When you sit down for a job interview, learning about your prospective employer is every bit as important as impressing your interviewer. Finding out about the company, its values and the kind of people who work there, as well as learning more about the products or services you will be selling will be crucial in helping you to make the best decision for your career.

1. What onboarding or training is provided?

In most positions a candidate will not be successful if they are thrown into the water and expected to produce right away. We are very surprised when a star candidate that we placed did not last longer than a few months.

When we asked what the problem was, it turned out that there no training provided and the candidate was expected to meet a high quota almost immediately; the candidate was set up to fail. Fortunately, we were able to place him in another role where he was successful.

Avoid finding yourself in this position by learning as much as you can about a company’s onboarding and training process during the interview stage.

2. What percentage of the current sales team in on target?

Some compensation plans are designed as incentives with extremely lucrative but virtually unattainable performance bonuses to motivate employees. This kind of practice is unadvisable (it almost always backfires), but it is important that you detect it before you find yourself in that position.

Before you are convinced by the enticing compensation plan for a position, you should try to find out if anyone is actually attaining it and what kind of support is provided for the sales team. Of course, if few (or none) of the current team members are hitting maximum incentives that does not mean that you will not either; perhaps that is why you are being considered for the role.

Consider other factors such as how you feel about the company, the product and use your own experience with quotas to make your decision about whether or not you will be successful in that role.

3. How will my time be divided?

Some outside sales candidates want to be on the road as close to 100% of the time as possible. If this is you, you need to find out what your in-office obligations will be during the interview process, and then decide if the job responsibilities match your criteria. If you are fine with weekly sales meetings, then take the job; if you aren’t sure about starting each day in the office then perhaps you should keep looking.