63 SDR Interview Questions To Hire Top Performers
To build a strong sales development team, finding the right people with the skills needed to research, engage prospects, and handle objections is important.
As a sales development manager, you know well that you can’t just hire anyone as a Sales Development Rep.
A Sales Development Rep (SDR) is a sales rep responsible for generating qualified sales opportunities by prospecting accounts and engaging buyers.
It’s a very specialized role. To connect with qualified prospects, the SDR uses various prospecting methods such as cold email, cold calling, social selling, video prospecting and networking.
They are the first point of contact for a potential customer, so it’s important that they leave a good first impression. SDRs have several key tasks to generate new opportunities, including:
- Research
- Lead Generation
- Prospecting
- Qualification
With such a big responsibility of finding new opportunities and building pipeline, how can you ensure you hire the right candidates to become an SDR?
You’ll need the right SDR interview questions to hire the ideal candidates.
Here’s a compilation of the top 63 SDR interview questions and what you can expect from their answers.
Questions About Experience and Background
Although these are common SDR interview questions that candidates are likely to prepare, it’s an open-ended format that can spark an array of answers. Plus, it’s an easy transition from your introduction to a more interview mode.
There are no wrong answers to these general questions about a candidate’s background and experience. Background and experience questions give you an initial sense of your candidate’s qualifications and skills.
Every candidate will answer these questions differently. See how concisely and compelling your candidates answer these questions. More importantly, see if they’ve prepared.
1. Tell me a bit about yourself.
2. Why did you choose a career in sales?
3. Outside of work, what do you do for fun (hobbies, interests)?
4. Why did you decide to pursue a career in sales?
5. What are the values you think every salesperson should have?
6. What is your superpower?
7. What would you say are your strengths and weaknesses?
8. What three words would your former boss or colleagues use to describe you?
9. Why do you think you are the right candidate for this job?
10. Can you tell us when you went “above and beyond” in a previous position?
11. What is your idea of an ideal work culture?
12. Can you tell me more about your sales experience?
13. What are your responsibilities in your current job?
14. What did you like most and least about this job?
15. What are the top few achievements you’re most proud of in life and career?
Motivation SDR Interview Questions
16. What one achievement are you most proud of?
What to look for: A great SDR will have a high need for achievement and high standards. With a high need for achievement, they’ll hold themselves accountable for reaching their goals. A high performer will take pride in accomplishing difficult challenges and build a specific plan.
17. What inspires/motivates you to come in for work every day?
What to look for: There are countless ways to answer this question–family, money, individual achievement, and customers. Find out if the candidate’s motivation aligns with your company values and what you can offer. For example, if the candidate is motivated by individual success but your company focuses on team-based goals, they may not be the best fit.
18. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
What to look for: See if the candidate has short and long-term goals and how they connect the job to their career goals. Determine if the candidate has thought about the work environment, skills development, and career progression. For example, if they’re interviewing to be an SDR but aspire to be an Account Executive in a few years.
Curiosity and Desire to Learn SDR Interview Questions
19 . How do you stay current on your target market?
What to look for: The candidate has a process of keeping a pulse on their customer’s market. They are a conduit of insight to their customers and have a sense of what’s happening in their company’s and customer’s industries, so they can be viewed as knowledgeable.
20. What do you feel is the next step in developing your sales skills?
What to look for: Self-awareness to understand their current skill set and a clear direction of what skills they need to develop. They’re currently working on developing those skills and are proactive, whether it’s learning through a mentor, courses, books, or podcasts.
21. Tell me about the most recent book, podcast, or course you’ve taken to develop yourself professionally.
What to look for: See how proactive the candidate is in meeting goals. Salespeople who stay the same and don’t prioritize professional development lose effectiveness over time. Does the candidate prioritizes personal development and can share a specific example they recently learned and the outcome?
22. Have you taught yourself something lately? If so, what was it?
What to look for: If the candidate can independently learn on their own. Listen carefully to hear how the candidate explains the instructions step-by-step. This shows they were able to comprehend and communicate what they learned.
23. Where do you need to improve as a salesperson?
What to look for: The candidate should have a strong self-awareness of their strengths and where they need to improve. No candidate is perfect, so look for someone realistic about their areas of improvement. More importantly, look for candidates working to improve in those areas and have an action plan.
