Sales hiring for VC-backed startups
Founding AE interview scorecard and mock call rubric
By Arshnoor Kohli, Founder, Vektor
Last updated
Published · 7 min read
Direct answer
Score founding AE candidates on a live mock cold call selling your product, not on resume polish. Weight discovery questions, ICP targeting, objection handling, and a clear next-step ask. Reject candidates who sound sharp in chat but freeze on the phone. Pair the scorecard with structured pre-screens and a short founder loop so you hire signal, not vibes.
A practical scoring sheet for founding AE interviews: discovery, objection handling, close attempt, and ICP fit on a live mock cold call.
Most founding AE interviews fail the same way: founders ask culture and career story questions, then wonder why the hire stalls in week three. The fix is a scored mock cold call where the candidate sells your product to a simulated buyer.
Use four buckets. Discovery: do they ask about pain, budget, and timing before pitching? ICP targeting: do they open with a relevant hypothesis for your buyer? Objection handling: can they stay calm when the buyer pushes back? Close attempt: do they ask for a clear next step instead of ending on a vague follow-up?
Score each bucket 1 to 5. Require a minimum total before you spend founder calendar time. Candidates who crush storytelling but cannot run discovery on your product are not founding AE material.
Keep the rubric short enough that two interviewers can score the same call and land within one point. If scores swing wildly, your ICP brief is fuzzy, not the scorecard.
For templates you can reuse with your team, see Resources and Market Data. When you want candidates already scored this way before they hit your loop, book a call.
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