# Account executive hiring: the full process, with questions and a role play

> A practical account executive hiring process with a scorecard, pre-screen and interview questions, a sales role play brief, and reference checks.

Source: https://deephire.com/blog/account-executive-hiring-process
Last checked against the product: 2026-11-08

## Key takeaways

- Define deal size, sales cycle, buyer, and quota before you post the role, then build a four to six item scorecard from those answers.
- Use a short pre-screen to check motion fit and quota history before the hiring manager spends time, and ask about pay expectations in the same call.
- Ask candidates to walk through one real deal from first contact to signature, and probe for specifics.
- Run a role play from a written brief, then give one piece of feedback and repeat a section to test coachability.
- Verify claimed results with a former manager reference, and aim to go from pre-screen to offer in two to three weeks.

A good account executive hiring process has seven stages: intake, sourcing, a short pre-screen, a hiring manager interview built around a real deal, a sales role play, a cross-functional conversation, and references before the offer. When account executive hiring goes wrong, it is usually because the team never agreed on what the job requires, or because nobody checked whether the candidate's numbers were real. The sections below give you a scorecard and a role play brief you can use as written, plus question lists for each stage.

## What should you define before you post the account executive role?

Start with the deal, not the job title. *Account executive* covers jobs that differ a lot. One AE closes inbound small business deals in a week with a single decision maker. Another runs a long enterprise cycle where procurement and security review sit on top of a buying committee. A top performer in one of those jobs can struggle in the other.

Write down answers to these before you open the req:

- Average deal size and typical sales cycle length
- Inbound, outbound, or a mix, and who books the first meeting
- New business only, or new business plus expansion of existing accounts
- Who the buyer is, by title and department
- Quota and ramp period
- A realistic first-year number
- The support the rep will have, such as SDR coverage or a sales engineer, and which CRM they will use

Then turn those answers into a scorecard with four to six competencies. Every interviewer rates every candidate on the same items, using the same scale.

| Competency | What good looks like | How you test it |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Asks layered questions, finds the business problem and the cost of doing nothing | Role play, process questions |
| Pipeline generation | Has a repeatable way to create meetings, not only work leads | Deal walkthrough, references |
| Deal control | Knows the next step and the decision makers on every open deal, plus when it should close | Deal walkthrough |
| Negotiation and closing | Holds price, trades concessions for something in return | Role play, references |
| Coachability | Changes approach after feedback within the same conversation | Role play second round |
| Motion fit | Has sold at a similar deal size and cycle to a similar level of buyer | Resume review, pre-screen |

Get the whole panel to agree on the scorecard before the first interview. If two interviewers mean different things by discovery, they will disagree about every candidate.

## What are the stages of the account executive hiring process?

Copy this table into your intake notes and fill in names and dates.

| Stage | Purpose | Owner | Typical length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Intake | Agree on role, scorecard, comp, and timeline | Hiring manager and recruiter | One meeting |
| 2. Sourcing | Build a pipeline of candidates with motion fit | Recruiter | Ongoing |
| 3. Pre-screen | Confirm basics and pay expectations, and hear how they communicate | Recruiter | 15 to 20 minutes per candidate |
| 4. Hiring manager interview | Deal walkthrough and process questions | Hiring manager | 45 to 60 minutes |
| 5. Role play | Watch the candidate sell | Hiring manager plus one peer | 45 minutes |
| 6. Cross-functional interview | Check how they work with marketing and other partner teams such as sales engineering | One or two partners | 30 to 45 minutes |
| 7. References and offer | Verify results and close the candidate | Hiring manager and recruiter | A few days |

For sourcing, start with people who already know the motion. Ask your current reps for referrals and ask the hiring manager who they have worked with. Finalists from earlier searches for similar roles are worth a second look too.

Aim to move a strong candidate from pre-screen to offer in two to three weeks. Good AEs are often talking to more than one company. If your process stalls between rounds, they may read that as a sign that deals stall at your company too.

## How do you write a job post that attracts the right account executives?

Experienced reps tend to scan for pay and territory before anything else, so put the facts they use to decide near the top:

- Deal size range and typical sales cycle
- Who they sell to, by title and company size
- Base and variable pay ranges, with on-target earnings (OTE)
- Territory or segment, and whether leads come from marketing or SDRs
- What the first 90 days look like, including ramp quota

Skip adjectives like *driven* and *hungry*, since every AE thinks they are both, and use specifics to filter instead. A line like *you will close new logo deals with operations leaders at mid-size logistics companies* tells an enterprise software rep and a transactional rep whether to apply.

Some places require pay ranges in job posts. Rules vary by location, so check with your legal team.

## How should you pre-screen account executive candidates?

The pre-screen decides one thing: whether the hiring manager should spend an hour with this person. Keep it to three to five questions, mostly about motion fit and results, with one on pay.

1. Walk me through your current role: what you sell, to whom, average deal size, and cycle length.
2. What was your quota last year, and where did you finish against it?
3. How did you build pipeline, and roughly what share was self-sourced?
4. Why are you looking, and what would make you say yes to an offer?
5. What are your pay expectations for base and on-target earnings?

Ask about expectations, not salary history. Some places restrict questions about pay history, so check with your legal team before you add one. For more options, see these [pre-screening interview questions and what each one tells you](https://deephire.com/blog/pre-screening-interview-questions).

