Sales Development Representative Interview Questions and Answers

Sales development representative interviews test whether you can do the hardest part of sales, starting conversations with people who did not ask for one, and keep doing it after rejection: your prospecting process, your activity and conversion numbers, how you handle objections and gatekeepers, and whether you are coachable. Expect a role-play cold call and a question about your worst week. Role-specific preparation is in AI interview help for SDRs and BDRs; the rejection question has a standard structure in how do you handle rejection, and the motivation question in how do you stay motivated. This page gives 10 questions with what a strong answer contains, 3 sample answers you can adapt, a table of the rounds to expect, and a practice plan for the week before.

What the interview looks like

Sales development representative interview questions and what strong answers contain

1. Walk me through your prospecting process from list to meeting. Targeting, research, sequence of calls, emails and social touches, qualification, booking, handoff.
2. What are your numbers? Activities per day, connect rate, meetings booked per month, show rate, quota attainment; honest.
3. Role-play: cold call me as a target persona. Permission-based opener, a relevant reason for the call, one question, ask for the meeting, handle the objection.
4. How do you handle 'send me an email' or 'we already have a vendor'? Acknowledge, one question that tests for pain, ask for a short meeting anyway, respect a real no.
5. Tell me about your worst week and what you did. The numbers, the cause, the change, the recovery.
6. How do you take coaching and feedback? Specific example of feedback that changed your approach and the result.
7. How do you research an account before reaching out? Triggers, roles, recent news, a relevant hook; time-boxed.
8. How do you work with account executives on handoffs? Qualification criteria, notes, shadowing, feedback loop.
9. Why sales, and where do you want to be in two years? Honest motivation and a realistic path.
10. How do you stay motivated through rejection? Routine, numbers, small wins, the team.

Sample answers

Walk me through your prospecting process.

I start with a tight list: accounts that match our ideal profile and show a trigger, a hiring spree, a new leader, a funding round. For each contact I write one personalised line from their world, not ours. Then a sequence over two weeks: call, email, call, a short video or social touch, call. On a connect I ask one question that tests for the pain we solve and ask for twenty minutes. Last quarter that process produced 14 qualified meetings a month against a target of 12.

How do you handle 'we already have a vendor'?

I say, 'That makes sense, most of the people I talk to do.' Then one question: 'When the renewal comes up, what would you want to be different?' If there is a real answer, I ask for fifteen minutes to show how we handle exactly that. If they say nothing would change and mean it, I thank them, ask when the renewal is, and set a reminder. A respected no now is a conversation in eight months.

Tell me about your worst week.

Early in my first SDR role I booked zero meetings in a week after a month of good numbers. My manager pulled the call recordings and I was talking for the first forty seconds. We rewrote my opener to get to a question in ten seconds, and I booked three the next week. I still listen to one of my own calls every week, which is the habit that week gave me.

Mistakes to avoid

• Numbers you cannot back up.
• A cold-call opener that pitches instead of asking.
• No worst week; it suggests you have not been doing it long or will not be honest.
• Treating coaching as criticism.

A practice plan for the week before

1. Write your numbers: activities, connect rate, meetings, show rate, attainment.
2. Research the company's product and a target persona; write a ten-second opener and three objection responses.
3. Write stories for your worst week, coaching that changed you and a handoff that worked.
4. Run a mock interview and practise the cold call aloud until the opener is natural.
5. Prepare questions about quota, ramp, tools, territory and the path to account executive.

Where CoPilot Interview fits

CoPilot Interview is an AI interview assistant whose free AI mock interview builds SDR questions from your résumé and the job description, reads them aloud, scores each spoken answer out of ten and shows a model answer, which is the fastest way to turn the outlines above into answers that sound like you. The free plan gives 15 minutes a day of live help in sessions of up to 15 minutes, with AI mock interviews included. Most SDRs use it to practice; if you ever consider live help in a video interview, follow your employer's rules.

Disclosure: CoPilot Interview is our product, so weigh what we say about it accordingly.

Frequently asked questions

What questions are asked in an SDR interview?

Your prospecting process, your numbers, a cold-call role-play, common objections, your worst week, coachability, account research, handoffs to account executives, why sales and staying motivated.

How should I handle the role-play?

A permission-based opener, a relevant reason for the call in one sentence, one question that tests for pain, an ask for a short meeting, and a calm response to the first objection.

What numbers should I bring?

Activities per day, connect rate, meetings booked per month, show rate and quota attainment, honestly.

What do sales managers look for in an SDR?

A repeatable process, resilience with evidence, coachability, curiosity about the customer and honest numbers.