Job knowledge test
Sales assessment test
Whether a candidate can do the parts of a sales job that move revenue: qualifying a lead honestly, answering an objection without reaching for a discount, keeping the arithmetic of a deal straight, and choosing what to work on when there is more pipeline than time.
- Time to complete
- About 25 minutes
- Format
- Four exercises: a call transcript, a written objection reply, deal arithmetic, a prioritisation task
- Test family
- Job knowledge
- Included in
- All plans
What this test can see, and what an interview cannot
A sales interview measures how well somebody interviews. That is a real skill, and it is the same skill the job needs for about the first ten minutes of a first call. After that the job is qualifying honestly when the deal looks good, answering an objection without reaching for a discount, keeping the numbers straight, and deciding what to do with a Tuesday that holds more pipeline than hours.
Those are the four things this test samples, and it samples them by handing over the material rather than asking about it. The candidate reads a call transcript and writes the qualification notes. They answer an objection in writing. They work out which of two deals is worth the month. They order a day's queue and say what they are dropping. Everyone applying for the role gets the same material and the same rubric, which matters more in sales than in most functions: quota attainment on a CV is self-reported, rarely adjusted for territory or for what the product was doing at the time, and impossible to compare between two candidates who came from different companies.
The four exercises a candidate works through
A discovery call that went well
A two-hundred-word transcript of a first call. The prospect is enthusiastic, mentions a budget cycle in passing, and never names anyone who signs.
What it separates Whether enthusiasm reads as a signal or as noise, and whether the notes record what is still unknown rather than only what was said.
An objection with an incumbent behind it
A reply saying the price is twenty percent above what they pay now, and that what they have works fine.
What it separates Whether the first move is a discount, a feature list or a question. Discounting on the first objection is the most common answer and the most expensive habit.
Two deals and one month
A deal sheet with amounts, discounts, close dates and stage ages for two opportunities, and a quota that only one of them makes.
What it separates Whether a pipeline reads as arithmetic or as optimism, and whether the candidate will actually name the deal they are dropping.
A Tuesday with too much in it
Eight things: three inbound leads of uneven quality, two inherited follow-ups, a renewal, an internal request, and a prospect who has gone quiet two weeks after a demo.
What it separates What gets done first, what gets dropped, and whether the quiet prospect gets one more specific reason to reply or gets written off.
How the objection reply is scored
Each part is scored on the output. The report shows the four parts separately and deliberately does not roll them into a single number.
That split is the point. A candidate who qualifies carefully but discounts on first contact is a different hire from one who holds price all day and fills the pipeline with deals that were never going to close, and one combined score puts both of them in the middle of the list. On the written objection reply, three things carry the weight:
- What they do before they answer. The strongest replies ask something before they argue. A reply that opens by negotiating against a number nobody has defended yet scores low, however well written it is.
- What they give away. Holding price with a reason scores above holding price with a slogan, and both score above a discount offered unprompted. Trading something for the discount scores at the top, because that is the behaviour that survives contact with a procurement team.
- Whether it can be read on a phone. Prospects read email between meetings. A reply that needs two passes has lost the thread, and length is not the same thing as effort.
The objection reply is marked by your team against a rubric shown beside the answer, the same criteria for every candidate. It is the human-marked piece on purpose: judging whether a reply lands is the judgement a sales manager is hired for, and an answer key would flatten exactly the thing worth reading.
What separates a strong result from a weak one
| Reading the report for | A strong candidate | A weak one |
|---|---|---|
| Qualification | Writes down what is still unknown and what would change the answer. | Records enthusiasm as progress. |
| Objection handling | Asks before arguing, and trades for anything conceded. | Opens with a discount, or with a list of features. |
| Deal arithmetic | Reads the numbers and names the deal being dropped. | Keeps both alive and misses the month. |
| Prioritisation | Works the two things that can close, and says what waits. | Works the queue in the order it arrived. |
| Follow-up | Gives the quiet prospect one specific reason to reply. | Sends a checking-in note, or writes them off. |
Roles it suits
- Account executive
- The role the test was shaped around, and the only one where all four parts carry equal weight. Build the interview on the answers rather than beside them: ask the candidate to defend the deal they dropped.
- Sales development rep
- Weight prioritisation and the written reply. Deal arithmetic barely applies to a role that never owns a close, so read a weak score there as noise. Where the job is mostly outbound email, the business writing test is a sharper measure of the part that fills the calendar.
- Inside sales and high-volume closing
- Deal arithmetic and prioritisation are the parts that predict. If the day is quoting and order maths rather than negotiation, the workplace numeracy test covers the arithmetic more thoroughly and in less time.
- Account manager and renewals
- Read the objection reply and the follow-up; qualification is close to irrelevant, because the account is already qualified. Pair it with the customer service scenario test, which covers the half of the job that is service rather than selling.
- Field and technical sales
- The discovery notes are the transferable part. Product depth has to come from a round your own team writes, because a test that stays neutral about what you sell cannot contain it.
Where a personality test for sales fits
Search for a sales assessment and half of what comes back is a personality questionnaire, usually resting on the idea that extraversion is what makes a salesperson. It is the most commercially successful assumption in the category and the weakest part of its evidence base. The trait most consistently related to job performance is conscientiousness, and the current meta-analytic estimate puts it at about .19 rather than at the near-certainty vendor pages imply. Extraversion sits lower.
We do not sell a sales personality profile, and that is a position rather than a gap. Under 29 CFR 1607.14(C)(1) a procedure that measures a trait cannot be defended on content validity, so unlike a work sample it cannot rest on visibly sampling the job. It needs criterion evidence gathered on a population like yours, which is what the long-established psychometric vendors spent decades collecting. Our page on personality testing for hiring sets out the numbers and the legal exposure in full.
The practical version: if a trait score has to carry weight in a decision you might have to defend, buy it from a vendor who has the normative data. If what you want to know is whether the person can sell, a work sample answers that more directly, and it is far easier to explain to a candidate who asks why they were turned down.
How long it takes, and where it goes in the process
Twenty-five minutes: roughly eight on the transcript and the notes, seven on the objection reply, five on the deal arithmetic and five on the queue. The clock runs per part, so a candidate who reads the transcript twice is not punished for it.
It goes after the screening call and before the panel. Sending a twenty-five minute exercise to everyone who applies is a reliable way to lose the sales candidates who have options, and sales candidates in particular read a bloated hiring process as a statement about how the company runs its own pipeline.
What it will not tell you
It does not tell you whether somebody will make the calls. Drive, resilience and the willingness to work a cold list show up over a ramp period rather than in twenty-five minutes of written work.
The closest available evidence on that is a reference who managed the person against a number, and it is worth the call. Two further boundaries: nothing here measures how somebody sounds live, so a role that lives on the phone needs a call round on top, and the test stays neutral about industry, so it says nothing about whether a candidate knows your buyer. Both of those are teachable. The judgement this test measures is the part that is not.
Every test has a boundary like this. A test used outside it stops predicting anything, which is the usual reason a hiring team loses faith in testing altogether.
Frequently asked questions
Is a sales aptitude test the same as a sales assessment test?
How do you test sales skills before hiring?
Should we add a personality test for sales?
What stops a candidate answering with an AI assistant?
Does it replace the interview?
Tests that pair with this one
Business writing test
Clarity, tone and correctness when writing a short work email or customer reply from a brief.
Customer service assessment test
Judgement in realistic support situations: what to do first, what to escalate, what to promise.
Workplace numeracy test
Everyday work arithmetic: percentages, unit conversion, reading a table and checking a total.