How to hire an Account Executive
What the role does, the job description, the interview questions, and the 38-minute screening pack that tells you who can do the job before you book a single interview.
The role
What an Account Executive does
An Account Executive is a full-cycle sales professional who owns qualified opportunities from discovery through close, acting as the primary point of contact for prospective customers.
- Own the sales cycle for qualified opportunities through to close
- Run consultative discovery and demos that tie value to business outcomes
- Manage an accurate pipeline and forecast against quota
Screen before you interview
The Account Executive screening pack
Closing skill, sales instinct, clear communication and CRM fluency are the four things an AE is paid for. Every applicant gets one link. You get one ranked report.
- 1
Walk us through the last deal you closed. Where did it nearly fall apart?
- 2
A prospect says your price is 30% higher than a competitor. What do you say next?
- 3
How do you decide which accounts in your pipeline get your time this week?
- 4
Describe a quarter you missed target. What changed afterwards?
- 5
Sell us the product you know best in 60 seconds.
Job description
Account Executive job description
We are seeking an Account Executive to own opportunities from first discovery call to signed deal. You will run tailored demos, navigate multi-stakeholder buying groups, and guide prospects to a confident yes while keeping your forecast honest. This is a great fit for a consultative closer who can hold a complex deal together and genuinely enjoys solving a customer's problem.
Responsibilities
- Run discovery calls to uncover pain, goals, and buying criteria
- Deliver customized demos that connect features to business outcomes
- Map stakeholders and build champions inside multi-threaded deals
- Develop mutual action plans that keep deals moving to a close date
- Negotiate pricing, terms, and contract details with procurement and legal
- Maintain an accurate pipeline and forecast weekly in the CRM
Requirements
- 3 or more years of full-cycle closing experience, preferably in B2B SaaS
- A consistent record of hitting or beating annual quota
- Experience managing multi-stakeholder deals and structured sales processes
- Proficiency with a CRM and modern sales tooling
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional selling experience
Interview questions
Account Executive interview questions
For the candidates who pass the pack. Each comes with a sample answer on the full page.
Ask these after the screening pack, not instead of it. A candidate who has already scored on B2B Sales Account Executive, Sales Aptitude, Communication, Salesforce CRM has shown they can do the work, which frees the interview to do what a test cannot: find out how they think, how they explain themselves, and how they behave when something goes wrong.
- Ask every Account Executive candidate the same questions in the same order. Comparable answers are the whole point; a different conversation with each person tells you who you liked, not who was strongest.
- Look for a specific example with a result, not a description of how the candidate would approach it in principle. Follow up once with “what happened next?” and stop talking.
- Score each answer before moving to the next question, and write down what was said rather than the impression it left.
- At volume, record the first 4 of these instead of calling. Candidates answer on their own time, the answers are transcribed and scored, and you keep live interviews for the shortlist.
The pack takes a candidate about 38 minutes, so a Account Executive applicant arrives at this interview already measured on the parts you can measure without a meeting.
- 01
What attracted you to the account executive role specifically?
- 02
Tell me about the type of deals and buyers you have handled.
- 03
How do you measure success in your role beyond hitting quota?
- 04
What kind of sales environment helps you perform at your best?
- 05
How do you run discovery to uncover a prospect's real pain?
- 06
How do you manage a complex deal with multiple stakeholders?
- 07
How do you build and present a business case or ROI?
- 08
How do you handle negotiation and closing?
Frequently asked questions
Send every applicant one link that carries 4 skills tests (B2B Sales Account Executive, Sales Aptitude, Communication, Salesforce CRM), 2 personality inventories and 5 one-way video questions. springhire scores everything automatically and ranks the candidates, so you interview the top few. The free plan covers 10 candidates a month.
About 38 minutes for the tests, plus 10 to 15 minutes for the video questions. Candidates complete it on their own time, on any device.
A short brief, three to five key responsibilities, a fuller list of duties, must-have and nice-to-have skills, and the requirements. The template on this page has all of it, ready to copy.
Questions that ask for a specific past example and a walkthrough of how the candidate thinks. This page lists 8 with sample answers, and the full bank has more.
Yes. The free plan includes every screening tool with 10 candidate credits a month and no card. Paid plans start at $39 a month.
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