Hiring an account executive
A hundred and sixty applications, near enough all of them claiming quota attainment, and a role where a brilliant hire at one deal size is a poor one at another.
Quota attainment is a percentage with no denominator. “112% of target” tells you nothing until you know the target, the deal size, the cycle length, whether leads were provided, and how much of the pipeline the candidate built themselves. Sales CVs supply the percentage and almost never the rest. Underneath that, the deeper problem is transferability: someone excellent at transactional deals closing in three weeks is often poor at six-month committee sales, and the reverse is just as true — the skills are close to opposites, but both people write “consultative, relationship-led, exceeded target”. Hiring the wrong direction is the most expensive mis-hire on this site, because it takes two quarters to become obvious.
Deal size, cycle, and where the pipeline comes from
Selene goes after the shape of the deal, because that is what decides which sales background is an asset and which is a liability.
What a typical deal actually looks like
Three numbers describe a sales role almost completely: average contract value, cycle length, and the proportion of pipeline the rep is expected to create. Managers usually have all three and are rarely asked for them.
One sentence changes the guide
Sales managers know this and job ads never say it, because it sounds like celebrating failure. It is the opposite: a rep who kills a bad deal in week two has bought back a month of selling time, and one who nurses it to the end of the quarter has cost the month and distorted the forecast on the way.
Exceptional, not just good —
“The great ones lose deals early. The good ones drag them out for a quarter.”
→ Deliberate disqualification became a must-have; pipeline volume stopped being treated as a positive.
What the guide ends up measuring
Six criteria calibrated to a £45k, four-month, multi-stakeholder deal. At £4k and three weeks this guide would invert almost completely — the same CV that ranks first here would rank in the bottom third there, which is the clearest example on this site of why the conversation has to come first.
No gates, and quota is not one either
Nothing here is a yes-or-no fact, and the number people are tempted to gate on — quota attainment — is the worst possible candidate for it. It is self-reported, unverifiable, and comes without the denominators that would make it meaningful. It belongs in the scoring alongside the context that interprets it.
Scored with the denominators attached
Selene never receives the candidate’s name or the raw CV. She scores a blind, structured profile, with any stated age, sex, nationality and religion stripped out before scoring runs.
No employer logo reaches the scoring either, which on a discipline where pedigree substitutes for evidence removes a considerable amount of noise.
How the blind scoring works →What stays with you
Selene's half
- Getting deal size, cycle length and pipeline ownership on the record first
- Reading all 160 against the same guide, blind, with the evidence attached
- A ranked shortlist that does not sort by unqualified attainment percentages
- An interview brief that asks for the denominators each CV left out
Yours
- Getting reps to apply — Selene doesn’t post to job boards or source candidates
- Any mock pitch or discovery role-play, with her brief in hand
- Reference calls on the numbers, which she records but does not verify
- The offer, the commission plan, and every call that matters
Nearby roles
Every CV claims quota. The number and its source are the whole story.
A title too new to have settled, doing four different jobs at four different companies.
Growth or caretaking — the CV language is identical and the hires are opposite.
Give her three numbers
Deal size, cycle length, who builds pipeline — and watch the guide rule out half the pile for the right reason.