The first sales or customer success hire in a SaaS company works without a playbook, a team or a known brand behind them. Test for that situation. A strong record at a large company tells you little about it.
Decide which role you need
Sales brings in new customers. Customer success keeps them using the product and renewing. If founders are still closing deals comfortably but customers leave after a few months, you need customer success first. If customers stay but every new deal comes from the founder's personal network, you need sales first. Hiring one person to do both usually means renewals are neglected whenever a new deal is close.
What to test for
- Product understanding. Give the candidate a short demo of your product, then ask them to explain it back as if you were a buyer. You will see how fast they learn and whether they talk about the buyer's problem or the feature list.
- Discovery. Run a role-play where you are the prospect. Count how many questions they ask before they start pitching.
- Writing. Ask for a follow-up email after the role-play. Much of SaaS selling and support happens in writing.
- Work without structure. Ask what they did in a past job when there was no script, no lead list and no manager to ask. Listen for what they built themselves.
- Honesty about the product. Ask how they handled a customer who wanted something the product could not do. A person who over-promises creates churn, which means customers cancelling.
Check the numbers behind the CV
Sales CVs are full of targets achieved. Ask what the target was, how many people in the team met it, where the leads came from and how long a deal took to close. Someone who sold a well-known product to inbound leads has done a different job from someone who cold-called for an unknown one. For customer success, ask how many accounts they handled and what happened to the unhappy ones.
Agree the pay structure before the offer
In India most sales offers split CTC (cost to company, the total yearly pay) into a fixed part and a variable part tied to targets. A first hire has no past data from which to set a fair target. Say this openly, set a target for the first two quarters only, and agree to review it together. Candidates who have worked under impossible targets will ask about this, and a clear answer makes them more likely to accept.
Before you post the role, write down the three customer conversations this person will have most often. Build your role-play and your interview questions from those.