Sales development representative interview questions and answers
SDR interviews nearly always include a role play: a cold call to the hiring manager playing a busy prospect, or writing a cold email in a set time. The rest checks whether you understand the metrics, can take coaching, and will keep going through rejection.
Research the company's product and best customers before the interview. You'll likely be asked to pitch it.
Updated October 2026 by the WorkRemote careers team
On this page
About the role and your experience
Openers that check you understand the job and have done the work.
What metrics would you track as an SDR?
Why they ask
Shows you understand how the role is measured.
How to answer
Activities (calls, emails), connect rate, conversations, meetings booked, meetings held, and pipeline created. Explain that meetings held and pipeline matter most.
How do you know whether a prospect is qualified?
Why they ask
Bad meetings waste AEs' time.
How to answer
Explain the company's likely criteria and a framework you use, such as checking budget, authority, need and timing, with questions you'd actually ask.
Why do you want to be an SDR?
Why they ask
They want people who'll last and grow.
How to answer
Be honest about the path to closing roles and what you enjoy about outreach, and show you know what the daily work involves.
Technical questions
What you know and how you'd do the work, often with a live task or test.
Write a cold email to this prospect in the next ten minutes.
Why they ask
Tests written outreach under time pressure.
How to answer
Keep it under 100 words: a relevant observation about them, the problem you solve, one line of proof, and one easy question as the call to action.
How do you research a prospect before reaching out?
Why they ask
Personalisation drives replies.
How to answer
Mention the company website and news, the person's LinkedIn activity, hiring posts that hint at priorities, and tools like Apollo for contact details. Keep research to a few minutes per prospect.
How would you use AI in your outreach?
Why they ask
Every SDR team is working out the right balance.
How to answer
Say you'd use it to speed up research and draft variations, but personalise and check every message, and never send bulk unreviewed emails.
Behavioural questions
Past situations. Answer with a real example: what happened, what you did, what changed.
Tell me about a time you hit a difficult target.
Why they ask
Evidence of drive.
How to answer
Use one real example with numbers: the target, what you changed, and the result.
How do you handle 50 rejections in a day?
Why they ask
Resilience is non-negotiable.
How to answer
Be honest that it's hard, then explain your routine: short breaks, focusing on activity you control, and reviewing one call each day to improve.
What did you learn from your last bad sales call?
Why they ask
Coachability.
How to answer
Describe the call, what went wrong, and the specific change you made afterwards.
Situational questions
Hypotheticals about problems you'd meet in the job.
Cold call me. I'm the head of operations at a logistics company.
Why they ask
The core skill, tested live.
How to answer
Open with your name and a short, honest reason for calling tied to their likely problem, ask permission for 30 seconds, ask one good question, then ask for a meeting with a specific time.
Show a sample answerHide the sample answer
Hi Laura, it's Emeka from RouteWise. This is a cold call, can I have 30 seconds and you can hang up after? We help logistics teams cut failed deliveries by fixing address data before dispatch. Out of curiosity, how are you handling failed deliveries today? ... That's what we hear from most ops leads. Would it be worth 20 minutes with our team on Tuesday at 11 to see if it fits?
The prospect says 'We already use a competitor.' What do you say?
Why they ask
One of the most common objections.
How to answer
Acknowledge it, ask what they like and what they'd change, and suggest a short call to compare only if there's a gap.
Remote work questions
How you'll work from Nigeria with a team elsewhere: hours, power, internet, communication.
You'd be calling US prospects. What hours would you work from Lagos?
Why they ask
They need to know you've thought about the time difference.
How to answer
Show the maths and say when you'd do call blocks.
Show a sample answerHide the sample answer
East Coast mornings are 2pm to 5pm here for most of the year, which is the best calling window, so I'd do prospect research and emails before 2pm, call blocks from 2pm to 6pm, and West Coast calls after 5pm. In winter everything moves an hour later for me.
How do you stay productive working alone at home?
Why they ask
Remote SDRs have no sales floor energy to lean on.
How to answer
Mention time-blocked call sessions, daily targets you track yourself, and staying active in the team's Slack channel.
Remote interview tips
For role plays, use your headset, sit somewhere quiet, and keep a short outline of your opener and two objection responses in front of you. Practise the call aloud at least five times beforehand.
If the employer asks for a video application, make it a mini cold call rather than a CV summary. It's the quickest way to show you can do the job.
Questions people ask
What is an SDR role play?
A short mock cold call or discovery call where the interviewer plays a prospect. They score your opener, questions, objection handling and whether you ask for the meeting.
How should I prepare for an SDR interview with no sales experience?
Learn the company's product, practise a cold call opener and two objection responses aloud, and prepare stories from any job where you persuaded people or hit targets.
Do SDR interviews include a writing test?
Often. You may be asked to write a cold email or LinkedIn message for a sample prospect within a time limit.
Updated October 2026 by the WorkRemote careers team
Interview questions for roles close to sales development representative
- Account Executive
An account executive (AE) runs the sales process from first meeting to signed contract: discovery calls, demos, proposals, negotiation and closing, against a revenue quota. Nigerians do close deals remotely for US, European and African companies, but AE roles rarely hire beginners, and the pay depends heavily on commission.
- Appointment Setter
An appointment setter contacts potential customers by phone, text, LinkedIn or Instagram and books them into calls with a salesperson, coach or consultant. It is a common remote job for Nigerians working with US businesses and agencies, but the market is full of commission-only and pay-to-train offers, so choose employers that pay a base.
- Business Development Manager
A business development manager finds and wins new customers, partners or markets for a company, usually with a revenue or pipeline target and commission on top of base pay. Nigerians do it remotely for fintech, SaaS, logistics and payments companies, especially roles covering Africa, though some jobs expect travel.
- Customer Success Manager
A customer success manager (CSM) owns a group of business customers after they buy, making sure they get results from the product so they renew and spend more. Nigerians do win remote CSM roles, including EMEA roles at global software companies, but it is rarely a first job: most CSMs come from support, onboarding or account management.