I have shortlisted three candidates. All from large competitors. All senior.
They will not succeed, like the last two.
Why?
What is your interview process?
Three rounds. HR screening, a mock sales pitch, then a final with me.
In the mock pitch, what are you evaluating?
Communication, confidence, articulation, product knowledge. It is instinct — you know a good one when you see one.
A mock pitch tests interviewing, not pipeline building
What instinct sees in a mock pitch is someone who interviews well. That is a different skill from building pipeline at a company nobody has heard of yet.
They have all sold B2B before — with their company's brand, its pre-sales and business development team, its CRM, its warm territory and its marketing team filling the top of the funnel. Strip all of that away and what is left is the question the interview never asks.
"Probably still good sellers" is a ₹25 lakh gamble per hire
The one question that tests the real job
The Zero-Support Deal Test
Ask for a deal they closed with zero support
No warm introduction, no business development team, no brand name. Pure prospecting to close.
Count the people who handed them the lead
If three or more people were involved in giving them the opportunity, look again.
Score it against a rubric, not instinct
Write down what a good answer contains before the interview.
None of his three would have passed. Which is why the last two did not work either.
It is not a hiring problem. It is an interview design problem
Founder-led sales hires stars. System-led revenue builds an environment where execution becomes repeatable.
Related: 283% of target, then four hires and two empty quarters — what happens when this goes wrong.