How to hire a salesperson

The first person you hire to sell is a different job from every sales hire after them. You are looking for someone who can find the pipeline, close it and help you work out what the sales process should be, then you test that with a pitch and a role-play, not just a conversation. This playbook covers who to hire first, what it costs, where to find candidates, a four-step interview plan, questions, evaluation and pay.

When to hire your first salesperson

Hire when founder-led sales has produced a motion you can describe. You know who buys, why they buy and roughly how a deal moves from first call to signature, and the limiting factor is your time, not your product. If you cannot yet explain how deals close, a new hire will mostly inherit your confusion.

Signs you are ready:

• You have closed deals yourself, with more than one type of buyer.
• Leads are waiting, follow-ups are slipping or calls are being rushed.
• You can write down the pitch, the common objections and your answers.
• You can afford the ramp. A new rep needs months to produce, so plan for the gap before they hit quota.

Our own write-ups cover this in more depth: how to hire your first sales rep goes through defining the role and the qualities of a builder, and your first sales hire covers timing.

AE, SDR or sales leader: choosing the role

For a first hire, look for a full-cycle seller: someone who prospects, runs discovery, demos, negotiates and closes. Early on there is rarely enough volume to justify splitting those roles. A sales leader makes sense when the founder is no longer the best person to coach the team, not before.

What to look for in your first salesperson

• Builder instincts. They are comfortable with no playbook, a thin brand and a CRM with ten records in it.
• Domain credibility. They understand your buyer’s problems well enough to ask good questions in the first call.
• Self-direction. They set their own activity targets and follow up without being chased.
• Honesty about numbers. They can tell you exactly what they sold, to whom and how, including what they missed.
• Coachability. They take feedback in a role-play and change their approach the next time.

Write these down before the first interview. They become the criteria you evaluate candidates against below.

Red flags to probe. Vague answers about their own numbers, no specifics on how they found pipeline, blaming territory or product for every miss, and no questions about your buyers. Each is a reason to ask more, not an automatic no.

What it costs to hire a salesperson

Hiring a salesperson has three costs: the recruiting fee if you use outside help, your team’s time across a four-stage process, and the pay package itself. For pay, see the compensation section below and our compensation strategy guide. For the recruiting fee, Dover’s Marketplace publishes what companies actually paid for sales hires:

Recruiters on Dover set their own pricing, and you can engage them without a long-term contract. Weigh that against the time it takes your founders and managers to source, screen and interview on their own.

Where to find salespeople

Strong sellers are usually employed and not browsing job boards, so use more than one source.

• Referrals. Ask founders, advisors, investors and customers who the best seller they have worked with is. A warm introduction beats a cold message.
• Sales communities and networks. Look at sales Slack and Discord groups, meetups and alumni networks, and read each community’s rules before you post.
• Direct outreach. Search LinkedIn for sellers at companies that sell to a similar buyer, and write short, specific messages. See how to source candidates.
• Job boards. A general board brings volume for SDR roles, and a startup board suits account executives. See where to post jobs and find candidates.
• Universities and bootcamps for entry-level SDR roles.
• A vetted recruiter. Recruiters on Dover’s Marketplace who hire salespeople can run the search while you stay in the interviews.

In Dover’s ATS, post the job to 50+ job boards from one place, post to Dover Startup Jobs if you are a venture-backed startup, and see which source produces hires in Reporting & Analytics. See Managing job boards.

A four-step interview plan for sales hires

Tailor the order to your hiring volume. The plan below fits a startup that wants a decision within a couple of weeks. For the principles behind it, see our guide to interview process best practices.

1. Recruiter or founder screen (30 minutes). Confirm experience, motivation, location and compensation expectations. Our guide to phone screens has a script.
2. Hiring manager interview (45 to 60 minutes). A deep dive into deals they have run, how they prospect and how they work. Use the behavioral and process questions below.
3. Pitch and role-play (about 90 minutes in total). The candidate presents their take-home pitch, then runs a live discovery call with a colleague playing the buyer.
4. Founder or leadership conversation (30 to 45 minutes). Evaluate judgment, coachability and whether they want this job. Sell the company here, honestly.

Optional but worth it for a first hire: a short, non-evaluative chat with someone from product or customer success, so the candidate meets the people they will depend on after the sale.

