Every few months, I open up a new req on my team. And every time I do, my inbox fills with resumes that look almost identical: president’s club mentions, quota attainment percentages, a list of CRMs they’ve used, maybe a line about being “a hunter, not a farmer.” I quickly skim them, and most of them blur together.
Here’s the truth after two decades of building B2B sales teams: the resume tells me almost nothing about whether someone will actually succeed on my floor. What I’m really hunting for sits underneath the bullet points. When I sit across from a candidate, these are the five things I need to see before I’ll hand them a territory, a pipeline, and a seat in the office.
1. Genuine Curiosity About the Buyer
I can teach product. I can teach process. But I cannot teach someone to be interested in other people. The best reps I’ve ever hired ask questions the way other people breathe — not because they’re running a discovery script, but because they actually want to understand how a prospect’s business works, where the pressure is coming from this quarter, and what keeps that VP of Operations up at night.
When I interview, I watch for this in real time. Does the candidate ask me about our market, our customers, our competitive landscape? Or are they just waiting for their turn to pitch themselves? Curiosity is the single biggest predictor of discovery quality I’ve ever found, and discovery quality is the single biggest predictor of close rates. It’s that simple.
2. A Healthy Relationship With Rejection
Sales is a profession where your best day might include fifteen “no’s” before lunch. I need people who can take a punch and keep their footwork clean. That doesn’t mean I want someone who’s numb to rejection — numbness leads to sloppy follow-through. I want someone who feels the sting, processes it fast, and walks into the next call without baggage.
I often ask candidates to tell me about the worst quarter of their career. Not the best — anyone can rehearse a highlight reel. I want to hear how they talked to themselves when the pipeline was dry and the forecast was ugly. If they blame the product, the marketing team, or the territory, I’m out. If they tell me what they changed about their own approach, I’m leaning in.
3. Business Acumen
There’s a difference between a rep who can sell and a rep who understands business. The first one hits quota in good markets and misses in bad ones. The second one hits regardless, because they know how to read a deal — where the budget is really coming from, who the silent blocker is, whether the economic buyer actually feels the pain or is just rubber-stamping their director’s enthusiasm.
Commercial instinct shows up in how candidates talk about past deals. Do they describe the customer’s P&L impact, or do they describe features and demos? Do they know what their deals were worth to the buyer, not just to their own commission statement? I’ll take a rep with strong commercial instinct and average pitch skills over a polished presenter who can’t read a room, every single time.
4. Accountability Without Drama
My favorite question in an interview is a boring one: “Tell me about a forecast you missed.” The answers sort people into two piles immediately. Pile one explains the circumstances — the deal slipped, the champion left, procurement got involved late. Pile two says, “I called it wrong. Here’s what I missed in my qualification, and here’s what I do differently now.”
I hire out of pile two. Always. Accountability is about having a clear enough view of your own work to improve it. Reps who own their misses own their wins too, and they’re the ones who compound over time.
5. A Reason Beyond the Money
I pay my people well. That’s table stakes. But if the only thing driving a candidate is the commission check, they’ll burn out or leave the moment a competitor dangles a bigger number. I want to know what else is in the tank — the craft of selling, the competition, the problem-solving, the wins for customers. Something sustainable.
So! If you’re reading this and you recognize yourself in all five, we should talk. The bar is high on purpose. The people who clear it build careers here, not just quarters. And in fact, I’d even say they start building legacies here.
Until next time…
Johnny-Lee Reinoso