An SDR interview (Sales Development Representative, the rep who prospects and books meetings for account executives) has three jobs: confirm the candidate understands what the role really is, see how they handle rejection, and watch whether they can apply feedback within minutes. Degrees and polished stories tell you little; a fixed set of questions asked to everyone and a live cold call role-play tell you a lot.
Below: 30 questions in 7 categories, the role-play to run, the red flags, and the questions to keep out of the room. Still deciding whether to open the seat? Start with should you hire an SDR, and if you are unsure about the title, read SDR vs BDR.
How should you structure an SDR interview process?
An effective SDR hiring process fits in four steps and two weeks, each testing something different. To decide what to look for before you pick your questions, start from the nine observable qualities of a good salesperson.
| Step | Length | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Phone screen | 15 min | Voice, clarity, punctuality, baseline motivation. The call itself is the test. |
| Structured interview | 45 min | The 30 questions below, or a selection of 12 to 15, scored on a rubric. |
| Cold call role-play | 20 min | Preparation, opener, objection handling, ability to apply feedback. |
| Team or skip-level meeting | 30 min | The candidate’s questions, fit with the pace and culture, selling the role. |
Why so much structure? Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens’ 2022 meta-analysis in the Journal of Applied Psychology ranks structured interviews first among selection methods, with a mean operational validity of .42, ahead of work samples (.33) and cognitive ability tests (.31), as summarized by SIOP. A “gut feel” interview mostly measures likability. In practice: a 1 to 4 score per category, a column for the facts given, and follow-ups like “can you give me a specific example?”. Our SDR interview scorecard puts all of this on one page: questions by competency, anchored 1 to 4 ratings, the role-play rubric and candidates side by side.
Upstream, a job post that is explicit about the daily work, targets and pay does the first round of filtering. Our sales job description generator builds a complete SDR posting and flags what is missing. For pay benchmarks, see SDR salary in the US and SDR commission structure.
Category 1: does the candidate understand the job? (5 questions)
Plenty of SDRs quit in year one because the job looked nothing like what they pictured. Useful reference: SDR role and responsibilities.
1. Walk me through an SDR’s day as you picture it. A strong answer mentions call blocks, account research, follow-up emails and LinkedIn touches, CRM updates, and the fact that most dials end in no answer or a no. Red flag: a vague picture (“I’ll meet clients”) or one centered on negotiating and closing, which are not part of the job.
2. Why prospecting, rather than another sales role? You want a reason that holds up: learning sales from the ground up, liking the pace, aiming for an AE or enterprise seat. Red flag: “it’s the only sales job that hires without experience”, and nothing else.
3. What made you apply here specifically? The candidate mentions the product, the market, something they found on the site or on LinkedIn. This is already an account research exercise: an SDR who did not look at your company will not look at the ones they call.
4. Which metrics do you think your work will be measured on? A strong answer names dials, conversations, meetings booked and, above all, meetings held or qualified. Bonus points if the candidate understands that a meeting that does not happen is worth nothing.
5. Where do you see yourself in two years? Wanting to move up is healthy; the usual path is covered in the SDR career path. Red flag: a candidate who treats the role as a six-month waiting room and says nothing about what they want to learn in it.
Category 2: relationship with rejection (5 questions)
An SDR hears “no” dozens of times a day. Look for lived situations, not statements of intent.
6. Tell me about the last time you were turned down for something that mattered to you. You want a specific situation, how it felt, and above all what the candidate did next. Red flag: no example, or one where the other person is entirely to blame.
7. How do you feel after an hour where nobody said yes? A strong answer admits it is draining and describes a way to reset: a short break, reviewing a call, a new opener. Be wary of “it doesn’t affect me”, which is almost never true.
8. A prospect hangs up on you five seconds in. What do you do in the next minute? A good candidate logs the call, does not take it personally, and dials the next one. A great candidate also asks whether their opener had something to do with it.
9. Have you ever been nervous about making a call? How did you get past it? Call reluctance is common and fixable; we cover it in call reluctance. A candidate who admits it and explains how they worked through it is often more solid than one who denies it.
10. Tell me about a goal you missed. You are looking for analysis: why it happened, what was in their control, what they changed. Red flag: a story where circumstances explain everything.
