Effective Work Samples and Role Plays for Hiring Business Development Representatives

Business Development Representatives (BDRs) serve as the critical first point of contact with potential customers and play a vital role in building a company's sales pipeline. The effectiveness of your BDR team directly impacts your company's growth trajectory and revenue potential. Finding candidates who can not only talk about sales skills but actually demonstrate them is essential for building a high-performing team.

Traditional interviews often fail to reveal a candidate's true capabilities in prospecting, qualifying leads, and navigating sales conversations. Candidates may excel at describing their approach to sales but struggle when faced with real-world scenarios. This disconnect can lead to costly hiring mistakes and high turnover rates in BDR roles.

Work samples and role plays provide a window into how candidates actually perform under conditions similar to those they'll face on the job. These exercises reveal critical skills that might otherwise remain hidden during standard interview questions, such as how candidates build rapport, handle rejection, articulate value propositions, and qualify prospects.

By incorporating practical exercises into your BDR hiring process, you gain objective data points for comparing candidates and predicting their on-the-job performance. These activities also give candidates a realistic preview of the role, helping ensure alignment between their expectations and the actual job requirements.

The following four activities are designed to evaluate the core competencies required for BDR success. Each exercise targets specific skills essential to the role while providing candidates the opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities in realistic scenarios.

Activity #1: Discovery Call Role Play

This role play simulates one of the most critical aspects of a BDR's job: conducting an effective discovery call with a potential client. This exercise reveals the candidate's ability to build rapport, ask insightful questions, listen actively, and identify potential pain points that align with your solution.

Directions for the Company:

• Select an employee to play the role of a prospect who fits your ideal customer profile.
• Provide the candidate with basic information about your company, products/services, and target market 24 hours before the interview.
• Include a brief persona description of the prospect they'll be speaking with (job title, company size, industry, potential pain points).
• Limit the role play to 15-20 minutes, followed by 5-10 minutes for feedback.
• The "prospect" should be prepared with realistic responses but shouldn't make the conversation unnecessarily difficult.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the company and product information provided.
• Prepare for a discovery call with the prospect described in the materials.
• Your goal is to build rapport, understand the prospect's situation and challenges, and determine if there might be a fit between their needs and the company's solution.
• Focus on asking thoughtful questions rather than pitching features.
• Take notes during the call as you would in a real situation.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the role play, the interviewer should provide specific feedback on one aspect the candidate handled well (e.g., "I liked how you asked follow-up questions to understand our budget constraints better").
• The interviewer should also provide one piece of constructive feedback (e.g., "You could improve how you transition from building rapport to business questions").
• Give the candidate 5 minutes to reflect, then allow them to redo a portion of the conversation incorporating the feedback.

Activity #2: Prospect Research & Personalized Outreach

This exercise evaluates a candidate's ability to research potential clients and craft compelling, personalized outreach messages—a fundamental skill for successful BDRs. It demonstrates their research abilities, written communication skills, and understanding of what makes an effective initial contact.

Directions for the Company:

• Provide the candidate with 2-3 LinkedIn profiles of fictional or anonymized prospects that match your target customer profile.
• Include basic information about your company and solution (similar to what you'd provide during onboarding).
• Allow 20-30 minutes for the exercise.
• Optionally, provide examples of successful outreach messages your team has used in the past.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the LinkedIn profiles provided and conduct any additional research you feel would be helpful (company website, recent news, etc.).
• Draft a personalized email and LinkedIn connection request/message for each prospect.
• Your messages should demonstrate that you've done your research, establish relevance, and include a clear call to action.
• Be prepared to explain your approach and why you chose specific angles or information to include.

Feedback Mechanism:

• The interviewer should highlight one strength in the candidate's outreach messages (e.g., "Your subject line was compelling and personalized").
• The interviewer should provide one area for improvement (e.g., "Your value proposition could be more clearly tied to the specific challenges this prospect likely faces").
• Allow the candidate 10 minutes to revise one of their messages based on the feedback.

Activity #3: Objection Handling Scenario

This exercise tests a candidate's ability to respond to common objections with resilience and adaptability—critical traits for BDR success. It reveals how they think on their feet, maintain a positive attitude in the face of rejection, and navigate challenging conversations.

