The biggest cost of a bad closer hire is not the £249 placement fee or the retainer. It is the three months of leaked deals, damaged reputation with your existing pipeline, and the founder having to step back in to close.
The good news is that vetting a closer is not complicated. It is a fixed checklist run in a fixed order. Skip a step and you pay for it later.
Layer 1 — does the CV even match the offer?
A closer with five years of £1k-AOV solar sales is a different animal to a closer with two years of £8k coaching sales. Both can be excellent. Neither is interchangeable. Match tenure to the specific offer type, not to 'sales' in general.
Look for stability on at least one offer. Six-month tenures across four offers is a pattern; two-year tenure on one offer is a track record. The second is what you want on a serious hire.
Layer 2 — a scored sales assessment
You want scenario-based questions on discovery depth, objection handling and framework recall. Not personality quizzes. This is what the PrimeClosers AI assessment does for every applicant, and it is the single biggest filter — most people who fail here would have wasted your interview slot.
Layer 3 — a mock discovery call, always
20 minutes. You are the prospect. Give them a real scenario from your pipeline. Do not coach, do not correct — just play the buyer honestly. Watch for whether they hunt for pain or fish for the close, whether they respect silence, and whether they can stay in a room when things get slightly uncomfortable.
This one call filters out more than every reference check combined.
Layer 4 — references from named employers
Ask for the last two employers, with names and roles. Call both. Ask three questions: would you hire them again, what was their close rate versus your top closer, and why did they leave. Silence, hesitation, or vague answers are all data.
Layer 5 — a paid working-week trial
For senior seats, do not skip this. Pay them for a week on live pipeline, with a clear scorecard: number of calls, show rate, close rate versus your benchmark, CRM notes quality. A week of live data outperforms a month of interviews.