Almost every enterprise GTM CV we see leads with company names: which recognizable logos the person has sold for. It's the easiest signal to read and, on its own, close to useless. A brand-name employer tells you the candidate survived in that environment, not that they were the reason a deal closed. We screen past the logo on the first call, every time.
What we actually want to hear is the mechanics of one real deal, start to finish, in the candidate's own words: how they got in the door, who the actual economic buyer turned out to be versus who they thought it was at first, where the deal nearly died, and what they personally did to unstick it. Someone who closed real enterprise business can walk you through this in specific, unglamorous detail — the multi-threading, the internal champion who went quiet for three weeks, the security review that almost killed the timeline. Someone who was along for the ride tends to speak in outcomes and averages instead.
The second thing we listen for is how a candidate talks about a deal they lost. Enterprise sales has a long cycle and a high loss rate even for strong performers, so a candidate with zero interesting losses either hasn't sold enough real deals yet or isn't being straight with you. The honest answer usually includes something they'd do differently, not a story where the loss was entirely the prospect's fault.
For technical products specifically, we also test how comfortable the candidate is in a room with the buyer's engineers, not just procurement. Enterprise technology deals increasingly get vetoed or approved by technical stakeholders, and a GTM hire who defers entirely to a sales engineer in that room is going to lose ground on deals where credibility needs to be established directly. That combination — deal mechanics, honesty about losses, and technical credibility — is what we brief for before we ever open a search for an enterprise GTM role.