The take-home sales pitch

Give every finalist the same assignment and cap it at about two to three hours, so you are not asking for a free project. Share the prompt in writing and tell them how long the presentation should run.

Imagine you are selling [product] to [fictional customer description: role, company size, industry, what they use today]. Prepare a [10-minute] pitch for a first meeting. Include: what you believe their biggest problems are and why, how [product] addresses them, how you would qualify whether this is a good fit, two objections you expect and how you would handle them, and what next step you would ask for. Send your slides or a one-page document by [date]. We will give you 10 minutes to present it, followed by questions.

Evaluate it against the same criteria as the role-play. Look for research that went beyond your homepage, a point of view on the buyer’s problems and an ask at the end. Treat polish as secondary to thinking.

The live role-play

Have one interviewer play a prospect with a realistic scenario and a few planted objections. Brief that interviewer so every candidate gets the same version.

Before the call, share only the buyer’s role and company type. During the call, the candidate should:

1. Open the conversation and set an agenda.
2. Ask discovery questions and uncover the goals, constraints and decision process.
3. Present only the parts of your product that match what they heard.
4. Handle two or three objections, such as price, timing or an existing vendor.
5. Ask for a specific next step.

Afterward, ask the candidate how they thought it went. Self-awareness about what they missed is a strong signal.

In Dover, build this plan on the job’s Interview Plan tab. Use a single-part stage for the screen and the hiring manager interview, a multipart stage for the pitch and role-play, and an assessment stage for the take-home. Assign each a feedback form and an email template, and send candidates a scheduling link from their profile. See Setting up your interview plan.

Interview questions for salespeople

Use three to five from each bank, and ask the same questions to every candidate for the same stage.

Track record and deal experience

• Walk me through a deal you are proud of, from first contact to close. What did you do differently from another rep?
• Tell me about a deal you lost. When did you know, and what would you change?
• What was your quota last year, how did you do against it and what drove that result?
• Describe your typical sales cycle and where deals tend to stall.

Building from scratch

• Imagine you start Monday with no leads and no brand recognition. What do you do in your first 30 days?
• How would you decide which type of customer to focus on first?
• What would you want to see from the product or marketing team to do your best work?

Prospecting and pipeline

• Where does your pipeline come from today? How much is outbound, inbound or referral?
• Describe how you research an account before a first call.
• How do you decide when to stop pursuing a prospect?

Discovery and objection handling

• What are your first five discovery questions for a new prospect?
• A buyer says your price is too high. What do you do?
• A deal looks good, then the champion goes quiet. What happens next?

Motivation and fit

• Why this company and this role, as opposed to a larger team with a brand?
• What kind of manager gets the best out of you?
• What are you looking for in your next role that you did not get in your last one?

Reference checks for sales candidates

Do them for finalists, after the role-play and before the offer. Sales claims are easy to inflate and easy to check.

• Ask the former manager for the quota, the attainment and how the candidate ranked on the team. Treat vague answers as an answer.
• Ask how the candidate behaved in a slump and how they responded to coaching.
• Ask whether the manager would rehire them and in what kind of role.
• If you can, speak to a peer or a former customer or colleague who worked closely with them, not only the references the candidate provided.
• Compare the stories to what the candidate told you. Gaps matter more than flattering adjectives.

Ask candidates for permission before you contact a current employer.

How to evaluate sales candidates

Evaluate each candidate against the same criteria right after the interview, before you compare notes with other interviewers. Write what you saw and heard, not a number.

Decide in advance which criteria are must-haves. A weak showing on discovery or honesty about numbers should outweigh a polished pitch.

Interview feedback form

Give every interviewer the same short form. Dover’s ATS can attach interview feedback forms to each stage of your interview plan, or you can use a shared document.

1. Overall recommendation: strong yes, yes, no, strong no.
2. For each criterion assigned to you, one or two lines of evidence: what the candidate said or did.
3. The strongest signal from this interview.
4. The biggest concern.
5. What we should probe in the next round.

Ask interviewers to submit their feedback before they read anyone else’s. Compare notes in a short debrief, not in a chat thread.

In Dover, create this as a feedback form in Settings → Feedback Forms and assign it to each stage, so every interviewer answers the same questions. On Premium, the AI Notetaker can capture the conversation and fill in the form.