Directions for the Company:

• Prepare a list of 3-5 common objections your BDRs typically encounter (e.g., "We're happy with our current solution," "Now is not a good time," "Your product is too expensive").
• Select an employee to role play as a somewhat resistant prospect.
• Allow 15 minutes for the exercise.
• Provide the candidate with basic information about your product/service and its key value propositions.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the company and product information provided.
• You'll be responding to a prospect who has expressed initial interest but is now raising objections.
• Your goal is not to "win" the conversation but to respectfully address concerns, uncover the underlying issues, and keep the conversation moving forward when appropriate.
• Focus on asking questions to better understand the objection before attempting to address it.

Feedback Mechanism:

• The interviewer should highlight one effective technique the candidate used (e.g., "I appreciated how you acknowledged the concern about timing before exploring it further").
• The interviewer should provide one constructive piece of feedback (e.g., "When addressing the budget concern, you could have asked more questions to understand their constraints").
• Give the candidate an opportunity to handle one of the objections again, incorporating the feedback.

Activity #4: CRM Documentation & Lead Qualification Exercise

This exercise assesses a candidate's attention to detail, organizational skills, and ability to properly qualify leads—essential components of a BDR's daily responsibilities. It demonstrates their understanding of what information is important to capture and how to evaluate lead quality.

Directions for the Company:

• Prepare a mock conversation transcript or recording between a BDR and a prospect (10-15 minutes in length).
• Create a simplified version of your CRM interface or use a basic template that includes fields for contact information, company details, notes, next steps, and lead qualification criteria.
• Provide your lead qualification framework (e.g., BANT, MEDDIC) if you use one.
• Allow 20-25 minutes for the exercise.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the conversation transcript/recording provided.
• Extract relevant information and properly document it in the CRM template.
• Score the lead based on the qualification framework provided.
• Recommend appropriate next steps for this prospect.
• Be prepared to explain your qualification assessment and why you recommended specific next steps.

Feedback Mechanism:

• The interviewer should highlight one aspect of the documentation the candidate did well (e.g., "You captured the key pain points clearly in your notes").
• The interviewer should provide one area for improvement (e.g., "You might have overestimated their timeline for making a decision based on what was shared").
• Allow the candidate 5-10 minutes to revise their CRM entry and qualification assessment based on the feedback.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should we allocate for these exercises during the interview process?

Each exercise typically requires 30-45 minutes total, including setup, the activity itself, feedback, and the improvement opportunity. Consider spreading these across different interview stages rather than conducting all four in a single session.

Should we tell candidates about these exercises in advance?

Yes, inform candidates that they'll be participating in role plays or work samples. For activities like the discovery call role play, provide preparation materials 24 hours in advance. This allows candidates to showcase their best work and better simulates the preparation they would do in the actual role.

What if our product is complex and difficult to explain to candidates?

For complex products, create a simplified version with key value propositions that candidates can easily understand. The exercises should focus more on sales process skills rather than deep product knowledge, which would be developed during onboarding.

How should we evaluate candidates across these different exercises?

Create a scorecard aligned with your key competencies (e.g., communication, research ability, resilience) and rate candidates on each dimension across the exercises. This provides a more objective comparison than a general impression.

Can we adapt these exercises for remote interviews?

Absolutely. All of these exercises can be conducted via video conferencing. For the CRM exercise, use screen sharing or collaborative documents. For role plays, ensure both parties have a stable connection and consider recording the session (with permission) for later review.

Should the same interviewer conduct all exercises?

Ideally, different team members should evaluate different exercises based on their expertise. For example, a sales manager might assess the discovery call, while a senior BDR could evaluate the outreach messages. This provides multiple perspectives on the candidate's abilities.

The quality of your BDR hiring process directly impacts your sales pipeline and revenue growth. By incorporating these practical work samples and role plays, you'll identify candidates who not only talk about sales skills but can actually demonstrate them in realistic scenarios.

Ready to take your BDR hiring process to the next level? Yardstick offers powerful tools to help you design and execute exceptional candidate interviews. Generate customized job descriptions with our AI Job Description Generator, create targeted interview questions with our AI Interview Question Generator, and build comprehensive interview guides with our AI Interview Guide Generator. Check out our example BDR job description at https://yardstick.team/job-description/business-development-representative-bdr for more insights.

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