SDR and BDR interview questions, with answers

I like conversations with people I don't know yet, and I like having a clear number to hit. I spent two summers doing fundraising calls for a charity, which taught me that most calls end in a no and that the good ones make up for it. I want to learn how B2B sales works from the first conversation, and I'd like to be an account executive in a couple of years.

You sell expense software to finance teams at companies of a few hundred people, usually to the finance director. The problem is month-end close taking too long because receipts are chased by email. I saw you recently added card issuing. I like that the buyer feels the pain every month, which gives an SDR a clear reason to call.

When I sold memberships for my university gym, my first week was mostly no's at the stand. Instead of pitching harder, I started asking people what they did for exercise and only mentioned the classes that matched. Fewer people said no outright, and by the end of term I was one of the higher sellers on the team. The lesson was that rejection usually meant I was talking about the wrong thing.

In the moment I take a short break, then make one call I'm confident about to get my rhythm back. At the end of the day I listen to one or two calls to see if it was me or just bad luck, and I write down one thing to try tomorrow. Then I leave it, because carrying it into the next day makes it worse.

My manager at a restaurant job told me I rushed customers at the table and it made them order less. It stung, because I thought I was being efficient. I started asking one question before taking the order, like whether they were celebrating anything. My tips went up, and more importantly I understood that slowing down can be the efficient thing.

I'd research and build my list the afternoon before, so the morning is for calling. Two protected calling blocks, with no email during them. Emails and social touches in between, follow-ups after lunch, and the last half hour to log everything and plan tomorrow. I'd adjust the blocks once I knew when our buyers actually pick up.

Five minutes at most. Their company homepage and newsroom for anything that changed, their careers page for hiring, and the person's profile for their role and how long they've had it. I'm looking for one trigger I can turn into one sentence, like a new hire or a new office.

For finance teams who dread month-end, you replace chasing receipts by email with cards that collect them automatically, so the close takes days instead of weeks. Out of interest, how long does your month-end take right now?

The SDR creates and qualifies opportunities: finding the right people, starting conversations and booking first meetings. The account executive runs those meetings through to a signed deal. The handover is where it can go wrong, so a good SDR passes on everything they learned on the call, not just the meeting time.

I'd like to be ready for an account executive role, ideally here. To get there I need to be good at discovery and at running a pipeline, and I think booking and handing over meetings every day is the best way to learn both. I'd also like to have helped onboard a newer SDR by then.

I'd break the gap down first: is it activity, connect rate or conversion? If it's activity, I fix my calendar. If it's conversion, I ask my manager to listen to a few calls with me. Having a specific thing to fix keeps me motivated more than just pushing harder.

A few. How do you measure success in the first three months? How is coaching set up, for example are calls reviewed together? And what do your best SDRs do that others don't?