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Ramp Time & Onboarding

Your six-month ramp isn't an onboarding problem — it's a hiring problem

6 min read·7 Jul 2026

Teams spend the first quarter teaching new reps things they should have been screened for. Here's how to shift that cost left.

The hidden bill

A rep who ramps in six months instead of three costs you a full quarter of pipeline plus salary, manager time and territory decay. Multiply that by a 30% first-year attrition rate and sales hiring becomes the most expensive experiment in the company.

Most ramp plans spend weeks on something the interview never checked: can this person hold a conversation with a hostile stranger?

Separate teachable from screenable

Product knowledge, CRM hygiene, pricing, ICP — teachable in weeks. Handling a brush-off without folding, asking a second question, staying curious after a no — much slower to teach and easy to screen for in five minutes.

Screen for the slow-to-teach traits, train the fast-to-teach ones.

Use the same simulation for hiring and for coaching

The strongest side effect of simulation-based hiring is that the baseline transcript becomes day-one coaching material. The manager already knows exactly where this rep is weak before their first real dial.

Re-run the same scenario after 30 and 90 days and you get a measurable coaching curve instead of anecdotes.

Key takeaways
  • Ramp cost is largely a screening failure paid later.
  • Screen for slow-to-teach behaviour, train the rest.
  • Reuse the hiring simulation as onboarding baseline.
  • Re-test at 30/90 days to measure coaching, not opinions.

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