How to Hire a Sales Development Representative?

Getting new leads and converting them to your customers is the only way your business can prosper. Hence, sales and prospecting together form a crucial part of every organization. As acquiring customers is a journey you need to optimize at every step, a dedicated team of Sales Development Reps (SDRs) must be at the top of your priority list.

Your entire business including the growth trajectory will depend on the quality of leads you generate, which further is driven by your SDRs. If you’re a sales or recruiting manager, hiring SDRs is one of the most vital responsibilities you have to take on. 

However, SDRs are entry-level positions in most cases. So you can’t evaluate candidates based on their experience. Here’s where the hiring gets a little tricky. After all, SDRs will drive crucial functions like prospecting and qualifying leads, engaging with them, and driving prospects down the sales funnel.

How do you ensure hiring the right SDRs for your sales team? What skillsets and personality traits should you be looking for in an ideal candidate? How to approach hiring the top SDRs for your company? 

We answer all of the above, and more in this blog. Stick around for insightful coverage on hiring a Sales Development Representative. 

What is The Role of a Sales Development Representative?

At the ground level, an SDR is responsible for identifying potential customers, generating new business opportunities, and managing leads throughout the sales pipeline. While this is a broad overview of the role of an SDR, let’s dive in to break down the role further.

The performance of SDRs is usually evaluated based on their ability to seamlessly move leads through the sales pipeline. Their primary responsibility is to nurture leads and act as a go-to problem solver for them, much like a consultant.

Unlike other sales reps or BDRs who are evaluated based on the number of leads they close, SDRs focus on the top of the funnel. It should be noted that both roles go hand-in-hand, and the sales team cannot function with either of them.

The sales cycle starts with the marketing team sending lead information to SDRs, who then engage and nurture the leads. During the initial part of the sales cycle, businesses need to educate the leads effectively and build a positive relationship with them – SDRs are responsible for leading such efforts.

Here are the primary roles and responsibilities of an SDR.

• Source, qualify, and prospect new customers: An SDR should priorly research the prospect’s industry, competition, requirements, pain points, and decision-making factors.

• Inbound sales prospecting: Nurturing leads who have already shown interest in your offerings and engaged with your company’s marketing channels initially.

• Outbound sales prospecting: Reach out to potential customers who have never engaged with your company.

• Lead effective conversations with prospects: SDRs should proactively communicate with potential leads through calls, emails, and social media. Ideally, an SDR should listen to prospects and provide appropriate solutions for their concerns.

• Set up high-intent meetings and appointments: SDRs should position value-addition and solutions in such a way that leads are convinced to have a detailed conversation or demo of the offerings. Helping sales executives to effectively prepare for such high-intent calls must be taken up by an SDR too.

How to Hire a Sales Development Representative: Step-By-Step? 

As you grow your business and aim to accelerate your sales through a steadily flowing pipeline, hiring a full-fledged SDR team becomes the primary requirement. A well-defined sales process, a fast-moving pipeline, and a plan for nurturing those leads are the primary expectations from your SDR team.

The first approach of anyone looking to hire a Sales Development Representative would be to look at a candidate’s work experience of a few years and a sales degree. However, most SDRs having rich experience reach senior-level positions in a few years. 

So the position of an SDR naturally becomes entry-level where you don’t have the luxury of looking at candidates’ past performances.

It’s evident that hiring an SDR is challenging and requires a deep evaluation of candidates. Before kickstarting your hiring efforts, the best thing you can do is to lay down a clear and concise recruitment plan. 

What Should You Look for in an Ideal Sales Development Representative?

When hiring SDRs with less or no experience, you’ll need to evaluate them through the identification of relevant traits and skills.

Here are the top 6 traits you should always look for when hiring SDRs:

1. Willingness to learn: The role of an SDR revolves around researching and learning about the prospect’s business as much as possible. An ideal Sales Development Rep would be more than willing to learn and gather feedback to maximize the chances of conversion.

2. Team player: After adaptivity, collaboration is another important trait to look out for in SDR candidates. The performance of a sales team is driven by collective productivity more than individual excellence. You primarily need people who work well with others, especially with BDRs in this case.  

3. Drive for more: As per Dr. Christopher Croner, a renowned sales expert - “Winning salespeople always share one critical psychological trait, and that is drive.” A great SDR would always strive for more no matter what. From amplifying the numbers to optimizing processes for better ROI – the drive will enable a candidate to push beyond the ordinary and bring success.  

4. Stress-handling: Sales is stressful, there’s no doubt about that. Continuous rejections are a part of everyday routine and SDRs need to learn from it rather than breaking down under pressure. Being calm and composed even under terrible situations is a characteristic of a great Sales Development Representative. 

