SDR Hiring Guide (with Case Study Template)

Publish Date

February 19, 2024

Author

Dan Brockwell

Hiring is more of an art than a science and there is no one way to master the art.

This guide is Earlywork’s recommended process for hiring junior sales reps, pulled together from working alongside hundreds of interview processes.

Having a written out interview process before you do it will save you more time later and ensure you are hiring for fit, not just to tick a box.

In many ways, interviews are similar to sales. You want to qualify, do discovery, book a “demo” and ultimately pitch to get the highest chance of success.

For more info on winning over top candidates, check out this guide

As a general approach, we recommend an efficient 3-step process to ensure you can get offers out to good candidates swiftly. When partners meet Earlywork graduates, it’s common to skip the standard first stage of this process given the initial vetting around interest in tech sales & interpersonal skills.

📞 Round 1: Phone Screen (15 mins)

Note: to speed up interviews, a lot of Earlywork partners cut this step and roll in some behavioural elements into later interviews, given our graduates have already gone through a vetting process on ambition and interpersonal skills to enter our program.

Usually, this is best conducted over the phone or video call by the talent team or hiring manager to learn more about candidate backgrounds, as well as interest in working for the company.

From a logistical perspective, before progressing the candidate, it’s worth checking a few key items to ensure the role is feasible for them. If possible, collecting this information beforehand asynchronously can help save time on this section.

• Salary expectations
• Timelines & start date
• Working rights

In this segment, there’s usually an initial behavioural screen covering the 3 Whys:

• Why You?
• Why Tech Sales?
• Why Our Company?

From there, you’ll cover next steps of the rest of the hiring process, assuming there’s a good fit

🧡 Round 2: Behavioural Interview (30 mins)

From there, the next step we typically recommend is a deeper chat into the behavioural side, seeking to understand their past experiences, ambitions, how they handle different situations and their values. Typically, this is run by the direct manager for the rep.

To begin, you’ll want to dive into the 3 Whys (Why You, Why Tech Sales, Why Our Company) if you haven’t had a phone screen round.

Beyond that, we recommend spending a bit more time on their background to understand their past performance in recent work experiences, as well as future ambitions. Ask about why they made certain career/educational decisions, what they’ve achieved, and what they’ve learned.

From there, you’ll want to spend some time on behavioural and situational questions that align with

1. What traits you think are most important in this role
2. What cultural values your company looks for in candidates

For sales roles, as a general pattern, it’s especially important to test for ambition, resilience and curiosity in these examples.

Note: behavioural questions ask them to provide examples of past behaviours, the advantage being that answers are grounded in real evidence e.g. “Tell me about a time you achieved something against the odds”

Situational questions focus more on hypothetical situations they may come up across at work, and are a good test for their on-the-feet thinking and way of approaching problems. e.g. “How would you deal with a situation where a prospect grills you on technical details you don’t know about?”

🛠️ Round 3: Technical Interview (45-60 mins)

Once you’ve established a good behavioural and cultural fit, you want to put their sales skills to the test! We strongly recommend including an interview that assesses candidates in scenarios they may encounter day to day.

We recommend running this interview in person to build a deeper relationship with the candidate and get them excited about the broader team environment they’ll be stepping into.

Often, there are multiple interviewers as a part of this interview, including a more senior leader of the sales org, as an additional test of cultural fit beyond Round 2 on areas of concern or areas that the leader is especially keen to assess.

Round 3 Structure

Case studies or role plays are crucial to understanding how they present, assessing the level of research they’ve done, their sales style and how they deal under pressure or in uncomfortable scenarios.

These case studies can come in many forms, but ideally during this session or before you can challenge them to do 1-3 of the following:

• Prospecting Exercise: Get candidates to prepare a plan on what factors they would prioritise in prospecting new leads, which persona they would focus on, how they’d go about finding new leads, and what outreach method they would use.
• Mock Email: Task the candidate with researching a potential buyer for your product as a brief ahead of time, or give them a brief with customer information at the start of the interview. Instruct them to compose a cold email live tailored to engage the identified target, and get them to talk through their approach.
• Cold Call Simulation: Include a roleplay segment in the session where the candidate performs a cold call. Provide advance notice and request them to prepare by developing a buyer persona for the roleplay scenario.
• Discovery Call Simulation: Include a roleplay segment in the session where the candidate performs part or all of a discovery call, to test their ability to uncover pains, build rapport and structure a scheduled conversation. Typically, a briefing would be provided in advance for a specific customer & persona so they can prepare for the call, similar to the on-the-job experience.

Towards the end of the interview, you should be more heavily focused on ‘selling’ the candidate on the role now that you understand their motivations. Interviews are a two-way street, so have a think about what gives your company, team and role an edge over other possible sales roles they may be considering.

Here’s a template to design your own interview that mixes several of these formats.