Decision Point: The Interview: Work Habits

Together with the HR Manager of QueStar, you arrange interviews with the three candidates you have selected. They will interview not only with you $($as their immediate supervisor$),$ but also with your boss $($the Director of Sales$),$ the HR Manager, and a couple of the current sales representatives.

Because you know that structured interviews are more effective than unstructured interviews at predicting job success and eliminating interviewer biases, you have prepared a list of questions that you plan to ask each candidate.

Your first question is open$-$ended and is intended to tell you about their training and work habits. You ask each candidate, "Tell me about a product you sold that had weak market potential. How did you overcome this problem?"

Which candidate appears to have the strongest response to this question?

Select an option from the choices below and click Submit.

Candidate A

Hmm. That's a good question. Umm, I guess it was when I worked for my last company. They had me selling office equipment that didn't perform very well. I had to work really hard to convince people that they were good products.

Candidate B

I once sold a new roofing product that no one in my area had heard of$.$ I did research to determine the advantages it had over the competition to build market demand. Then I determined which businesses I would approach first, hoping to get a big client early so they could be a model of success for others. After each sales call, I would follow up with a phone call.

Candidate C

I've had that happen a couple times. I$\text{'}$m really great with people though and can always make a sale happen. And one time when I was demonstrating a software product, I really had to scramble when it wasn't working with the latest version of the operating system out there. But I always find a way to pull it off.