Scooter's own screening data scores SDR and BDR candidates on four components: Requirements Fit, Market Alignment, Experience Match, and Performance Match. Across 750 scored candidates spanning nine different hiring searches, the pattern is consistent and worth understanding before you build your own SDR interview process.
What the Data Actually Shows
Requirements Fit, whether a candidate meets the basic stated criteria, averages 86.3%, by far the strongest category. Market Alignment, whether their prior outbound experience overlaps with your buyer and product type, averages 57.9%. Experience Match averages 55.1%. Performance Match, actual evidence of quota or activity metrics hit, averages just 42.2%, the weakest category by a wide margin.
At the SDR level specifically, this gap matters differently than it does for a senior hire. A first or second SDR role often doesn't come with a long quota history to point to, so a low Performance Match score isn't automatically disqualifying the way it might be for a five-year AE. What it does mean is that the resume alone can't tell you what you actually need to know: can this person generate qualified pipeline, consistently, under real rejection volume.
What to Actually Screen For
Activity discipline, not activity claims. Anyone can write "150 calls per week" on a resume. Ask instead for their actual weekly cadence, broken down by channel, and how they know the number is accurate. Candidates who've genuinely run high-volume outbound answer this immediately, with specifics. Candidates who haven't, round up and generalize.
Qualification judgment, not qualification vocabulary. Most SDR candidates can recite BANT or MEDDIC. Fewer can walk you through a real call where they correctly disqualified a lead that looked promising on the surface, and explain what tipped them off. That's the actual skill.
Response to a cold no, live. Give the candidate a real objection during the interview itself, not a hypothetical they can prepare for. Watch whether they problem-solve in the moment or fall back on a script. This is closer to a work sample than an interview question, and it's the single best predictor available at this level.
The takeaway: requirements fit gets a candidate in the door. It's the weakest signal for whether they'll actually perform, so don't let it be the only thing your process actually tests.