Coachability SDR Interview Questions
24. Name a time you received criticism and how you handled it.
What to look for: Look for a candidate to be able to receive candid feedback and respond positively to it. They can’t have a bad attitude about how others were wrong. They need to take ownership and show that they’ve learned and have improved based on the criticism.
25. Walk me through a situation where you disagreed with a colleague, boss, or customer. How did you handle it?
What to look for: Disagreements happen. What the candidate does in the disagreement says a lot about how well they communicate. The candidate should be able to speak about the situation which caused the disagreement respectfully. They should also speak about how the disagreement was resolved. If they were wrong, they should take ownership of it while sharing their perspective on the disagreement.
26. What would we need to coach you on?
What to look for: Get a sense of their areas for improvement. Do they think they need improvement, and are they open to coaching? Under these circumstances, Employers often ask this question to assess your willingness to seek help.
27. What style of sales coaching benefits you the most?
What to look for: Can have a good relationship with their manager. They can communicate how they prefer to be a coach and, most importantly, if it’s aligned with the manager’s way of coaching.
28. Tell me about a time when you received feedback regarding the quality of your work. How did you respond to the feedback?
What to look for: A candidate should be able to speak about prior experience getting feedback from a manager, coach, or colleague. Listen to see if they were receptive to feedback from others and if they responded positively. Or if they reacted negatively and debated the feedback.
Prospecting Skills SDR Interview Questions
29. Can you walk me through how you would execute an outbound sales cadence?
What to look for: The candidate has a process and can discuss their outbound prospecting efforts in detail. He/She can confidently talk about what was successful, what was not, and the different channels they used for outreach.
30. What is your approach to researching prospects before a call?
What to look for: The candidate is knowledgeable about researching prospects and using insights as a compelling way to engage prospects. He/She understands where to find relevant information about prospects and how to tie it to their past company’s value proposition.
31. How many contacts or companies do you reach out to daily?
What to look for: The candidate can handle pressure, commit to a goal and stick to it consistently. See if the candidate has experience working in high or low-volume prospecting roles. There isn’t a wrong answer. Instead, you’ll want to see if their experience aligns what your job expectations.
32. How would you structure an outbound call?
What to look for: The candidate should have a repeatable and scalable process for cold calling. More often than not, SDRs blindly cold-call a prospect without a script or talk track. They should have a method for cold calling, including specific call times, cold calling scripts, objection handling, and experience with sales prospecting tools.
33. How would you structure an outbound email?
What to look for: Look out for a repeatable process they follow and write an outbound email. They should be efficient but also effective at the same time. Identify how they research a prospect, contextualize the email, and ask for a meeting–more importantly, how long does it take them from start to finish? Then see how they use templates to save time when sending outbound emails.
34. Are you comfortable making cold calls?
What to look for: Cold calling is a tough part of prospecting which causes reluctance. An effective salesperson will know how to prepare for a cold call and address a prospect’s objections. While cold calling may not be on the top of the list, you’ll want to see how successful they were in the past and their approach.
35. What role does social media play in your selling process?
What to look for: Social selling is an important part of an SDR’s strategy. As more buyers use social media for research and education, SDRs need to use social channels to research and engage prospects. If the candidate doesn’t use LinkedIn or any other social channels to reach out or research prospects, then see if they have the desire to learn.
36. At what point do you stop pursuing a prospect?
What to look for: What you’re looking for: there’s a thin line between being persistent and annoying to a prospect. Sometimes a salesperson should stop pursuing a prospect and move on if they haven’t responded. An SDR should be persistent, follow a cadence of steps, and know when it’s time to move on. Trish Bertuzzi, the founder of The Bridge Group, recommends six to eight attempts before throwing in the towel.
37. How have you turned around a streak of bad calls?
What you’re looking for: Not everyone will pick up a cold call, and it can be tough if you’re on a bad streak. Make sure your candidate understands what failure looks like, has had experience bouncing back from a bad streak, and can build an action plan.
38. How do you acquire referrals following a sale?
What you’re looking for: prospecting should be an always-on behavior for great salespeople. A great salesperson recognizes that a warm referral has a higher chance for success than a cold prospect. The candidate shouldn’t be afraid to ask for a referral. They should know how to ask for referrals as part of a consistent prospecting process.
Planning and Preparation SDR Interview Questions
These SDR interview questions assess a candidate’s ability to plan and prepare.
Your candidate’s answers to these questions will help determine if planning and preparation are important parts of their sales process.
Effective planning is important for all jobs, but it can be a make-or-break for SDRs.
