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Decide what a strong answer covers before the interview.
Each question below includes “what to listen for” — turn those into the criteria on your scorecard.
SDR interview questions that test traits, not track record.
Field-tested behavioral questions for coachability, grit, curiosity, resourcefulness, and drive — with a follow-up and what to listen for on each, so you can hire early-career reps on evidence.
Don't ask all of them. Pick a few — consistently.
These are field-tested questions grouped by the competencies that predict performance in the role, not a generic checklist. Pick the ones that match what the job actually demands, and ask the same core set of every candidate — that's what makes their answers comparable instead of a reaction to whoever sounded most confident. Ask fewer, deeper questions rather than racing through a long list: two questions you fully follow up on tell you more than eight you don't. On each answer, keep going until a rehearsed story either opens up into something specific or falls apart — our framework for follow-up questions is the engine for that.
Score right after the interview, not at the debrief.
Memory flattens fast, and the most fluent storyteller shouldn't be the tiebreaker.
These questions are one stage of a structured process; the full 4-pillar sales hiring process is how they fit together.
SDR interview questions, grouped by competency.
Coachability — the highest-signal SDR trait
1
“Tell me about a time someone gave you feedback that was hard to hear. What did you do with it?”
What to listen for
- A concrete piece of feedback, a specific behavior change, and a later moment where it stuck.
- Not a generic “I always take feedback well” with no example.
Follow-ups
- What specifically changed in how you worked afterward — and how did you know it worked?
2
“When you're learning something new and struggling, what do you actually do?”
What to listen for
- Seeks input and iterates rather than pushing through alone.
- A real, recent example rather than a hypothetical.
Follow-ups
- Walk me through the last time that happened.
Grit and resilience — handling “no”
3
“Tell me about a stretch when you were getting told “no” over and over. How did you keep going?”
What to listen for
- A real low point and a concrete routine or mindset that kept effort up.
- Not “I stay positive” with no mechanism behind it.
Follow-ups
- What kept your effort consistent on the worst days?
4
“What's the most repetitive, unglamorous work you've done, and how did you approach it?”
What to listen for
- The job is repetition — look for someone who built a system, not someone who needs novelty.
- They kept quality up when it got boring.
Follow-ups
- How did you keep your quality up when it got boring?
Curiosity and learning agility — ramping fast
5
“Tell me about something complicated you taught yourself recently. Why did you bother?”
What to listen for
- Genuine self-directed learning and a repeatable ramp method.
- Not someone who only ever learns what's assigned.
Follow-ups
- How did you go from knowing nothing to being useful?
6
“If I handed you a product you'd never heard of and one hour, how would you get ready to talk to a buyer about it?”
What to listen for
- Prioritizing the buyer's problem over memorizing features.
- A sensible sense of what to skip under time pressure.
Follow-ups
- Where would you look first, and what would you skip?
Resourcefulness — reaching hard-to-reach people
7
“Tell me about a time you needed to reach someone who was hard to get to. What did you try?”
What to listen for
- Multiple channels, creativity, and persistence.
- Not one attempt and then giving up.
Follow-ups
- What did you do after the first couple of attempts failed?
Drive and self-motivation — self-directed activity
8
“What are you working toward right now that nobody is making you do?”
What to listen for
- Internal goals and self-accountability — the job is self-driven activity.
- A way they keep themselves on track without supervision.
Follow-ups
- How do you keep yourself on track when no one's checking?
9
“Tell me about a goal you set for yourself and how it turned out — including if it didn't.”
What to listen for
- Honest reflection and an adjustment based on the outcome.
- Not only success stories.
Follow-ups
- What did you change based on how it went?
Everything above works with a notebook.
The reason to systematize it is consistency: the third sdr interview this month should be as rigorous as the first. Yardstick is a structured-interview ATS — teams create job-specific interview plans, run consistent interviews, and collect scorecards, so every interview produces usable hiring evidence. AI assembles the evidence into a decision brief for the hiring team — with humans making the actual call. AI assists; the hiring decision stays with people.
You can start free: the AI question generator drafts a role-specific set you can edit, and how to hire salespeople lays out the full process these questions fit into.
Every interview produces usable hiring evidence when the criteria are set before the interview and scored on a scorecard. This free interview scorecard template has the 0 to 4 levels written out, ready to copy.
Common questions about SDR interviews.
What should I look for in an SDR with no sales experience?
Traits, not a résumé: coachability, resilience with rejection, curiosity, and self-driven activity. A behavioral interview surfaces these from any context — sports, school, a first job — because you're asking what a candidate actually did, not what they know about sales.
How many questions should I ask an SDR candidate?
Three or four competencies, each with a real follow-up, beats a long list. Coachability and grit are the highest-signal places to go deep — you're hiring for how fast someone improves and how well they handle hearing “no.”
Should SDR candidates do a task or role play?
A short one helps — a mock cold call or a quick research exercise shows drive and coachability in action. Offer one piece of feedback and see if they apply it. Pair the exercise with the questions and score both against criteria set in advance.
Get the interview guide these questions belong in.
The questions above are the raw material. What a panel needs is the guide: which competency each interviewer covers, the questions they ask, what to listen for, and a scorecard with written anchors, so two interviewers hearing the same story about a cold week land on the same score.
Yardstick designs that guide with AI for the sales development rep role you're actually hiring, from your own job description and outbound motion, and you edit it before anyone is scheduled. Your first three Jobs are free.
Get off the blank page.
Generate a role-specific SDR question set to react to and edit, or see how Yardstick connects questions, scorecards, and hiring decisions in one workflow.