ResumeWorld
ResumeWorld
Screening guide
Every sales resume says the candidate exceeded quota. Some of them are true, most are true in a context that does not transfer, and the difference is invisible unless your rubric asks for it. Screening sales well means asking about the shape of the number — the market, the motion, the deal size, the length of the cycle — rather than the number itself.
Signal
"120% of quota" means nothing until you know the quota, the territory, the ramp and how many reps hit it. Ask the rubric for context, not the headline.
Transactional inbound and enterprise outbound are different jobs. A top performer in one is frequently average in the other.
Someone who closes £5k deals in two weeks has not practised the skill of holding a nine-month cycle together.
Selling to engineers, to procurement and to clinicians are three different crafts. Prior buyer exposure transfers more reliably than industry does.
A rep needs to have stayed long enough to own renewals or consequences, not just closes.
Noise
None of these is disqualifying on its own. Each is a reason to ask a question rather than assume an answer.
Percentages with no absolute numbers anywhere
President's Club claims at three consecutive employers with under a year at each
No mention of pipeline generation in a role that clearly required it
Achievements described entirely at team level for an individual contributor role
A jump in stated deal size that no intermediate role explains
Rubric
Write the criteria down before you look at anyone. An undocumented standard drifts, and it cannot be audited afterwards.
Experience in the same sales motion — inbound, outbound, channel, expansion — as the role.
Comparable deal size and sales cycle length to what the role requires.
Attainment described with enough context to be checkable in a reference call.
Evidence the candidate generated pipeline rather than only working what was handed to them.
Familiarity with the people who will actually sign, weighted to how technical the sale is.
Next step
Ask the same ones of every candidate. Comparability is the whole point.
FAQ
Put it into practice
Turn a pile of applications into a ranked shortlist where every inclusion and every rejection has a reason attached.
ExplorePublish a branded application portal per role so applications arrive structured instead of as inbox attachments.
ExploreWork through hundreds of applications per role without the rubric drifting between the first resume and the last.
ExploreOther roles
High-volume applicant pools where the differentiating signal is judgement, not tooling.
Read the guideMarketing resumes are marketing collateral. The rubric has to be built for that.
Read the guideThe function where job titles mean the least and the actual scope varies the most.
Read the guideGo deeper
Most screening criteria are unfalsifiable. How to turn a job description into five to eight requirements you could actually verify from a document.
Read the guideStructured interviews predict job performance far better than unstructured ones. What structure actually means, and how to implement it well.
Read the guideA job description is a screening tool. Requirement inflation, missing salary and vague scope all cost you the candidates you wanted — here is what to change.
Read the guideDefine the criteria once, screen every application against them, and get a ranked shortlist with the reasoning attached.