You will be able to design and run a short sales role play that tests the skills in your profile.
Every sales candidate says they are good at discovery. Every one of them says they listen and handle objections well. After a structured interview you have their account of how they sell, which is far better than a conversation, but it is still their account. You have not seen them do it.
A role play fixes that. For fifteen or twenty minutes, the candidate sells to you, and you see the skills in your hiring profile in action. This lesson covers how to design one that tests selling rather than acting, and how to score it fairly.
The candidate should receive a short brief a few days before the interview. It describes the product, the buyer and the situation in enough detail that they can prepare. Wei Ming's brief was half a page: the candidate sells payroll software, the buyer is the owner of a growing chain of bubble tea shops with about forty staff, the owner has agreed to a first meeting after a referral, and the aim of the meeting is to understand the business and agree a next step.
Sending it in advance matters because the role play is meant to test selling. Memory and nerves are separate things. A candidate who receives a dense product sheet in the room spends the role play trying to recall features. A candidate who had the brief for three days shows you how they prepare, which is itself part of the job. Some will research bubble tea chains and arrive with questions about shift rostering. That tells you something.
Keep product detail light. You are not hiring someone who already knows your product. Lesson 2.1, Write the profile before the job ad, put product knowledge in the teachable group for a reason.
You, or a colleague, play the buyer. Write the character down so that every candidate meets the same person. Give them a name, a business, a current way of doing things and one concern they do not mention unless asked the right questions.
Wei Ming's buyer, Mr Lim, runs payroll on a spreadsheet his niece built. He says he is curious about software because the business is growing. His hidden concern is that his niece will be upset if he replaces her system, and she is also the person who would use the new one. He will mention this only if the candidate asks who handles payroll now or who would use the software day to day.
The hidden concern tests discovery. A candidate who asks good questions finds it. A candidate who presents early never does, and then cannot understand why Mr Lim stays lukewarm. It also mirrors real selling, where the reason a deal stalls is rarely the one the buyer states first.
Play the buyer realistically. Be polite, a bit busy, open to the conversation, but do not volunteer the concern. Push back once or twice, on price or timing, so you can see how the candidate responds to resistance.
About halfway through, pause the role play. Step out of character and give the candidate one piece of feedback. Keep it specific and useful: "You've asked a lot about the number of staff. Try finding out who does the payroll today and how they feel about it." Then restart from where you stopped.
What happens next is often the most useful part of the whole interview. One candidate takes the feedback and changes straight away. Another argues with it. A third agrees and then carries on exactly as before. Coachability, one of the must-haves from lesson 2.1, is hard to judge from an interview answer, but here you can watch it happen.
Decide the feedback in advance, so every candidate gets roughly the same nudge. If a candidate has already found the concern before the pause, give them feedback on something else, such as asking for a clearer next step.
Score the role play against four things, the same for every candidate. Questions asked: how many open questions before they started talking about the product, and did they follow up on answers? Listening: did they summarise back what Mr Lim said, and did their later questions build on his answers? Handling the concern: did they find it, and if so, did they address it in a way that would help? Next step: did they ask for a specific next step with a date, and was it one Mr Lim could agree to?
Add a fifth line for coachability: what changed after the feedback. Use the same three-point scale as your interview questions in lesson 2.2, Structured interviews beat good conversations, and write one line of evidence beside each score, such as a phrase the candidate used.
Wei Ming found that his candidates' interview scores and role play scores did not always agree. One candidate who gave polished interview answers asked only two questions before demonstrating features. Another, who was nervous in the interview, found the hidden concern in six minutes. The role play does not replace the interview. It catches what the interview misses.
In the activity below, you will write your own role play brief, the buyer character with their hidden concern, and the scoring sheet. Base the buyer on a real type of client your team sells to, so the situation feels familiar to anyone who has done the job.
Write a role play brief, a buyer character with one hidden concern and a scoring sheet.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).