In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with Jeremy Ruch, Founder of ‘Bandalier’. He shares how to interview SDRs who don't have any experience.

Episode Highlights

• 01:14 – Jeremy mentions, most of the companies they work with would say, it is one of the most risk-prone and one of the hardest hires that they make across the entire organization. 
• 04:16 – It was kind of the nexus of two things that made him want to start a company to take a shot at the beginning to solve that problem, highlights Jeremy.
• 05:15 – Sam enquires, how Jeremy tackles hiring SDRs that don't have the experience like a typical salesperson does?
• 07:15 - The first thing is to identify what those traits are, and ensure that those traits are predictive.
• 09:35 – Jeremy states that he always recommends starting with a scorecard, especially if you're designing a high-volume recruiting process, seeing how well the scores match up to the performance in the roles knowing that in those first few hires, you're going to make a few mistakes because your scorecard is not going to be perfect.
• 13:01 - It's possible to find folks with 6 to 12 months of SDR experience who are killing it in cold calling roles that are new, mentions Jeremy.
• 16:10 - It doesn't matter what the scenario is; it's about describing a time where you faced some type of adversity in some way.
• 18:11 - If you were answering the resilience question and describing bouncing back from adversity by lying to somebody about a certain thing that would be a red flag, that showcases the lack of integrity, but beyond that, it is pretty linear.
• 20:17 – The guest says, they’re trying to build out a matrix where every single person who goes through their interview process will have scores with an overall score, but also scores within each of those sub-areas.
• 22:00 – Jeremy explains, how assessment and exercise are as close to the role as possible.
• 24:44 – You should be ensuring that your process as closely as possible matches the role that you're going to have these folks in, says Jeremy 
• 26:34 – Jeremy says they have specific areas where they’re assessing if they took and implemented feedback. That's something they’re certainly going to take note of.
• 27:04 - When you're bringing somebody on, why are those first two, or three weeks critical from a validation standpoint, enquires Jeremy.
• 29:49 – Jeremy highlights, if you don't have the experience of having done this with hundreds of people, it's tough to know where to set those baseline parameters. 
• 31:14 – Jeremy shares, they try to make note of all that feedback, and then every six to 12 months they go back to the interview rubric and redo it.
• 33:49 – Sam asks Jeremy about a good sampling to start making changes to the rubric.
• 35:46 – The most common areas where they see red flags are on the ability to take feedback, and they take this seriously, mentions Jeremy.
• 38:37 - There are folks whose default is to push back feedback which becomes an issue.
• 41:34 – People with more experience sometimes choose less flattering examples, says Jeremy.

Three Key Points

1. Jeremy explains how they tackle hiring SDRs with no experience. For the past four and a half years, they’ve designed an interview process where they’re asking questions designed to get at specific traits. Grading out those questions in a very structured way and then every 6 to 12 months, they go back and look at the predictability of those questions of the traits once they&r