To interview account executives, get three numbers first: their quota, what they closed against it, and where they ranked on the team. Then make them walk you through 2–3 recent deals end to end: who signed, why they bought, and what almost killed it. I've placed well over 1,000 salespeople since 2006, and that sequence has caught more fakes than every personality test and "sell me this pen" exercise combined.
Start with three numbers: quota, attainment, rank
Before we talk about anything else, I ask three questions. What was your quota last year? What did you close against it? Where did you rank on the team?
A real closer answers in about four seconds. They stared at that leaderboard for twelve months. They know they finished third of nine and the guy above them had the best territory.
A fake starts with "well, it's complicated." Sometimes it is. Territories get carved up, quotas get raised mid-year, companies get acquired. Fine. Give me the number and THEN give me the context. When the context comes first and the number never shows up, I already know how this ends.
Rank matters as much as attainment. 90% of quota sounds soft until you learn the rest of the team was way under it. 130% sounds great until you learn almost everybody cleared it because the plan was set too low. Where they stood in the room tells me almost everything.
Walk 2–3 deals end to end
Numbers can be rehearsed. Deals can't. So I pick 2–3 deals from the last year and make them walk me through each one, start to finish:
- Who signed? A title, ideally a name. "The VP of IT" works. "The client" doesn't.
- Why did they buy? What was broken, what it was costing them, and why they fixed it this quarter instead of next year.
- What almost killed it? Every real deal almost died. Legal sat on it for five weeks. The champion quit. Procurement dragged in a competitor at the last minute.
- How did you find it? Inbound, outbound, referral, or expansion.
- How long did it take, and what did it close at?
A rep who actually ran the deal has scar tissue. They remember the week the CFO went dark and what they said to get him back.
A rep dressing up a team win gives you the press release. Great relationship, strong value prop, closed in Q4. Ask one follow-up about the second meeting and it falls apart.
If the numbers line up and the deals are real, I move fast. Good AEs don't sit on the market long. If they don't line up, I say so fast too.
Why President's Club means almost nothing without context
President's Club on a resume means almost nothing by itself. I've met 3x winners who inherited a monster book and mostly answered the phone. I've met reps who missed Club by a hair in the hardest territory in the company and outworked everybody on the floor. Guess which one I'd put in front of a seed-stage founder.
My rule: ask what they beat. Anybody can tell you what they hit. So I follow up with:
- How many people made Club that year, out of how many?
- Was the book inherited or built? How much of the number came from accounts you opened?
- How did your territory compare to the rest of the team's?
If most of the team made it, it's a participation trophy. If they can't tell you how many made it, that's its own problem.
Inbound-fed rep or self-sourced pipeline?
If your last four years came from inbound and the logo did the work, enterprise will eat you alive. Some of the shiniest resumes I see belong to reps at big-brand companies where the phone rang all day. Put them somewhere nobody's heard of and they have no idea where the first meeting comes from.
The best reps built their own pipeline before anybody handed them a brand to hide behind. To find out which one you've got, ask:
- Roughly what share of last year's closed revenue did you source yourself?
- Walk me through the last deal you opened cold. How'd you get the first meeting?
- If marketing turned off inbound tomorrow, what does your next 30 days look like?
A strong answer is specific. The trigger event they spotted, the person they called, the referral they asked for, the sequence they wrote. A weak answer is "our SDRs handled top of funnel" or "we had a great marketing team."
This matters most at seed stage. No logo, no inbound. The rep builds pipeline from a blank spreadsheet. A founding AE runs $180K–$220K OTE, usually 50/50, and the expensive hire isn't the one who costs $200K. It's the one who costs $120K, misses for three quarters, and burns a year of runway. More on hiring account executives, and for bigger deals, enterprise AEs.
The question set: strong answers and red flags
Here's the cheat sheet I'd hand any hiring manager.
| Question | What a strong answer sounds like | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| What was your quota last year? | A dollar figure, fast, annual and quarterly | "It depends how you measure it" |
| What did you close against it? | Dollars and percentage that match the resume | Mixes up pipeline and bookings, or gives a % with no dollars |
| Where did you rank? | "Fourth of eleven," plus who was ahead and why | "I was one of the top performers" |
| Who signed your biggest deal? | Title, name, and how they got to that person | "The client," or can't name the economic buyer |
| Why did they buy? | The pain and the cost of doing nothing, in the buyer's words | A list of product features |
| What almost killed it? | A specific moment and exactly what they did | "Honestly, it was pretty smooth" |
| How much of your number did you source? | A rough split and how they built it | "Our SDRs handled that" |
| How many people made Club? | A count, plus territory and book context | Doesn't know, or changes the subject |
| Tell me about a deal you lost. | Owns it and names their own mistake | Blames pricing, product, or the SE |
| Why are you leaving? | Clear and consistent with their numbers | Every past manager was the problem |
A few more that end the interview for me:
- Numbers that move. One figure on the phone screen, a different one with the hiring manager.
- "We" for every win, "they" for every loss.
- No questions about the comp plan or how quota gets set. A real closer wants to know if the number is winnable.
- They don't push back. We try to talk candidates out of the job. The good ones fight for it.
That's why we send 3 candidates, not 40. By the time you see them, they've already been through this. See how we work.
Hiring an AE and want 3 candidates whose numbers hold up? Talk to me or Paul. Book 15 minutes.