An SDR role-play should make the candidate do the work the role demands, so you can watch behavior and assess it in action.1 The strongest signal often comes after coaching. Use a brief live or written exercise, followed by coaching and a retry, to see how the candidate responds to feedback in real time. Apply it consistently and score against disclosed criteria.2 A weak SDR hire rarely looks weak in the first 15 minutes.3 Problems can surface later in discovery, research, follow-up, and pipeline conversion.4
Build the exercise
Decide what the exercise must reveal. Give the candidate a task that resembles an outbound conversation or the written work around it, and keep the setup stable enough to compare attempts.
A good scenario tests whether an SDR can hold a first conversation with someone who is busy and skeptical.5 When you play the buyer, carefully define the persona and scenario.6 Write down the context, the buyer's situation, the pressure they bring into the conversation, and the outcome you want the candidate to pursue.
The recruiter can send the complete role-play brief in advance to help the candidate prepare.7 Keep it specific enough to support preparation while leaving room for the candidate to ask questions and make decisions during the exercise.
Choose formats that resemble the work. The candidate can write a cold call script,8 build a prospecting list,9 or take part in a mock prospecting call with the company.10 A candidate for a sales development role can also bring a playbook they wrote.11
Run the assessment
Keep the session compact and predictable. Create pressure that resembles the job, and have the evaluator record behavior instead of relying on memory.
| Stage | What you are trying to learn | Example question |
|---|---|---|
| Prepare | whether the candidate understands the buyer's context | What would you want to know before you call? |
| Open | whether the candidate can hold a first conversation with someone who is busy and skeptical5 | How would you earn permission to continue? |
| Discover | whether the candidate uncovers the situation before proposing a next step | What would you need to learn before moving on? |
| Handle friction | how the candidate responds when the buyer pushes back | What do you say when the buyer questions the reason for the call? |
| Coach | whether the candidate can hear and use a specific correction | What will you change in the retry? |
| Retry | whether the candidate applies feedback in the retry2 | Run the opening again. |
| Brevity | whether the candidate can show brevity, a core trait for an SDR speaking to prospects12 | "Give me your life story in three minutes."13 |
Explain how the session will run before you start. Keep your reactions consistent so the candidate's choices create the differences you evaluate.
The evaluator should create realistic friction of the kind the candidate will face in the actual role.14 A buyer who blocks every route or accepts every answer generates no useful signal.15 After the live attempt, give specific coaching and run the retry. Treat the change as its own observation.
Score what you see
Use a rubric that turns impressions into observable notes. The evaluator should know what to listen for before the candidate starts.
The role-play's predictive value depends on a realistic scenario, a rubric, and an evaluator who knows what to listen for.16 Without defined scoring criteria, evaluation returns to gut feel.17 Write notes that show how the candidate thinks, prepares, and executes under pressure.18
A strong SDR interview process should test coachability, resilience, writing ability, prioritization, and judgment about when to push or listen.19 During the call, listen for relevant language, targeted questions, uncovered pain points, objection handling, and a proposed follow-up conversation.20
A role-play evaluates how a candidate thinks on their feet, handles pressure, and responds to coaching.21 Record what the candidate did, what they missed, and what changed after coaching. This gives the retry a clear place in the decision instead of treating it as a courtesy run.
Add written work
Written work shows preparation and judgment before the candidate has a live buyer in front of them. Keep the prompt bounded and give every candidate the same information.
An email challenge should take the candidate no more than 30 minutes and can identify the raw skills of a competent SDR.22 For a candidate without prior SDR experience, judge the first email by whether it answers the outlined question using the information provided.23 Outreach can also demonstrate the candidate's ability to prospect.24
Use the written work to prepare the live exercise. If the candidate chooses a target, writes an opening, or explains a follow-up, carry those choices into the role-play and ask them to work through the buyer's response.
What not to do
These mistakes remove the conditions that make a role-play useful. Keep them out of the assessment design and the debrief.
- Do not use "Sell me this pen" as the exercise. It is described as a party trick that reveals nothing about whether someone can run discovery with a skeptical buyer.25
- Do not build a scenario that feels invented. Unrealistic scenarios produce unrealistic performance and no useful learning.26
- Do not score from instinct. Without defined criteria, evaluation returns to gut feel.17
- Do not play an impenetrable wall or agree to everything. Neither creates useful signal.15
- Do not end the exercise before the coaching and retry. That sequence reveals how the candidate responds to feedback in real time.2
Make the decision
Base the decision on patterns across the live and written work, giving the retry its own weight. A candidate who improves in the coached attempt has given you something observable to discuss.
Use the result to estimate ramp speed, manager load, and whether the candidate can reliably create qualified pipeline.27 Before the next interview, write a realistic scenario, send its brief, define what good looks like, and schedule the retry. During the debrief, compare the initial and retry attempts, then record the behaviors that justify the decision.