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Created By: Emery Rosansky, VP of Founder Success & GTM at First Round

Competency 1 2 3 4
Scrappiness / Builder mentality No experience building 0-1. Big company vibes. Only in cushy roles. Limited experience 0-1. No clear motivation to join a startup. Mostly cushy companies with lots of resources. Strong motivation to join a startup, but no real experience… although examples of thriving in ambiguity and running through walls to solve problems with limited resources. Strong motivation to join a startup, thrives in chaos & ambiguity, has done it before and wants to do it again. First principles thinker - won’t just copy & paste what have seen before. Proven experienced doing a lot with a little.
Organized / process-driven Unorganized and all over the place with their responses and written task. Not strong attention to detail - can’t create structure from chaos. Somewhat strong attention to detail. Can drive process if given some direction. Strong attention to detail. Can take complex topics and break it down into linear thoughts & clear structure.
Exceptional communicator Flustered, incoherent and/or unclear in their communication Communicates ok but not with confidence or extreme clarity. Talks too much or too little. Good communicator overall but struggles with either content (talks too much or too little) or delivery (confidence, pace, tone etc) Strong communicator, able to share ideas and thoughts (written and orally) clearly, confidently and in an organized fashion.
Confident & charismatic Lacks confidence in their comms. Hard to imagine them in front of customers. Fairly confident but not super engaging. Confident and engaging but not particularly charismatic. This person comes off disarming and credible and I’m confident customers will leave the call feeling like they want to engage with / buy from this person.
Analytical and data driven Has no sense of their sales math Has some sense of their metrics in previous roles but it’s limited to basics like quota achievement Knows what data they should be looking at but does not consistently use data in their job. Able to confidently and accurately describe how he/she has used data to drive their decisions and actions. Proactively seeks out this data.
Self aware and coachable Lacks awareness Has some awareness of strengths and weaknesses but doesn’t seem focused on addressing them. Self aware but guarded in discussing the specifics. Some ego still in the way. Self aware and comfortable talking about weaknesses. Shares tangible examples of personal and professional growth.
Has done the job No experience closing at all. Not a top rep. No experience closing in our ICP. Experience selling, but mostly not in our ICP. Experience selling a range of deals, including our ICP. Consistently top-performing rep.
Deep understanding of key sales disciplines like discovery, objection handling and negotiation.
Technical and domain expertise Not technical and won’t understand our industry or product. Somewhat technical (understands most terminology) but will need to rely on Sales Engineers/Founders Has some experience selling and demoing technical products but is accustomed to relying on Sales Engineers. Hasn’t worked in the industry but gets the concepts. Very technically savvy, able to explain technical concepts. Was or could be a sales engineer. Worked for a company who sold to a similar persona.
Demonstrates [insert company] Values Won’t get along with team. Doesn’t demonstrate values. Neutral to negative fit. Demonstrates some but not all values. Neutral to positive fit. Demonstrates all values, but does not exceed at them. Exceeds all values.