How to hire sales reps: the interview, then the first 90 days

Most bad sales hires look great in the interview. That's the problem. Salespeople are good at interviews, because an interview is a sales meeting where the product is themselves.

So a process built on "do I like this person?" hires the best interviewer. A process that works asks them to do the job, in small pieces, before you hire them. If you run a team of 3 to 20, or have no team yet, and there's no recruiter, you'll run every step yourself, so each one has to be short.

Hire your first rep when three things are true:

• You win deals in a way you can write down. If you can't describe how a lead becomes a deal in plain steps, a new rep invents their own method and you can't coach it.
• You have more leads than you can follow up. A rep with an empty pipeline fails however good they are, so if leads are thin, fix that first.
• Your own selling is the bottleneck. If enquiries wait two days because you're in meetings, you have one. If they wait because there's no follow-up routine, a hire won't fix it.

Put every live lead on one list with a next date beside each before you decide. A long list of overdue dates is a follow-up problem; a long list of leads you never reached is a hiring one.

Before you write a word of the ad, write down the job. Answer these for yourself:

The line that trips most small teams is "where the leads come from". A rep who has only worked leads handed to them can struggle to find their own, so hire for the job you actually have.

Then write the ad from the profile, and put the hard parts in it: cold calling, weekend events, a target from month three. The people who apply anyway are the ones who'll stay. The sales rep job description template lays out the sections. Add one request to the ad: two sentences on a deal they chased for more than a month, and what they did next. Anyone who skips it has told you something.

The best small-team hires usually come from people you already know of. Job boards come last.

• Referrals from your team and clients. Asking "who's the best salesperson who's ever sold to you?" turns up names you'd never find on a job site.
• Reps at companies that sell to the same buyers. Check any non-compete terms before you approach them.
• People in customer-facing jobs outside sales, such as hospitality, retail or customer service, who are good with people and want to earn on results. They need more training and often stay longer.
• Job boards and LinkedIn, which bring volume and need a fast screen.

Note where each applicant came from, so next time you know which source to use again. Wherever they come from, screen with a 15-minute phone call: have they sold something like this, to buyers like these, the way you sell?

Look for habits you can check, not charm. Score every candidate on the same sheet, straight after the interview and before you talk to anyone about them.

Score each from 1 to 5 with a one-line note, and don't change the sheet halfway through a round, or the first and last candidates aren't comparable. Hire for habits first and product knowledge second. You can teach a product in a week; teaching someone to chase a quiet lead takes far longer.

A good sales interview has three parts, and the middle one matters most. Ask every candidate the same questions in the same order, and score the answers on the same sheet, so you compare people and not your mood on the day. The sales interview questions page has a full set to pick from.

Part 1: their record (20 minutes)

Ask about real deals, and keep asking what happened next.

• "Walk me through the last deal you won, from the first contact to signed."
• "Tell me about a deal you lost that you should have won. What would you do differently?"
• "What was your target last year, and where did you finish? How did the months go?"
• "Where did your leads come from, and how many did you find yourself?"

A strong rep remembers names, numbers and the moment a deal turned. A weak one talks about "building relationships".

Part 2: a role-play (20 minutes)

Give them a short brief a day ahead: who the buyer is, what you sell, what the buyer's problem is. Then you play the buyer on a first call.

Play a realistic buyer: a bit busy, brief with your answers, and ready with one objection you hear every week. Watch for:

• Do they ask questions before they pitch?
• Do they listen to the answers and ask a follow-up?
• How do they handle the objection? Do they get defensive, or ask what's behind it?
• Do they ask for a next step with a date?

Then give one piece of feedback and run the last five minutes again. The change between the two rounds is your coachability score. Ask them too what they'd change about their own call. A rep who can see their mistakes is a rep you can coach.

Part 3: their questions (10 minutes)

Good reps ask about the leads, the target, how deals are won and who they'd learn from.

For your final two or three candidates, set one task that looks like the job and takes under two hours. Pay for it if it's longer.