Sales compensation and closing the offer

How to structure sales compensation

Decide the structure before you post the role, so you can state it in the first conversation. For market data, see our compensation strategy guide; this section covers the vocabulary and the decisions, not figures.

• Base salary. Fixed pay, regardless of results.
• Variable pay. Commission or bonus tied to results, usually a percentage of revenue or a fixed amount per closed deal.
• OTE (on-target earnings). Base plus variable if the rep hits 100% of quota. Say how it splits, for example “[X]% base, [Y]% variable”.
• Quota. The number the rep is expected to hit in a period, such as new revenue or bookings. Attainment is the percentage of quota actually delivered.
• Ramp. A period at the start where the quota is reduced or guaranteed variable pay applies, because a new rep cannot close at full speed on day one.
• Equity. Often part of the offer at a startup. Explain the number of shares, the vesting schedule and what they are worth in plain terms.

Questions to settle with your team:

1. What should the quota be, and what evidence supports it?
2. Is variable pay uncapped, capped or accelerated above quota?
3. How are commissions calculated and when are they paid? For example, on signature or on payment.
4. What happens to commissions if a customer churns or an account is reassigned?
5. How long is the ramp, and what is guaranteed during it?

Write the plan down and give it to the candidate before the offer. Ambiguity here is the most common cause of early departures. When it is time to extend the offer, use our guide to making an offer.

Close a sales hire

Strong salespeople are usually interviewing elsewhere and know how to run a process. Move quickly after the final round, decide within a day or two and call them yourself. Be clear about the quota, the compensation plan, the ramp and the pipeline they will inherit. Then follow the steps in how to make an offer.

Common mistakes when hiring salespeople

• Hiring a sales leader too early. Without a repeatable motion, a VP has nothing to lead. Hire a seller first.
• Hiring on charisma. Smooth talkers interview well. Test selling with a pitch and a role-play.
• No written compensation plan. Quota, variable pay, ramp and commission rules should be on paper before the offer.
• Copying a big-company quota. An early team needs a quota based on your own deals, not a template.
• Skipping references. Former managers can tell you what a candidate’s numbers really looked like.
• Cloning the founder. The person who can sell the way you do may not be able to build a process.
• Moving slowly. Strong sellers are interviewing elsewhere. Decide within a day or two of the final round.

Get help hiring a salesperson

Hiring your first seller is one of the hardest searches for a small team: the best candidates are interviewing elsewhere, and you need someone who knows what good looks like. Dover’s Marketplace connects you with vetted independent and fractional recruiters who have made sales hires, and you can engage them without a long-term contract. They run sourcing, screening and scheduling, and every candidate stays in your own free ATS.

• Browse recruiters who hire salespeople and see what past sales hires cost.
• Run the process in Dover’s free ATS with interview plans, feedback forms and offers.

Frequently asked questions

Should my first sales hire be an AE or an SDR?

Usually an account executive who can prospect and close, because an early team rarely has enough pipeline to split those jobs. SDRs fit better once a repeatable motion exists for them to feed.

What is the best way to test a salesperson in an interview?

Have them sell to you. A take-home pitch plus a live role-play of a discovery call shows how they research, ask questions, handle objections and ask for the next step, which a conversation about past wins cannot.

How should I check references for a sales candidate?

Ask former managers for specifics: the quota they carried, how they performed against it, how they handled a slump and whether they would rehire them. Also ask peers or customers what working with them was like, and look for stories that match what the candidate told you.

What does OTE mean in a sales offer?

OTE stands for on-target earnings: base salary plus the variable pay a rep earns by hitting 100% of quota. Always state the base, the variable amount and the quota separately so candidates can compare offers accurately.

How many interview rounds should a sales hire go through?

Three to four stages is typical for a startup: a screen, a hiring manager interview, a pitch or role-play, and a final conversation with the founder. More than that slows you down and loses candidates to faster offers.

How much does it cost to hire a salesperson?

It depends on how you hire. A traditional recruiting agency typically charges 15 to 25% of first-year salary, while Dover's Marketplace publishes the all-in cost of each sales hire, shown in the live table on this page. Add your team's interview time and the pay package.

Where do you find salespeople to hire?

Start with referrals from founders, advisors and investors, then sales communities, LinkedIn outreach and job boards. A general board brings volume for SDRs, a startup board suits account executives, and a vetted recruiter can run the search for you.