SDR Interview Questions
About the role
A Sales Development Rep (SDR) concentrates on prospecting outbound potential leads. They are closely linked to the Sales team and help to add to and develop their pipelines through nurturing prospects in the companies target market. It requires an individual who is proactive and resilient constantly researching and learning. They also sit closely with marketing, running email sequences and automations.
SDR responsibilities
- Qualifying leads at the initial stages in the sales funnel
- Research potential leads
- Engaging current users to expand awareness
- Scheduling appointments/demos
- Acting as the subject matter expert
What skills should you be looking for?
What motivates you to work in sales? Which aspects of the role energise you?
The following cold email has a 15% open rate and a 10% click through rate. Critique the subject and contents of the email and suggest how you would improve both the open and click through rates.
Subject: Free training
Hello <name>,
Hope you are well. I'm sure you are very busy, so I will keep this short. Our organisation provides world leading software for the <x> industry and we are offering a limited time, free training course on <y>. You have been lucky enough to be selected for one of the limited tickets and can sign up here <link>.
Do you think you would be open for a call?
Kindest regards and sorry to have bothered you.
You have a busy day planned today with the following tasks to perform:
- Cold call a list of prospects
- Reviewing your ongoing sequences to make sure everything is running smoothly
- Analyse your ongoing sequences to understand email subjects and contents that are working best
- Research some new prospects to reach out to later in the week.
Relative to when you work best on different tasks, when do you perform these tasks throughout the day?
You've just gotten off of your third cold call in a row, where the person you have called has been unreasonably rude to you on the phone. You have planned to continue cold calling for the rest of the morning, but you are feeling discouraged now. What do you do?
Your organisation is putting on a free event and you have been asked to invite a list of 1,000 in-target people to the event. Other than using your the existing contacts in your CRM, what methods would you use to find, reach out to and invite this number of invitees?
What are structured interview questions?
Structured questions (or work samples) are highly predictive, job-specific questions designed to simulate parts of a job.
Structured work sample questions are the most predictive form of assessment you can use. Why? Because they directly test for skills by asking candidates to think as if they were already in the job.
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Diversity
Testing for skills instead of just experience makes interviews a more inclusive process. 60%+ of candidates hired through our process would've been missed using CVs/traditional interviews - most of whom are from underrepresented groups.
Accuracy
By simulating tasks that would realistically occur in the role, you can see how candidates would think and work should they get the job.What could be more predictive than having candidates do small parts of the job before actually getting it?
Candidate experience
Candidates genuinely enjoy being given a chance to showcase their ability - this is why we have a 9/10 average candidate experience rating (including unsuccessful candidates).
Decide on the skills you’re looking for
Choose 6-8 core skills required for success in the role. These can be a mix of hard, technical skills as well as soft skills and general working characteristics.You could also include one or two of your organisation's most relevant values.
Think of scenarios that would test these skills
Next, come up with either everyday tasks or rarer, more challenging scenarios that would test some of these skills. They can be day-to-day duties, bigger projects or specific dilemmas that a candidate may realistically face. Should they get the job.
Pose scenarios hypothetically to create your questions
Instead of your typical ‘tell me a time when’ questions, ask candidates what they would do if faced with a given scenario.It's not that experience doesn't have any value… it's just more predictive to test directly for skills, without making assumptions based on background.
Give yourself scoring criteria
Want to make more data-driven hiring decisions? Score candidates against set criteria.We’d recommend starting out with a simple 1-5 star scale and a few bullet points noting what a good, mediocre and bad answer might include.
Use review panels
Having team members join your interviews will result in fairer, more accurate scores.Three is the magic number - you’ll start seeing diminishing return after that