SDR role-play assessments

Assess a role-play as a short learning loop. Give the candidate enough context to form a discovery plan, watch the opening attempt, coach one behavior, and run the conversation again. Give the initial performance little weight on its own.¹ Use the retry to judge how quickly the candidate implements coaching.² Build the assessment around that change so you can see how the candidate thinks under pressure.

Build the exercise

Write the brief around a real situation and leave the candidate room to make choices. Keep the buyer scenario specific, and give every candidate the same information.

Send the complete role-play brief in advance to help the candidate prepare.³ Include the roles, company size, current problems, and overarching goals in the mock call.⁴ Give enough context for the candidate to think about the discovery questions they should ask.⁵ Choose the persona and buyer scenario carefully.⁶

The brief should say who the candidate is speaking with, what is already known, and what outcome the conversation may lead toward. Leave some information for the candidate to uncover through questions. The exercise tests judgment inside a conversation, so giving away every answer removes part of the assessment.

Run discovery

Start the role-play as a discovery conversation. Give the candidate room to open the call, ask questions, follow an answer, and decide where to take the discussion.

Treat the interview as a pseudo-discovery call. Have the candidate role-play part of discovery and evaluate how they conduct it.^{7, 8} Listen for preparation and research before the call.⁹

During the conversation, watch how the candidate structures it, how comfortable they sound, and how quickly they respond to cues.¹⁰ Check whether they pick up on cues, open and guide the call, and close with a next step.¹¹ Notice their curiosity and the kinds of questions they ask.¹²

Write down the question that changed the direction of the conversation. Record whether the candidate followed the buyer's answer or returned to a memorized sequence. Running discovery on the product shows whether the candidate can think instead of merely follow a sales process.¹³

Test objection handling

Bring in an objection after the candidate has learned something about the buyer. The objection should make them use the conversation they have already had.

Give the candidate an objection and check whether the response draws on earlier discovery findings.¹⁴ Ask, "What do you do when someone's giving you no answers or one-word answers?"¹⁵

If the candidate cannot answer an objection, watch how they handle the gap. Look for whether they can tell the customer skillfully what they do and do not know.¹⁶ Record the response before offering help so the next part of the exercise has a clear starting point.

Coach and retry

Use the retry to see whether the candidate can apply a change. Give feedback on a behavior they can change immediately, then put them back into the same conversational pressure.

Use objection handling as a teachable exercise to assess coachability.¹⁷ Provide coaching during the role-play.¹⁸ On the retry, ask the candidate to respond to the objection with a clarifying question.¹⁹

Give the candidate enough time to apply the instruction without feeding them the wording. Compare the revised behavior with the opening attempt. Look for whether they heard the coaching, changed the response, and kept the change in place as the conversation moved forward.

Add prospecting and written work

Discovery shows conversation skills. Prospecting and written work show how the candidate prepares and creates an opening.

A peer in the onsite usually tests prospecting.²⁰ Ask the candidate to prospect hiring managers and try to find any connection.²¹ Keep this prompt separate from the discovery role-play so you can tell whether a weak call came from conversation skill or shallow preparation.

A short email challenge is another practical exercise. It should take the candidate no more than 30 minutes and can reveal raw SDR skills.²² You can also evaluate two written samples and two verbal samples.²³ Other take-home formats include writing a cold call script²⁴ or building a prospecting list.²⁵

For a candidate without prior SDR experience, judge whether the email answers the outlined question using the information provided. Do not heavily criticize a raw first attempt that does so.²⁶

Score what you saw

Preparation and research

Conversation structure

Quality and direction

Use of earlier discovery

Ability to apply coaching

• Preparation and research
• Conversation structure
• Quality and direction
• Use of earlier discovery
• Ability to apply coaching

Use a short scorecard that separates observable behaviors from general impressions. Score what happened in the exercise, then use the candidate's explanation to understand the choice.

When the exercise includes a product pitch, evaluate whether the candidate asks good discovery questions.²⁷ After the role-play, ask, "Does it happen on a discovery call?"²⁸ This checks whether the candidate's stated sales approach belongs in a discovery conversation or exists only as an interview answer.

Keep notes under these headings:

• Preparation and research before the call.
• Conversation structure and response to cues.
• Quality and direction of discovery questions.
• Use of earlier discovery during objection handling.
• Ability to apply coaching in the retry.
• Clear movement toward a next step.

Use specific notes such as the question asked, the cue missed, the coaching given, and the changed response. That record makes the decision easier to defend and gives the candidate a fair read across the exercise.

What not to do

The assessment loses value when the evaluator rewards polish, penalizes unfamiliarity, or changes the standard between candidates.

• Do not reject a raw email from a candidate without prior SDR experience when it answers the outlined question with the supplied information.²⁶
• Do not ask the candidate to bluff through an objection they cannot answer. Assess how they explain what they know and do not know.¹⁶
• Do not use private criteria. Apply the exercise consistently and score against criteria disclosed to the candidate.²⁹

Use the same brief, observation points, coaching prompt, and retry for the next assessment. This lets you compare how candidates discover, respond, and learn in the same structure while keeping prospecting and written work as separate signals.