The First Sales-Hire Rubric
Hire, grow and fire your first AE or sales leader on evidence, not a feeling.
Most founders make the first sales hire on gut, then can't say why it isn't working six months in.
Use this to:
- Define what good looks like before you interview anyone.
- Score candidates live with the interview exercise.
- Reuse the same rubric to coach, and, if needed, exit.
How it works
A job spec lists what someone can do on paper. A rubric describes what they do in practice, the observable behaviours that separate a seller who builds pipeline from nothing from one who waits for it.
This tool helps you define the few behaviours that matter for your stage and motion, score them across a developing → competent → expert scale, and run a live interview exercise: have the candidate run a discovery on a real deal you won, give them feedback, then have them run it again. Score the change between the two runs, not just the baseline, rate of change predicts ramp.
The same rubric becomes the development map after the hire, and the framework for the hard conversation if it isn't working.
Get it
Different ways to work it.
Pick the format that fits how you and the team operate, the same tool, several ways to run it.
Delivering the Template / PDF
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