An effective SDR can plan their quarter, month, and week to ensure they can focus on the right sales activities that generate meetings. Before prospecting, they will need to prepare their research, talk track and notes.
Use these SDR interview questions to understand the candidate’s planning skills.
39. What would you do during your first month with the company if I hired you for this position?
40. Walk me through your process for how you prepare for key sales calls.
41. Walk me through how you prepare to meet new stakeholders or a decision-maker.
42. Walk me through how you plan and execute your day.
43. How do you plan each day/week/month/quarter/year?
44. What is your plan for your career?
45. How do you prioritize your accounts or territory?
46. How do you generate, develop, and close sales opportunities?
Relationship Building and Rapport SDR Interview Questions
These SDR interview questions focus on a candidate’s ability to build relationships and rapport with prospects.
Certain candidates are better suited for roles that require hunting or farming–both are exclusive of each other. Understand their role in relationship building to determine what role the candidate is better for.
There isn’t a right or wrong approach, it’s just a matter of what goals you want the candidate to accomplish. It’s also important to hear about how vital the candidate views build relationships internally with managers and colleagues.
You can use these SDR interview questions to understand the candidate’s relationship-building and rapport skills.
47. How do you establish trust with your prospects?
48. How do you define a successful first meeting with a prospect?
49. Describe when a prospect made things difficult for you and how you won them over.
50. What are your tactics for establishing a relationship with a potential client?
51. Can you give an example of a time you have used creativity to keep existing clients?
52. Which sales metrics do you pay attention to, and why?
Business Acumen SDR Interview Questions
These SDR interview questions focus on a candidate’s business acumen.
Business acumen or savviness combines knowledge and skill in understanding business issues. Although SDRs may not have much work experience, they can gain knowledge through learning. They should understand how a company functions and what common issues a business deals with.
Ask these questions below to learn how strong a candidate’s business acumen is.
53. Can you walk me through what type of business problems your previous company solved?
54. Can you walk me through a business case you helped a customer put together to justify a purchase?
55. If you were the CEO of your current company, what would keep you up at night when it comes to your internal operations or the external market environment?
56. What would you want to know about our business if you were an investor in our company rather than a job candidate?
Problem Solving SDR Interview Questions
These SDR interview questions focus on a candidate’s ability problem solve.
During the day-to-day solving of an SDR, they have to figure out different ways to engage their prospects. It’s a challenging yet rewarding job to get prospects to respond positively.
Effective SDRs are also great problem solvers. When they’re given a list of target accounts, they are inspired by the challenge. Or, think about getting a prospect to respond to a thread of emails. Whether the problem is big or small, SDRs are rolling to roll up their sleeves to problem solve.
57. What’s your framework and process for running a great discovery call?
58. Tell me about a recent discovery call you knocked out of the park.
59. What are your favorite questions to ask during a discovery call?
60. Which questions do you like to ask your prospects?
Presentation Skill SDR Questions
Great presentations are essential in selling your company’s products and services.
Use these sales interview questions to hire candidates who’ll successfully present your company, products and goals to prospects.
61. Tell me about the last sales presentation or demo you knocked out of the park.
62. How would you adapt your presentation to different buyers?
63. What is the best way to address pricing with a prospect?
Mistakes to avoid during an interview
Focus on skills, not just experience: since many candidates will be early in their career or their first step into sales, there’s a middle ground between skills and experience. Look for transferrable experience from previous roles. Candidates can grow and develop skills over time. If the candidate has great potential, they could be a great SDR with the right coaching.
Determine the ideal candidate
Write out the most important characteristics and experiences for the role. Identify what strengths you’ll need and what characteristics are the most critical for the position.
Interview as a team
Have multiple interviewers join the recruitment process
Leverage different perspectives to avoid personal bias and make the best possible decision. Give each interviewer specific questions or qualities to focus on.
Give a take-home assignment
Use assignments and roleplay exercises to see how they do with a real-world situation they’ll likely encounter. For example, asking them to send a follow-up email, leave a sales voicemail, do a cold call roleplay or do a sales presentation. This will help you see if what they’ve said during the interview can be applied.
High the best SDRs
With these SDR interview questions, you’re well on hiring a great candidate.
The SDR is such an important role in the sales organization with a big responsibility of building pipeline. This is why hiring the right candidate is so important for your company.
Use the 63 SDR sales interview questions above to determine if your candidates have key characteristics, skills, and experience to be a sales superstar.
