Interview scorecardReviewed by Adroit Staffing editorial reviewPractice guidance, no data claims8 min read
The short answer
Leadership interviews should test situation match first. A leader who succeeded at fifty million in revenue may be the wrong hire at two million, and the reverse is equally true, so score whether their evidence comes from the stage your business is actually at before you score anything else.
Key facts
- Dimensions
- Situation match, GTM judgement, team building, credibility, forecast integrity
- Core exercise
- Written 90-day plan after access to real numbers
- Referencing
- Include someone who reported to them
- Scoring
- 1-5, submitted before the panel discusses
Sales leadership scorecard
Score situation match in the first conversation and stop early if it fails. The remaining four dimensions are split across the plan review and the challenge session.
Scores and notes stay in this tab. Copy, print or download the sheet — nothing is uploaded.
Sales leadership — interview scorecard
Adroit Staffing — adroitstaffing.co.uk
Dimension 1
Situation match
Tests: Whether their evidence comes from the stage and motion your business is at now.
“Describe the business around you when you produced your best result: team size, marketing support, brand, average deal size.”
Strong answers show
- Can describe what they built versus what they inherited
- Has operated at your stage, or is explicit about the difference
- Talks about constraints honestly rather than selling the logo
Weak answers sound like
- Results depend on infrastructure you do not have
- Cannot separate their contribution from the market's
- Frames a scale-up playbook as universal
Follow-up prompts
- “What would be missing here that you relied on there?”
- “What would you personally do that you have not had to do for years?”
Dimension 2
Go-to-market judgement
Tests: Whether they can choose a motion and defend it, rather than run every channel at once.
“Given these numbers, what would you stop doing in your first 90 days?”
Strong answers show
- Names what to stop, not only what to add
- Reads the conversion data before proposing headcount
- Sequences changes rather than announcing a reorganisation
Weak answers sound like
- Answers every problem with more sellers
- Copies the playbook from their last company wholesale
- Avoids committing to a view
Follow-up prompts
- “What is the first metric you would expect to move, and when?”
- “What would make you abandon that plan?”
Dimension 3
Team building and retention
Tests: Whether people follow them, and whether people grew under them.
“Who have you promoted, and where are they now?”
Strong answers show
- Names individuals and their progression
- Former reports have followed them or would return
- Honest about a team member they got wrong
Weak answers sound like
- High turnover described as raising the bar with no detail
- Cannot name anyone they developed
- Talks only about hiring, never about keeping
Follow-up prompts
- “Which of your former reports should we speak to?”
- “What did you do when you inherited an underperforming team?”
Dimension 4
Cross-functional credibility
Tests: Whether Marketing, Product and Finance will work with them rather than around them.
“Tell me about a disagreement with Marketing or Product that you handled badly.”
Strong answers show
- Describes shared definitions and agreed handovers
- Owns their part of the conflict
- Speaks about Finance in terms of forecast trust
Weak answers sound like
- Marketing is blamed as a category
- No evidence of joint planning
- Cannot recall any disagreement
Follow-up prompts
- “How did you define a qualified lead, and who agreed it?”
- “What does your CFO need from you monthly?”
Dimension 5
Forecast integrity
Tests: Whether the board can rely on the number they give.
“What was your forecast accuracy over the last four quarters, and where did it break?”
Strong answers show
- Knows the figure and how it was calculated
- Inspects deals rather than aggregating rep optimism
- Reported bad news early at least once
Weak answers sound like
- Vague about accuracy or defensive about the question
- Presents commit and pipeline as the same thing
- Surprises appear in the final week of a quarter
Follow-up prompts
- “When did you last downgrade a quarter, and how early?”
- “What evidence do you require before a deal is committed?”
Average score: not scored yet
Situation match is a gate, not an average. If it scores 2 or below, stop - a strong score everywhere else does not compensate for evidence built in a business unlike yours.
The 1–5 scoring language
Agree the wording with the panel before the first interview. Most disagreement in a debrief is two people using the same number to mean different things.
- 1 — No evidence
- Could not give a real example, or the example contradicted the claim.
- 2 — Weak evidence
- General answer, or evidence that belonged to someone else on the team.
- 3 — Meets the bar
- Specific example, owned by them, holds up under one follow-up.
- 4 — Strong
- Specific and measured, plus a clear account of what they would change.
- 5 — Exceptional
- Evidence you could hand to the board, and they taught you something.
Where this scorecard sits in the process
Situation-match conversation
Establish whether the evidence transfers to your stage.
45 minutes with the CEO or board sponsor.
Written 90-day plan
Test diagnosis on real numbers.
Two pages, produced after access to redacted data.
Challenge session
See how they hold a view under pressure from peers.
60 minutes with Marketing, Product and Finance.
Deep referencing
Verify team outcomes.
Includes at least one former direct report.
How this maps to the Adroit Five Stage Screening Process
Leadership mandates run through the Five Stage Screening Process weighted differently: situation match first, then a structured evidence conversation, the written plan as the practical exercise, then presentation and challenge, then deep referencing including someone who reported to them. Adroit prepares and evidences the shortlist; the decision and the interviews remain yours.
Score situation match before anything else
The most common leadership hiring mistake is buying a track record built in conditions you do not have: an established brand, a full marketing engine, an existing team of ten. Ask what infrastructure existed around each result, and score whether they have operated at your stage rather than whether the logo impresses you.
The written plan, done properly
- 01Give shortlisted candidates real, redacted numbers: pipeline, conversion by stage, churn, team structure.
- 02Ask for a two-page 90-day plan, not a presentation deck.
- 03Score the diagnosis, not the ambition.
- 04Discuss the plan in a challenge session with the people they would work beside.
Common questions
- Is a confidential search different?
- The assessment is the same. The approach is not: confidential leadership hires run as executive search with a named shortlist rather than an advertised role.
- How many stages should a leadership process have?
- Usually four, plus referencing. More than that and you lose the candidates who have other options, without learning anything new.
Sources and review
- Written by
- Adroit Staffing
- Reviewed by
- Adroit Staffing editorial review
- First published
- Last reviewed
This page is practice guidance from our own Sales and GTM recruitment work. It makes no claims about current market data, so it cites no external figures.