A sales assessment test measures traits or skills linked to selling, such as drive, resilience, reasoning or how someone handles a sales conversation. Used well, it adds evidence to an interview. Used alone, it can screen out good salespeople and let weak ones through, because no test predicts sales results as well as a candidate’s actual record against quota. The best use is as one input alongside proof of past performance.
What types of sales assessment are there?
- Personality and behavioural tests. Questionnaires that score traits such as competitiveness, persistence and sociability. Quick to run and cheap, but candidates can often guess the answers you want.
- Cognitive or reasoning tests. Timed problems that measure how quickly someone learns and reasons. Useful for complex sales where reps must master a technical product.
- Sales skills tests. Scenario questions on prospecting, discovery, objections and closing. They show whether someone knows the right approach, not whether they use it.
- Role plays and simulations. A live call or meeting with a mock buyer. The closest thing to watching the candidate work, and the hardest to fake.
- Work samples. A written prospecting email, an account plan or a short presentation. Good for seeing preparation and written communication.
What can a sales assessment tell you?
An assessment can flag patterns worth asking about: someone who scores low on resilience, for instance, deserves a question about how they handled a bad quarter. A role play shows listening and questioning skills in a way a résumé can’t. And a work sample shows effort: candidates who prepare well for an assessment usually prepare well for buyers.
What can’t it tell you?
An assessment can’t tell you whether someone will hit your quota with your product, your customers and your sales cycle. Personality scores in particular describe tendencies, not results. Plenty of top performers score as “average” on a profile, and plenty of strong-scoring candidates have never hit a number.
That’s why the strongest signal is still the record: what quota the candidate carried, what share of it they hit, and how comparable that job was to yours. We explain how to get at that in our list of sales interview questions.
How should you use a sales assessment in hiring?
- Check the record first. Screen on quota attainment, deal size and sales cycle before anyone takes a test.
- Use the assessment to shape the interview, not to make the decision. Turn low scores into specific questions.
- Run a role play for the finalists. Base it on a real buyer your team sells to.
- Be consistent. Give every finalist the same assessment, at the same stage, scored the same way.
- Keep it short. Strong candidates usually have other options. A long testing process loses them.
Are sales assessments fair?
They can be if they’re relevant to the job, used the same way for every candidate and not used as the only reason to reject someone. Tell candidates what the assessment involves and how it will be used. If you use a third-party test, ask the provider how it was validated for sales roles.
How Sales Talent Group assesses candidates
We assess every candidate before you meet them, and the core of it is verifying performance: quota history, attainment, rank, deal size and the kind of customers they sold to, checked against your territory. Candidates who pass that come to you with a detailed profile, so your time goes into the interviews that matter. We’re confident enough in the result to guarantee that your hire reaches their first-year quota.
Read about our guarantee or start a search.
Questions about sales assessment tests
Do sales assessment tests predict performance?
Some do better than others, but none predicts sales results as reliably as a candidate’s record of hitting quota in a comparable role. Use assessments to add evidence, not to replace it.
When should a sales assessment happen in the hiring process?
After an initial screen on past results and before final interviews. Testing everyone who applies wastes time, and testing only at the very end means the results can’t shape your interviews.
What is the best sales assessment for SDRs?
For entry-level roles with little track record, a short role play and a written prospecting exercise tell you the most. They show curiosity, coachability and effort, which matter more than experience for most SDR hires. See how to build an SDR team quickly.