Category 3: discipline, volume and organization (5 questions)
A steady average SDR usually beats a brilliant one who dials when they feel like it. For realistic volumes, see how many cold calls per day.
11. How would you organize a day with 60 calls to make and 10 accounts to research? You want blocks: research in the morning or the day before, calls in the windows when decision-makers pick up, written follow-ups at the end of the day. Red flag: no sense of prioritization.
12. Tell me about a repetitive task you kept up for months. Sports, school, a part-time job: you are looking for proof of consistency.
13. How do you keep track of what you promised someone? The method matters less than having one: a forgotten callback is a lost meeting.
14. What do you do when you are ahead of target halfway through the month? Strong answer: keep the same pace, or use the cushion to work harder accounts. Red flag: easing off.
15. Your manager asks you to log every call in the CRM. What do you think of that? You want the why: AE handoff, follow-up, team learning. A candidate who sees only surveillance will fight the tooling.
Category 4: curiosity and account preparation (5 questions)
A good SDR is genuinely interested in the companies they call: that is what makes an opener relevant.
16. Pick a company you know. Who there would you call to sell our product, and why? You are scoring the reasoning about persona and problem more than the pick itself.
17. How would you prepare a call in two minutes? The company website, the contact’s LinkedIn profile, a recent news item, a hypothesis about their need. A candidate who says “I’d read the script” has not grasped the difference between a call and a reading.
18. What would you ask a prospect to find out whether they need us? Open questions about their current setup and its consequences. Compare with our cold call discovery questions: you are not looking for the list, you are looking for the logic.
19. What have you learned recently, on your own, without being asked? An SDR who only learns under pressure plateaus fast.
20. Pitch our product in 30 seconds, using what you learned while preparing for this interview. You want one sentence on the problem solved and for whom, not the homepage recited.
Category 5: listening and communication (4 questions)
21. Tell me about a conversation where listening to the other person changed your mind. Evidence they listen to understand, not to reply.
22. Explain something you know well as if I were 12. Clarity and simplification: what decides the first 30 seconds of a cold call.
23. How can you tell a prospect is checking out during a call? Silences, short answers, “just send me an email”: an attentive candidate spots these and knows to ask a question to re-engage.
24. Write the follow-up email you would send after a call where the prospect asked you to call back in January. Done on the spot: look at brevity, personalization and the next step.
Category 6: coachability (3 questions)
The best predictor of growth: an entry-level SDR who applies feedback soon passes an experienced rep who changes nothing.
25. What is the toughest feedback you have ever received, and what did you do with it? You want a situation, an honest reaction, and a concrete change. Red flag: feedback dismissed as unfair, with nothing taken from it.
26. How do you like a manager to give you feedback? No wrong answer except no answer. It also tells you how to manage them.
27. If you listened back to your own calls, what would you look for? The opener, how much they talked, the questions asked, the moment the call turned. A candidate who has already thought about this has the mindset of an SDR who improves.
Category 7: for candidates with prospecting experience (3 questions)
28. What were your numbers, and how did they compare with your team’s? An experienced SDR knows their numbers: dials, conversations, meetings, show rate. A candidate who cannot remember them was not tracking them.
29. Which objection gave you the most trouble, and how did you handle it? You want a real objection and a response that does not bulldoze. Compare with our cold call objection responses.
30. How did you get past the gatekeeper? A strong answer describes an approach that is respectful and straightforward, not a trick. For reference, see our cold call gatekeeper script.
How do you run the cold call role-play?
The role-play shows the work itself. Here is the format we recommend.
- The brief (10 minutes of prep). Hand over ten lines: the company being called, its industry and size, the contact’s name and title, what you sell and one problem you solve. Let the candidate browse your website if they want.
- First call (5 minutes). Play the prospect. Script two points of resistance in advance and use the same ones for every candidate: for example “I don’t have time” at the open, then “just send me an email” after their first question. Be neither a pushover nor a caricature.
- Feedback (3 minutes). One specific, actionable point: “you pitched the product before asking anything; try opening with a question about their situation.”
- Second call (5 minutes). Same brief, same resistance. Watch what changes.
