Sales Interview Take-Home Exercise Pack
Three graded take-home exercises — a mock discovery call, a cold email, and a deal review — each with a scoring rubric, so every candidate is evaluated against the same bar.
What's inside
- Exercise 1: live mock discovery call brief + buyer persona script + 100-point rubric
- Exercise 2: cold email exercise brief + 100-point rubric
- Exercise 3: deal-review case study with sample pipeline data, 4 questions, and 100-point rubric
- Combined weighted scoring sheet by role level
- Administration guide (which exercises for SDR vs. AE vs. senior/manager)
- Grader reconciliation rule for score disagreements
Three exercises, three different skills. Use all three for a final-round AE hire; use just Exercise 2 for SDR roles; use Exercise 1 + 3 for experienced/senior AE or sales-manager candidates who don't need to prove cold-outreach skill.
Exercise 1 — Mock Discovery Call
Format: 20-minute live call, candidate leads, interviewer role-plays the buyer persona below. When to use: final-round AE/closing-role candidates.
Send to candidate 24 hours ahead:
You'll be running a 20-minute discovery call with our VP of Operations, "Morgan," who is evaluating [Company]'s product for the first time. Come with a discovery plan — we're not looking for a scripted pitch, we're looking for how you think through uncovering the real problem.
Interviewer persona brief (Morgan, VP of Operations):
- Company: 200-employee logistics company
- Real pain (reveal only if asked good questions): losing ~6 hours/week per site manager to manual scheduling conflicts; has tried a competitor tool that failed on adoption because it wasn't mobile-friendly
- Personality: mildly guarded, gives short answers unless the candidate asks a real follow-up; will not volunteer the mobile-adoption failure unless asked "what have you tried before, and what happened?"
- Budget authority: real but not final — reports to a COO
Rubric (100 points)
| Element | Points | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Opens with agenda/permission, not straight into questions | 10 | Sets expectations for the call before diving in |
| Asks open questions before pitching | 20 | Doesn't pitch in the first 5 minutes |
| Follows the thread (asks about the failed prior tool without being prompted) | 25 | Single highest-signal item — surfaces whether they actually listen |
| Quantifies the pain (gets to the "6 hours/week" or equivalent) | 15 | Doesn't accept a vague pain statement at face value |
| Identifies buying process/other stakeholders | 15 | Asks who else is involved, and about the COO |
| Confirms next step before ending call | 15 | Doesn't end on "I'll follow up" — proposes something concrete |
Exercise 2 — Cold Email Exercise
Format: written, 30–45 minutes, take-home. When to use: SDR/BDR roles and AE roles where outbound is part of the job.
Brief: Write a cold outbound email to Jamie Reyes, VP of Operations at a 40-location regional restaurant group who has never heard of [Company], which sells shift-scheduling software for multi-location retail/restaurant operators.
Scoring: Subject line (5) / Relevance & personalization (10) / Value prop clarity (10) / Call to action (5) / Structure & brevity (10) = 40 points. (Pair with 3 written objection responses, 20 points each = 60 points, for a combined 100 — see the full brief and rubric in the companion "Sales Aptitude & Skills Test (Pre-Hire)" resource.)
Exercise 3 — Deal Review / Pipeline Judgment Case Study
Format: written, 45 minutes, take-home. When to use: senior AE and sales-manager candidates — tests judgment, not just execution.
Brief given to candidate:
Below is a simplified pipeline snapshot for one rep's book of business. You have 45 minutes. Answer the four questions that follow.
Sample pipeline data (adapt names/numbers to your business):
| Deal | Stage | Value | Days in stage | Last activity | Close date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acme Foods | Proposal | $85,000 | 41 | Emailed proposal, no reply, 12 days ago | This month | Champion went quiet after proposal sent |
| Bolt Logistics | Negotiation | $120,000 | 9 | Call 2 days ago, discussing terms | Next month | Legal review in progress |
| Crestline Retail | Discovery | $40,000 | 5 | Discovery call yesterday | This month (rep-set) | Single call so far, no economic buyer identified |
| Delta Manufacturing | Verbal Commit | $200,000 | 60 | No activity logged in 22 days | This month | "Verbal yes" logged 60 days ago, nothing since |
Questions:
- Which deals do you trust in this month's forecast, and which do you not? Why, specifically?
- What's the single most important next action on each deal?
- If you were this rep's manager, what's the one coaching conversation you'd have with them this week based on this data alone?
- What does this pipeline snapshot tell you about this rep's habits, independent of any one deal?
Rubric (100 points)
| Element | Points | What "great" looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Correctly flags Delta as forecast risk | 20 | Recognizes stale "verbal commit" + no activity as the highest-risk deal, not the biggest opportunity |
| Correctly flags Acme's stalled proposal | 20 | Identifies champion going quiet as a real risk signal, not just "waiting to hear back" |
| Realistic, specific next actions (not generic "follow up") | 20 | E.g., "re-engage Acme's champion with a specific new angle, not a check-in email" |
| Identifies the coaching conversation (CRM hygiene / stale deal follow-up habit) | 25 | Names the pattern (lets deals go stale without escalating) rather than one deal in isolation |
| Synthesizes a pattern across the whole book, not deal-by-deal only | 15 | Answer to Q4 shows systems-level thinking, e.g., "this rep needs a forced re-qualification trigger at 30 days no-activity" |
Combined Scoring Sheet
| Exercise | Weight (AE/senior role) | Weight (SDR role) | Score | Weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 — Discovery Call | 40% | — | /100 | |
| 2 — Cold Email | 30% | 100% | /100 | |
| 3 — Deal Review | 30% | — | /100 | |
| Total | 100% | 100% | /100 |
How to administer
- SDR/BDR: Exercise 2 only, take-home, before first interview.
- AE (mid-level): Exercise 1 (live, final round) + Exercise 2 (take-home, early round).
- AE (senior) / Sales Manager: Exercise 1 (live) + Exercise 3 (take-home) — skip Exercise 2 unless outbound is core to the role.
- Grade all written exercises with two independent graders per the rubrics; reconcile any >15-point gap by discussing the specific line items before finalizing a score.
How to use it
Match the exercise combination to the role level using the administration guide, send the relevant written exercises as take-homes with the exact briefs provided, and score every exercise against its rubric with two independent graders before the debrief.