Contrary to popular belief, a candidate with prior SDR experience can be a red flag. It often means they left a similar role for a reason, which requires deep investigation. According to Sam Nelson, most top-performing SDRs he's hired had no previous sales experience at all, making a clean slate more valuable.
A powerful predictor of success for inexperienced SDR candidates is a history of reaching the top 1% in any competitive endeavor, such as collegiate sports, robotics, or even chess. This demonstrates the intangible drive and discipline required to excel, which is more important than specific sales knowledge.
Having written goals correlates strongly with top performance. To verify if a candidate is telling the truth, use 'interrogator tricks'. Ask a series of specific follow-up questions about their process—where they write them, what medium, where they keep them, and how often they review them. Inconsistencies will quickly reveal a fabricated answer.
The goal of an interview role-play is to measure coachability, not existing skill. Give the candidate the script beforehand, run the call, and interrupt them immediately upon a mistake to provide feedback. Rerunning the call three times reveals how they handle feedback and what the coaching dynamic would feel like, which is more predictive than a single polished performance.
On day one, establish a strong cold-calling culture with a memorable, non-hazing ritual: have new reps sell pizzas to local businesses. This gets their most awkward call ever out of the way immediately. It demonstrates that even the worst-case scenario isn't that bad, builds camaraderie, and makes subsequent real calls feel much easier.
Instead of a multi-week classroom training, run a one-week bootcamp and then immediately put SDRs on the phones. This is not to test the reps, but to test the training program. The questions they ask in a dedicated Slack channel provide a real-time readout of where the training was insufficient, allowing you to iteratively improve the onboarding process.
To avoid a frantic scramble for meetings at month's end when AEs are busy closing, implement a 'fast start bonus'. This spiff rewards SDRs who are ahead of their quota by the middle of the month. It incentivizes earlier activity, which smooths out the flow of meetings and provides AEs with pipeline when they most need it.