A sample report, in full

This is the complete evaluation for one candidate from the example questionnaire that every new account opens with. Same five questions, same answers, same working. Nothing here is a mock-up: the page is built from the fixture the product ships.

Sales Development Representative · Demo

Elena Vasquez

Proceed to the next step Authenticity: High

Four of the five answers are supported by the candidate's own accounts, with named sources for list building and a verbatim opener tied to a specific trigger event. The objection response gives own wording anchored to the renewal cycle rather than a framework. Qualification is the weaker area: the decision to drop the account was made by the manager, and the candidate identifies the signal only in hindsight. The resilience answer describes concrete changes to the message and use of a colleague's calls, but names no metric the candidate tracked during that period.

There are named facts a recruiter can verify at the interview.

Verifiable facts. Named with details tied to the name: Q2: Valencia office (payroll across two regions, month two)
Own decisions. Q1: «skipped anyone who advertised an internal payroll specialist role» Q5: «rewrote the value line in my templates three times» An admitted gap, Q2: «I can't prove it was the opener alone»
Consistency. The opener «Congrats on the Valencia office» in Q2 is the targeting from Q1, «Spanish companies … that had just opened a second office», applied to one account.

Competency coverage

Prospect research and targeting

Covered by Q1: trigger-based targeting with a named exclusion rule and a stated reason for smaller lists.

Q1

partial
Personalised outreach

Covered by Q2: an opener tied to a specific event, with a path for the wrong contact.

Q2

demonstrated
Objection handling

Covered by Q3: own wording anchored to the renewal cycle, with a defined exit.

Q3

partial
Qualification and discovery

Covered by Q4, but the read was the manager's; the candidate's own signal recognition is retrospective.

Q4

partial
Resilience and coachability

Covered by Q5: the message was iterated during a silent period and help was sought from a colleague.

Q5

partial

What to ask next

In the qualification example the manager made the call. Ask what the candidate saw in that account independently, and at what point.
The slow-week answer implies activity tracking but names no metric. Ask what was reviewed weekly besides meetings booked.
The opener's effect is described as noticeable but unmeasured. Ask how reply rates were tracked and against what baseline.

The answers

Q1 Walk us through how you built a prospect list for something you sold recently. Where did you look, and how did you decide who NOT to contact?

For a payroll product I started with the segment my AE closed fastest: Spanish companies between 50 and 200 people that had just opened a second office. I found them through funding announcements and job boards, and skipped anyone who advertised an internal payroll specialist role, because that usually meant they had decided to keep it in-house. The list was about 150 accounts, small on purpose: I would rather write 150 researched emails than 600 generic ones.

Evaluation. Names the trigger event used for targeting, the sources, and an exclusion rule. The preference for a smaller researched list is presented as a choice with a reason.

Q2 Share a cold email or call opening that worked well for you. What made it land, and how do you know it was the opening that did it?

«Congrats on the Valencia office. Payroll across two regions usually breaks in month two: is that on your plate or someone else's?» It landed because it named their situation and offered an easy out («someone else's» still gets me a referral). I can't prove it was the opener alone, but replies went up noticeably when I switched to it.

Evaluation. Quotes the opener and explains the referral path built into it. The candidate is explicit that the improvement in replies is directional rather than measured, which is accurate about the evidence given.

Q3 A prospect says: «We already use a competitor and we're happy with it.» What do you actually say next? Give your real wording, not a framework.

«Good to hear, most teams I talk to are on something already. When the renewal comes up, what's the one thing you'd want to work better?» If they name something, that's the conversation. If they don't, I ask whether it's okay to send one short note before their renewal window and leave it there.

Evaluation. Own wording, anchored to the renewal cycle, with a low-cost exit when the prospect has nothing to name.

Q4 Describe a deal or a meeting you qualified OUT. What signals told you it was not worth pursuing?

We had a marketplace startup that loved every demo but wanted a custom integration we did not have. My manager flagged it as a dead end after the second call and I closed it out. Looking back, the signal was there earlier: their questions were all about the integration and never about the price or the rollout.

Evaluation. The disqualification was made by the manager. The candidate identifies the signal, questions only about the integration and never about price or rollout, retrospectively.

Q5 Tell us about a week when nothing worked: no replies, no meetings booked. What did you change, and what did you keep doing?

After a product pricing change we had two weeks of silence: people opened, nobody replied. I kept my daily block of research and sending, and rewrote the value line in my templates three times until it stopped sounding like an apology for the new price. I also asked the AE to join two calls so I could hear how she framed the change. The next week two of my oldest threads came back.

Evaluation. Describes a specific change to the message and the decision to sit in on a colleague's calls. The outcome is given as two revived threads rather than a metric.

The brief the model was given for this role, which candidates never see: Mid-market B2B SaaS, outbound-first. The SDR owns cold outreach to HR leaders across the EU: building prospect lists, personalising first touches, and booking discovery calls for two account executives. Success looks like consistent pipeline, honest qualification, and staying coachable through slow weeks.

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