• Write the first email and a follow-up to a real type of buyer you sell to.
• Research three companies from your list and say which to call first, and why.
• Listen to a recorded sales call, with the caller's permission, and name three things the rep should change.
• Answer a chat that reads "Hi, saw your page, how much?" in under 80 words, then plan the callback.

You're checking whether they can do the work and how they take instructions. Polished writing is a bonus.

Then call a former manager and ask two questions: "Would you hire them again?" and "What did you have to coach them on?" A pause before the first answer tells you a lot.

A vague answer about pay loses good candidates. Pick the structure before you advertise, and say it in the ad.

Base plus commission is the usual choice for a first rep, because it keeps a new person steady while they learn your buyers. Commission only has a legal catch in the US: the Department of Labor's fact sheet on outside sales says the exemption from minimum wage and overtime covers reps whose main duty is selling and who work away from your premises as a rule. A rep who sells from your office doesn't qualify for it, so check the minimum wage and overtime rules before you offer commission only.

In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says most employers of wholesale and manufacturing sales reps pay a mix of salary and commission or salary plus bonus. It puts their median annual wage at $72,080 in May 2025, and $104,920 for reps selling technical and scientific products. In Singapore, the Ministry of Manpower's list of key employment terms includes bonuses and incentives alongside basic salary, the probation period and the notice period, so the commission rules belong in the written terms too.

Before you make an offer, write down:

• The base pay and the variable part.
• What counts as a sale, and when it's counted: signed, paid or delivered.
• When commission is paid, and what happens if a client cancels.
• The target for a ramped rep, and the lower target for the first months.
• Any cap or accelerator.

Keep it to one page and walk through a made-up month with them. The sales commission plan template has the sections. Don't promise what they'll earn; show how the plan works and let them do the sums.

A new rep's first three months decide whether they stay and succeed. Plan them before the start date.

• Days 1 to 30: learn the product, the buyers and the process. Sit in on calls. Make first calls on easier lists. No revenue target, but a clear activity number.
• Days 31 to 60: run their own first meetings with you listening in on some. A reduced target.
• Days 61 to 90: a full activity target and a partial revenue target. Weekly 1:1s about the numbers and one skill.

Sales rep onboarding has a week-by-week plan for the first month and what happens from day 31 to day 90.

Watch activity before results. A new rep who isn't making the calls by week six is telling you something, no matter what they say in the 1:1. Step the target up month by month, and judge deals only once a full sales cycle of yours has passed.

Scaling a sales team too early burns cash. Too late, and leads go cold. Hire the next rep when most of these are true:

• Your current reps are at or near target, and have been for a quarter.
• Leads are waiting. Enquiries sit for days, or reps have more follow-ups than they can make.
• You know how a new rep gets to target, because you've done it at least once.
• You can afford the new rep's ramp: several months of pay before they cover their cost.
• Someone has time to coach them. A new rep with no manager's time is a rep who leaves.

Hire two at once if you can, so you get a fairer read on whether the process or the person is the problem. Past five or six reps, somebody needs to manage the team as their main job. How to manage a sales team covers what that job looks like.

• Hiring before the process is written down. A rep can't follow a method you haven't described.
• Skipping the test task. Interviews reward people who talk well; the task shows who works well.
• Hiring more reps than your leads can feed. Two reps on one thin pipeline compete instead of closing.
• Vague commission rules. If they fit on one line, something's missing.
• Letting a poor fit run. Coach fast, set a review date, and decide on that date.

1. Check the three signs that you're ready.
2. Write the profile from the job you actually have.
3. Ask your team and three clients for names before you post an ad.
4. Write a one-page role-play brief, a scoring sheet and a two-hour test task.
5. Put the pay plan on one page, with a worked month, and plan days 1 to 90 before the start date.

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives (pay, May 2025), read 27 October 2026
• U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #17F: Exemption for outside sales employees under the FLSA, read 27 October 2026
• Ministry of Manpower, Singapore, Key employment terms (KETs), read 27 October 2026