. In addition, they might give an extempore topic on which the candidate may have to speak for two minutes or so, to give an idea of his presentation skills.

Test for customer handling skills:

Of particular importance in retail sales is one's ability to handle customers at close quarters because retail

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