Cold Call & Discovery Roleplay Interview Script
A structured, 15-minute live roleplay hiring managers can run word-for-word to see real selling behavior under pressure instead of a rehearsed interview answer.
What's inside
- Interviewer setup and prep instructions
- The buyer persona brief to prepare before the interview
- Minute-by-minute run of show across the full 15 minutes
- Word-for-word objection lines to deploy at specific minutes
- Escalating difficulty structure (cold open, mid-call resistance, discovery deepen)
- Debrief question set for the final 2 minutes
- Scoring notes mapped back to the 7-Competency Hiring Rubric
15 minutes, live, structured — built to surface real selling behavior
This roleplay replaces "tell me about a time you handled an objection" with an actual objection, live. Give the candidate the scenario setup only — never the persona brief or the objection lines below.
Interviewer Prep (do this before the candidate arrives)
- Read and internalize the Buyer Persona Brief below — you are playing this person, not yourself.
- Decide in advance which 2 of the 3 objection lines you'll use (don't use all of them on every candidate — pick based on role seniority).
- Have a timer visible to you (not to the candidate).
- Brief a second interviewer, if present, to take notes only — one person plays the prospect, the other scores.
Buyer Persona Brief (interviewer's eyes only)
You are: Jordan Reyes, VP of Operations at a 300-person logistics company. Surface demeanor: Busy, mildly annoyed at the interruption, gives short answers. Hidden reality: You do have a real, unaddressed problem — your team is manually reconciling data across three systems and it cost you a $40K reporting error last quarter — but you will not volunteer this. It only surfaces if the candidate asks a real diagnostic question about how your team currently handles the process this call is about. What you're testing: Whether the candidate gets past your surface resistance to find the real problem, or gives up / pitches features at your polite brush-off.
Minute-by-Minute Run of Show
0:00–1:00 — Frame the Scenario (interviewer, out of character)
"I'm going to play a prospect named Jordan Reyes, VP of Operations. You're calling me cold — I don't know you, I didn't take a meeting, I picked up because I happened to be at my desk. Your goal is to get 15 minutes on my calendar next week. Take 30 seconds to think, then call whenever you're ready. Go ahead."
1:00–1:30 — Candidate Prep (silent, candidate-only)
1:30–8:00 — Cold Call Roleplay (in character, ~6.5 minutes) Open flat and busy: "Jordan speaking." Give short, mildly resistant answers. Deploy objections at these checkpoints:
- ~Minute 2 (early brush-off): "I've got about 90 seconds — what's this about?"
(Watch for: does the candidate ask a real question, or launch into a pitch under time pressure?)
- ~Minute 4 (deflection): "Yeah, we've already got a process for this. It's not really a priority right now."
(Watch for: does the candidate accept this at face value and move to close, or probe what "the process" actually looks like?)
- ~Minute 6 (stall): "Look, just send me something over email and I'll take a look when I get a chance."
(Watch for: does the candidate fold and agree to "send an email," or hold the line for a specific next step?)
If the candidate asks a genuine, specific diagnostic question about how the team currently handles the relevant process (not "how's business"), reveal a partial version of the hidden reality: "Honestly, it's a bit of a mess — we're pulling data from a few different systems by hand." Do not volunteer the $40K error unless they dig further.
8:00–9:00 — Transition (interviewer, out of character)
"Good stop there. Let's say that call actually landed a meeting. Fast-forward — I'm now sitting across from you for a discovery call. I've got real time now. Go ahead and pick up the conversation."
9:00–13:00 — Discovery Deepen (in character, ~4 minutes) Be more open now, but still don't volunteer the full picture unprompted. Reward specific questions with specific answers. If asked about business impact, reveal the $40K reporting error only if they ask directly what happens when the manual process goes wrong.
13:00–15:00 — Debrief (interviewer, out of character) Ask the candidate directly:
- "Walk me through what you think Jordan's real problem is, based on that call."
- "What's one thing you'd do differently if you ran that call again?"
- "Which moment in that call did you feel least confident in?"
Scoring Notes — Map to the 7-Competency Rubric
| What you observed | Competency |
|---|---|
| Asked specific, layered questions instead of accepting "we have a process" at face value | Discovery & Diagnostic Questioning |
| Responded to the actual words in the stall/deflection rather than a canned line | Active Listening & Objection Navigation |
| Connected the manual-process problem to cost/risk once uncovered | Value Articulation & Business Case Building |
| Held a clear, specific next step instead of accepting "send an email" | Process Discipline & Pipeline Management |
| Response to debrief question 2 and 3 — specific, non-defensive self-assessment | Coachability & Resilience |
| Tone, pacing, and structure across the full 15 minutes, especially under the early time-pressure objection | Communication & Executive Presence |
| Persistence past the first and second brush-off without becoming pushy | Drive & Self-Generation |
Score each competency 1–5 immediately after the debrief using the definitions in the 7-Competency Hiring Rubric, before discussing with any other interviewer.
How to use it
Print the Buyer Persona Brief for yourself only, run the 15 minutes on a visible timer without showing the candidate the objection checkpoints in advance, and score the 7-competency mapping table immediately afterward while the specifics are still fresh.