Interviews are a weak predictor of calling performance because they test a different skill. The fix is not more questions. It is a small number of questions that are hard to prepare for, followed by a live exercise.
Questions that reveal something
- Walk me through the last call you had that went badly. What did you say, and what would you say now?, Candidates who cannot recall a specific bad call either have not called much or have not reflected on it
- What do you do after being hung up on four times in a row?: You are listening for a routine, not for bravado
- What would you need to know about a property before you would feel ready to call about it?, Good callers name condition, ownership and list source; weak ones say the script
- Tell me about a time you were given a target you did not hit., What you want is a factual account, not an excuse or a performance of accountability
- What questions do you have about the role?: Silence here is a genuine warning sign for a job that is entirely about asking questions
The live exercise matters more than all of them
Give the candidate a short script and ten minutes to read it, then have them call you while you play a mildly difficult seller. Not hostile, just distracted and non-committal, which is what most calls actually are.
Score four things:
- Did they confirm who they were speaking to and name the property
- Did they ask questions rather than pitch
- Did they stay composed when you were unhelpful
- Did they attempt a specific next step at the end
A candidate who does three of those four with a script they have had for ten minutes is worth training. One who does none is unlikely to improve with the same script and six weeks.
Then ask them to write it up
Immediately after the exercise, ask for notes on the call as they would enter them into a CRM. This is the highest-signal five minutes of the entire process and almost nobody does it.
You are looking for whether a stranger could act on the note. "Seller seems interested, call back" tells you the candidate did not listen for anything specific. A note recording condition, timeline, a price expectation and who else is on the deed tells you they were working while they talked.
Questions that predict nothing
- Why do you want this job: every candidate has the same rehearsed answer
- Where do you see yourself in five years: irrelevant to whether they will make 150 dials on a wet Thursday
- What are your strengths and weaknesses: tests interview preparation only
- How do you handle pressure: everyone says they handle it well; the live exercise shows you
Listen for pace and clarity, not accent
Sellers are not troubled by an accent. They are troubled by not understanding, and by callers who sound rushed. Nearly every nervous candidate speaks too fast, and it is the most coachable thing on this list, so treat pace as a training item rather than a rejection reason, and clarity as the actual bar.
A practical checklist
Beyond the calling itself, confirm the boring things that end arrangements in month two: reliable power and internet, a quiet space to work from, a headset, working hours that genuinely overlap your calling window, and what happens when the internet fails. Most remote calling failures are logistical rather than about talent.
Elite Reach Solutions screens callers against exactly this kind of live exercise, and every caller confirms their connection before their shift starts, because a bad line is invisible in every other metric until a day of calls has been spent on it.