- Debrief (5 minutes). Ask what they would still change: the self-assessment is often as revealing as the call.
To score both calls consistently, use a rubric: our sales call scorecard covers the opener, discovery, objection handling and the close. To prepare the resistance you will play, the objection handling practice tool has objections grouped by type.
| What you score | Good sign | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Opener | Introduces themselves and gives a reason for the call in one sentence | Asks “do you have two minutes?” or launches into a monologue |
| Questions | Asks at least one open question about the prospect’s situation | Stacks arguments without asking anything |
| Objection | Acknowledges, asks a question, proposes a next step | Argues, pushes, or gives up immediately |
| Close | Proposes a specific time or a clear next step | Hangs up with nothing, or “I’ll call you back” with no date |
| Second call | Applies the feedback, even imperfectly | Runs the exact same call again |
The candidate does not need to book the imaginary meeting. They need to show that they listen, hold a structure, and improve between the two calls.
Which red flags should make you pause?
No single signal disqualifies. What matters is a signal that repeats across categories.
- They do not understand the job. They talk about negotiating, closing or client meetings, and nothing about the volume of unanswered calls.
- It is always someone else’s fault. Bad manager, bad leads, bad product: in every story, the candidate had no agency.
- No numbers. For an experienced candidate, not knowing their own results means they were not tracking them.
- The monologue. They talk a lot and ask little, in the interview and in the role-play.
- Feedback slides off. The second call is a carbon copy of the first.
- No questions about the role. A candidate who asks nothing about ramp, market or targets is not picturing themselves in the seat.
- Great in person, hesitant on the phone. For this job, that gap is what counts.
Which interview questions should you never ask?
In the US, federal law makes it unlawful to base employment decisions on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. The EEOC’s page on prohibited practices states that employers are explicitly prohibited from making pre-offer inquiries about disability, and that questions touching race, sex, national origin, age or religion can be used as evidence of discriminatory intent unless a business purpose justifies them. Its guidance on marital status and children adds that such questions may be seen as evidence of discriminatory intent even when asked of everyone, and can wait until an offer is accepted.
State and local laws often go further. Here are questions interviewers still ask, and what to ask instead when the topic relates to the job.
| Don’t ask | Why | What you can ask |
|---|---|---|
| ”Are you married? Do you have kids?” | Marital status, sex | ”The role requires being available 9 to 6 Eastern. Does that work for you?" |
| "Are you planning to start a family?” | Pregnancy, sex | Nothing: it has no bearing on the job |
| ”How old are you? When did you graduate?” | Age | ”What in your background prepares you for this role?" |
| "Do you have any health issues or disabilities?” | Disability (prohibited pre-offer) | “Can you perform the essential functions of the role, with or without reasonable accommodation?" |
| "What church do you go to?” | Religion | Nothing: it has no bearing on the job |
| ”Where are you originally from?” | National origin | ”Are you legally authorized to work in the US?" |
| "What do you make now?” | Salary history, banned in several states | ”What are your compensation expectations for this role?” |
The practical test fits in one question to ask yourself before every follow-up: does the answer help me judge whether this person will do this job well? If not, do not ask.
This article is not legal advice. For a specific situation, talk to an employment lawyer or your HR team.
What happens after the interview?
The first weeks largely decide whether the SDR succeeds. Our SDR onboarding plan details the program, and the 30-60-90 day sales onboarding plan helps you put it on paper. On pay, the SDR variable pay simulator lets you test a plan before you offer it.
Finally, keep your scorecards: six months in, compare interview scores with actual results. That is how you learn which questions predict success on your team, and how you reduce SDR turnover.
What to remember
- An SDR interview tests three things: understanding of the job, relationship with rejection, and the ability to apply feedback.
- Structure it: same questions for everyone, a rubric written in advance, follow-ups that ask for facts.
- Screen on the phone, and run a two-round cold call role-play with one piece of feedback in between.
- Red flags matter when they repeat: always someone else’s fault, no numbers, monologue, feedback ignored.
- Keep every question tied to the job. Marital status, children, age, religion, national origin and health stay out, and pre-offer disability questions are explicitly prohibited.
