Evidence before appointment
See how candidates think, prepare and respond to real sales challenges before you make the appointment.
Discuss Your Next Sales HireLook beyond the first impression
Salespeople are used to presenting themselves well. Confidence, rapport and a polished career story can make it difficult to distinguish an impressive candidate from someone who will perform in your sales environment.
I help B2B businesses and PE/VC portfolio companies assess the evidence behind the interview, bringing experienced sales leadership and a structured process to the hiring decision.
Beyond the CV
A CV helps establish relevant experience. An interview helps explore motivation and suitability. Neither, on its own, shows how a candidate will reason through the sales challenges your role involves.
The familiar starting point
Useful context, with claims and assumptions still to test.
The additional evidence
An assessment to inform the decision, alongside references and your own checks.
This is specialist sales assessment, rather than a replacement for candidate sourcing. I can work alongside your recruiter, and your company retains the hiring decision.
A clearer route to your shortlist
We first agree the role, the sales environment and what strong performance would look like. I then assess candidates through two stages before recommending who should meet your team.
A structured conversation to understand the candidate’s experience, motivation, working style and suitability for your business.
A focused written exercise makes the candidate’s preparation, commercial thinking and judgement visible.
Then, your company interview. I put forward recommended candidates with their scorecards, strengths, concerns and suggested follow-up questions. You meet them face to face with a clearer view of what to test. The final hiring decision stays with you.
Make the evidence visible
The criteria are agreed for the role before candidates complete the task. Scoring considers the reasoning and evidence in the response, with strengths, concerns and follow-up questions recorded for your interview.
Illustrative example · fictional candidate
No real candidate information or hiring outcome is shown.
| Assessment category | Example rating | Task evidence and what to explore next |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial judgementRecognises the customer’s business problem and distinguishes a hypothesis from an established fact. | 3 / 5 | Prioritises business impact, but assumes budget is available. Explore in the client interview: How would you validate the commercial case and access to budget? |
| DiscoveryIdentifies useful questions, gaps and the evidence needed before recommending a next step. | 2 / 5 | Lists relevant questions, but moves to a demo before clarifying the buying process. Explore in the client interview: What would you need to learn before advancing this opportunity? |
| CommunicationExplains reasoning clearly and adapts the message to the intended audience. | 4 / 5 | Provides a concise, well-structured response with a clear recommendation. Explore in the client interview: How would you adapt this for a CFO and an operational buyer? |
| PreparationUses company and market research accurately and recognises its limits. | 3 / 5 | Uses relevant public information, but leaves a market assumption untested. Explore in the client interview: Which assumption would you test first, and how? |
| Problem-solvingWeighs options, explains trade-offs and proposes practical next steps. | 3 / 5 | Identifies two routes forward, with limited detail on how to choose between them. Explore in the client interview: What evidence would make you change your recommendation? |
Illustrative scale: 1 = limited evidence; 2 = partial evidence; 3 = sound response with gaps; 4 = strong, well-supported response; 5 = consistently strong reasoning across the task. Criteria and scoring anchors are tailored to the role.
These invented ratings demonstrate the format only. They are not candidate results, benchmarks, a prediction of performance or an automatic pass/fail decision. The client interview tests the findings and remaining questions.
What you receive
An agreed candidate profile, written task and scoring criteria tailored to the work the person will actually do.
A consistent view of each candidate’s preparation, judgement and commercial capability, with strengths and gaps clearly explained.
A shortlist discussion and company-interview brief that help you spend your time with the most relevant candidates.
Candidates for the same role receive a consistent brief and are assessed against agreed criteria. The task is proportionate to the role, with clear expectations about time and any permitted use of AI tools.
The commercial cost of a wrong hire
A poor appointment can absorb time and investment while the commercial gap remains open. The cost depends on your sales cycle, role and operating model; there is no universal multiplier that tells you what it will be.
Salary, employer costs, recruitment fees, tools and onboarding time can accumulate before you have evidence of effective selling.
Opportunities can stall, customer conversations may need to be rebuilt and the expected contribution to the revenue plan may arrive later.
Coaching, intervention and reassigned work draw time from leaders and colleagues who have other commercial responsibilities.
A replacement means another hiring process, a vacant role and a fresh ramp-up period, with further demands on the team.
Consider the employment and hiring spend, the management time involved and the likely delay before a replacement becomes effective. Keep cash costs separate from estimated opportunity costs to avoid counting the same impact twice.
Structured assessment does not remove hiring risk. It gives you more role-relevant evidence before committing.
Working with your recruitment partners
I can work with your existing recruiter or trusted recruitment consultants to agree the brief, coordinate the assessment and keep the process moving.
The recruiter brings candidate reach and sourcing expertise. I bring the sales leadership perspective to assess capability and help you decide who to progress.
Whether you are making one key hire or strengthening a portfolio company’s commercial team, the aim is to reduce uncertainty and take pressure off the people making the appointment.
Experience behind the assessment
Some of the strongest salespeople I've hired didn't have the backgrounds you might expect. One particularly successful appointment came from the agency world rather than a conventional SaaS sales career. She understood her customers' challenges, knew how to uncover the real problems they were trying to solve and built relationships that translated into exceptional commercial performance.
I've also taken chances on people early in their careers who showed the determination, curiosity and potential to become outstanding salespeople. Some have subsequently progressed into sales leadership themselves.
Experience matters, but so do judgement, attitude, curiosity and the ability to understand customers. That's why my approach to sales hiring looks beyond the CV, using structured assessments to understand how candidates think, communicate and approach real commercial situations.
Hear More About My Approach to Sales LeadershipInvestment
Includes the role brief, tailored written task, chemistry meetings, scored assessments and a shortlist debrief.
Additional candidates or wider hiring support are scoped in advance. Candidate sourcing and recruitment consultants’ fees are agreed separately. Any applicable VAT and travel are confirmed in the proposal.
Start with the role you need to fill
Tell me about the role, the sales challenge and where you are in the recruitment process. We can agree the right level of support before you commit.
Book a 30-minute Conversation