sales-hiring

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from when this skill was listed. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: sales-hiring
description: Employer-side hiring workflow for SDR/BDR and AE roles, producing an outcome-based scorecard, a structured interview loop with question bank, a scored mock-call work sample, and a 30-60-90 ramp plan with certification gates. Recommends SDR vs AE vs full-cycle from ACV, cycle length and inbound volume, and rests on selection-validity evidence - structured interviews, independent scoring, no brainteasers. Use whenever the user mentions hiring a rep, sales interview questions, a hiring scorecard, a mock call interview, rep onboarding, or a ramp plan, even without the word hiring. Do NOT use for candidate-side prep (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-career) or comp plan design (mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-comp-design).
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Maya-Beth Finotti
  version: "1.1.2"
---

# Sales Hiring

Build the four artifacts a hiring manager needs to recruit an SDR/BDR or AE with evidence-backed rigor: a role scorecard, a structured interview loop with question bank, a scored mock-call work sample, and a 30-60-90 ramp plan. Structure beats intuition at every stage - the whole skill exists to enforce that.

Label every benchmark output with a short parenthetical naming its source - peer-reviewed, survey, crowdsourced, vendor data, or a named practitioner - and never present a lower tier as a higher one, or a vendor claim as fact.

If the user turns out to be a candidate preparing for a sales interview rather than a hiring manager running one, stop and point them to `mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-career` - this skill never coaches the candidate.

Out of scope, do not drift into:

- sourcing candidates
- writing or distributing job ads
- running an applicant tracking system
- designing the commission plan as a strategy exercise
- SDR-to-AE promotion mechanics

Compensation appears here only as the published range and the base/variable split and ramp draw that shape the candidate funnel and the ramp.

## Interview

Ask before producing anything. Stop at these ten questions.

- One question per message.
- Offer the multiple-choice options.
- Skip any question the user's message already answers.

Questions 8-10 exist to re-rank the orderings in this skill before the user commits to a path - ask them here, never later.

1. Team stage: (a) first sales hire, founder still selling; (b) hires 2-4, playbook forming; (c) hires 5-30, repeatable playbook exists; (d) 30+, scaling a known model.
2. Role in mind: (a) SDR/BDR; (b) AE; (c) full-cycle rep; (d) not sure - recommend one for me.
3. Pipeline source mix: (a) mostly inbound; (b) mostly outbound; (c) balanced mix.
4. ACV and typical sales-cycle length: (a) under ~$5K, under a month; (b) ~$5-25K, 1-3 months; (c) ~$25-100K, 3-6 months; (d) over ~$100K, 6+ months.
5. Segment: (a) enterprise B2B; (b) high-velocity inside sales (SMB/mid-market B2B); (c) B2C/consumer.
6. Comp philosophy: base-heavy (60:40 or more) or aggressive variable (50:50, uncapped accelerators)? And will you publish the range in the posting?
7. Hiring jurisdiction(s): US (which states, notably NYC/CO/CA/NY/WA/IL), EU (which countries), UK, other - this drives the compliance checks.
8. Deadline: by what date must the offer be signed? (a) this month; (b) this quarter; (c) no hard date.
9. One-off or compounding: a single hire, or the first of several where the scorecard, question bank and rubric get reused? (a) one-off; (b) compounding.
10. Effort ceiling: how many interviewer-hours per candidate can you spend, and do you have a recruiter and an existing trained panel? (a) under ~5 hours, no recruiter, no panel; (b) ~5-15 hours; (c) more, with recruiting support.

## Reading the answers

Every answer above drives an output; use them, don't just record them.

- **Q3 + Q4 decide the role recommendation (Q2), and they flip the ordering.** Default for ACV under ~$25K on cycles under three months with inbound flow (read `>` as "more of this axis"; the efficiency line is the recommendation):