A phone screen works. A recorded screen has one advantage for sales roles, though: how a candidate comes across in two minutes on camera is part of the job. A [one-way video interview](https://deephire.com/blog/what-is-a-one-way-video-interview) lets candidates answer on their own time and lets the hiring manager watch the top few instead of reading recruiter notes. In DeepHire, you can compare candidates' answers question by question and share a shortlist by link with the hiring manager, who does not need an account to watch.

## What questions should you ask in account executive interviews?

The hiring manager interview should test what the candidate did, not what they would do in theory.

### Start with a deal walkthrough

Ask the candidate to pick one deal they closed in the last year and walk you through it from first contact to signature. Then probe:

- How did the deal start, and who sourced it?
- Who was involved on the buyer side, and who had final say?
- What was the biggest risk to the deal, and when did you spot it?
- What did you give up in the negotiation, and what did you get in return?
- What would you do differently?

Strong candidates give dates and dollar figures without hesitating, and they know who held which role on the buyer side. Weak answers drift into *we* and generalities. Then ask about a deal they lost. Reps who can explain a loss clearly usually understand their own process.

### Then ask process questions

- Describe a typical week. How much time goes to prospecting versus active deals?
- How do you decide which deals to forecast as committed?
- Tell me about a quarter where you were behind. What did you change?
- How do you work with a sales engineer or solutions consultant?

### Finish by testing the numbers

Go back to the quota figures from the pre-screen. Ask how their quota compared with peers and where they ranked on the team, then ask how many quarters they hit the number. Answers that match across interviews are a good sign. Answers that shift deserve a follow-up question.

## How do you run a sales role play for an account executive?

The role play is the closest you will get to watching the candidate do the job. Run it the same way for everyone.

### Send a written brief two to three days ahead

Include a short description of a fictional buyer company, the buyer's title, a few lines about your product, and the goal of the call. A sample:

> You are on a first discovery call with the operations director of a 300-person distribution company who downloaded a guide from your website.

Tell candidates the goal is discovery, not a demo, and that they will not be judged on product knowledge.

### Play a realistic buyer

The hiring manager or a peer plays the buyer for 20 to 25 minutes. Prepare a few facts the candidate can only find by asking good questions, such as a failed project last year or a budget deadline next quarter. Raise one real objection, like price or timing.

### Give feedback and run it again

Stop the call and give one specific piece of feedback before running five more minutes. Few other parts of the process show coachability this directly. Some candidates adjust right away, while others repeat the same pattern.

Score against the scorecard right after the call, before the panel compares notes. If a candidate asks for an accommodation at any stage, handle it as you would for any role; the [ADA hiring basics](https://deephire.com/blog/ada-basics-for-hiring-process) cover the general approach.

## How do you check references and verify quota attainment?

Ask for at least one former direct manager. Peers and customers are useful, but a manager saw the numbers. Questions to ask:

- What was their quota, and how did they perform against it compared with the team?
- How much of their pipeline did they create themselves?
- What did you coach them on, and how did they respond?
- Would you hire them again for a similar role?

Listen for hesitation and for what goes unsaid. If a manager praises effort and attitude but steers around the numbers question, ask it again more directly. Some teams also ask finalists for documentation of results, such as a ranking report. Rules on what you can request vary, so check with your legal team first.

## What mistakes do hiring managers make when hiring account executives?

- They hire the best interviewer. AEs are good at selling themselves for an hour, and the scorecard and role play exist to look past that.
- They ignore motion fit and assume a transactional rep and an enterprise rep can swap jobs because the title is the same.
- They accept sales award claims without asking what the criteria were.
- They let the process drag and lose the candidates who have other offers.
- They explain the comp plan vaguely, then lose the candidate at the offer stage over surprises.

## How should you make the offer and plan the ramp?

Put the comp plan in writing with the offer: base, variable, OTE, how commission is calculated, any accelerators or caps, ramp quota by month, and the territory. Walk the candidate through an example payout at 80 percent, 100 percent, and 120 percent of quota so they can see the math.

Agree on what progress looks like at 30, 60, and 90 days, such as meetings booked, pipeline created, and first deals closed. Then track your own results. Time to fill and offer acceptance rate show whether the process works, and so does the share of hires who reach full quota after ramp. The [recruiting metrics glossary](https://deephire.com/blog/recruiting-metrics-glossary) has formulas for each. If new hires keep missing the ramp target, go back to the scorecard and find the competency you are scoring wrong.

## Frequently asked questions

### How long should the account executive hiring process take?

For most teams, two to three weeks from pre-screen to offer is a reasonable target. Strong AEs often have other options, so long gaps between stages cost you candidates. Schedule the hiring manager interview and role play close together.

### How many interviews should an account executive candidate have?

Plan on a pre-screen, a hiring manager interview, a role play, and one cross-functional conversation. That covers results and selling skill, and the last conversation shows how the candidate works with other teams. Extra rounds rarely add new information and slow the process down.

### What is a good role play for an account executive interview?

A first discovery call with a fictional buyer works well because it tests questioning and listening without requiring product knowledge. Send a short written brief a few days ahead and plant facts the candidate can only uncover by asking. After about 20 minutes, give one piece of feedback and run a few more minutes to test coachability.

### How do you verify an account executive's quota attainment?

Ask the same quota questions in the pre-screen and the hiring manager interview, then confirm with a former direct manager reference. Some teams also request documentation from finalists. What you can ask for varies by location, so check with your legal team.