How to Spot a Great Salesperson (When Everyone Looks Good on Paper)

If you’ve hired in the last couple of years, you’ll know this already.

On paper, a lot of candidates look… decent.

Good job titles. Recognisable companies. Numbers that sound right. CVs that are polished enough to tick most boxes.

So the question becomes, how do you actually tell who’s genuinely good and who’s just good at presenting themselves well?

Because those are two very different things.

The shift in the market, especially in tech and SaaS, has made this harder. There was a period where growth was everywhere, targets were being hit more easily, and a lot of people benefited from being in the right place at the right time.

Now things are tighter. Sales cycles are longer, buyers are more cautious, and performance is a lot more exposed.

This is where the difference between “looked good in a good market” and “is actually good” becomes very obvious.

But you only see it if you know what to look for.

A genuinely strong salesperson can walk you through their numbers in detail, not just the headline figures, but how they got there. What worked, what didn’t, where deals were won and lost.

There’s a level of ownership in how they talk about performance. It’s not just “we hit target,” it’s “here’s what I did, here’s what I learned, here’s what I’d do differently.”

They’re also comfortable being challenged. If you push on something that doesn’t quite add up, they don’t get defensive or vague, they lean into it.

That’s a big tell.

Because in reality, sales isn’t smooth. There are always dips, missed targets, tough quarters. Someone who can talk about that openly and explain how they handled it is usually far more valuable than someone who presents a perfectly polished track record with no friction at all.

The other thing to pay attention to is consistency.

One big year doesn’t make someone great. A pattern of solid performance across different conditions is a much stronger indicator.

And finally, how they think.

Not just what they’ve done, but how they approach problems, how they adapt when things change, how they prioritise when everything feels urgent.

That’s the bit that doesn’t show up clearly on a CV, but it’s often what makes the biggest difference once they’re in the role.

In the current market, where things are less forgiving, these details matter more than ever.

Because it’s not about hiring someone who looked good when things were easy.

It’s about hiring someone who can perform when they’re not.