5. Confidence: Where there’s no confidence, there are no sales and hence no business. As a problem-solver for prospects, SDRs need to be comprehensively confident with their communication and actions. Especially for people who are new to sales, having enough confidence can always make a difference.  

6. Commitment: From managers to BDRs, and clients – an SDR needs to fulfill commitments regularly. An optimal way to find out if the candidate will be able to do it effectively is to dig deep into their future plans. Find out where the candidate sees himself in the next 5 to 10 years in sales.

As far as the skill requirements are concerned, here are the top skills you should primarily look out for when hiring an SDR:

• Customized outreach
• Video prospecting
• Following up
• Organizational skills
• Relationship-building
• Coachability

Step 1: Frame Your Role Requirements and Decide on Your Recruiting Process   

To start things off, identify your industry standards when it comes to the role of an SDR. Additionally, communicate with sales managers, VPs, and other stakeholders for learning about the company’s unique requirements. 

Ask questions like

• Why are you looking to hire Sales Development Representatives at your company?
• What are the key roles that need to be performed by these candidates? 
• What type of sales and communication approach an ideal candidate should have? 
• Which skills are must-haves for your target candidates?

Framing the role requirements comprehensively with clear criteria for skills, knowledge, personality traits, and relevant industry work is immensely important initially. 

Moving on, decide on your hiring timeline and outline the recruiting process. Also, finalize the evaluation parameters using which the candidates will be considered for further rounds.  

Step 2: Document Your Job Description

A job description is much more than a formal document covering the roles and responsibilities. An appealing JD would not only help you attract the right SDR candidates and optimize the further recruitment cycle but also helps you save a lot of time and effort.

• Introduce the Sales Development Representative role - requirements, expectations, and ideal candidate persona.
• List down the responsibilities, skills, experience, and day-to-day tasks
• Highlight the special skills required for the job role
• Mention the tech stack and knowledge of different frameworks required for the role

Apart from the roles and responsibilities, you must cover the perks and benefits associated with the role. Do not forget to add your company’s vision and mission in order to drive your candidates’ expectations in the right direction.

Sales Development Representative Job Description Sample

Role

SDRs are inside sales representatives who focus on outreach, prospecting, and lead qualification. SDRs don't focus on closing deals, but rather on identifying if leads are good candidates for sales. An SDR moves leads through the sales pipeline.

Responsibilities

• Search and prospect for new potential customers in the assigned region and target accounts, with the market research team - Manage the sales pipeline (e.g., generate emails for outreach, make cold calls to accounts on the assigned bounty list)
• Handle lead management and CRM activities using Salesforce.com
• Make cold calls to accounts on the assigned bounty list that express interest in the company's product or solution
• Nurture and qualify leads who express interest in the company's product or solution
• Provide account executives with detailed notes regarding prospect interaction and deal insights to ensure quality lead meetings
• Report on territory updates, industry trends, regional insights, competitive landscape, etc
• Participate in sales development projects, programs, and processes
• Update territory data, industry trends, and competition information on a weekly basis
• Consistently achieve assigned lead generation quotas and performance goals
  

Requirements

• Have solid experience in outbound and inbound lead generation, account management, or sales ideally within a SaaS environment
• Comfortable working with Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Prior experience in Sales, Sales Development, or Inside Sales
• Demonstrated ability to articulate value propositions of the product to prospective clients with a customer-first attitude and an ability to build relationships
  

Soft Skills

• Strong verbal and written communication skills and excellent presentation skills
• Good negotiation skills
  

Bonus

• Experience in CRM
  

Step 3: Source SDR Candidates

Once you have a thorough understanding of your sales team’s requirements and the job description ready with you, it’s time to source candidates. Start with creating a compelling job post highlighting the following:

• What is it like to work at your company?
• Why should candidates apply to the position?
• Include the learning and growth opportunities in the team
• State the company vision and mission
• Tell them about the recruitment process

Prepare an impactful job post and job advertisement assets if required. The next step would be posting your jobs on various job boards and hiring platforms. You can leverage the following platforms for hiring Sales Development Representatives:

• LinkedIn
• Indeed
• Instahyre
• ZipRecruiter
• Monster
• GlassDoor
• CareerBuilder
• Dice

Step 4: Screen Profiles and Interview Shortlisted Candidates

At the beginning of the blog, we discussed the top characteristics to look out for in an ideal Sales Development Representative. Here’s where we analyze those parameters.

From profile screening to phone screen rounds and further interviews, keep the following tips in mind while evaluating candidates:

• Study your market and sales cycle thoroughly to extract the true requirements. 
• Involve multiple stakeholders from the sales and business development team in the evaluation and selection process
• Give more weightage to personality traits like coachability and performance under pressure as those prove to be beneficial in the long term
• Choose your interviewing panel wisely – get multiple senior professionals from sales, growth, and management.

Step 5: Share the Offer Letter with Selected SDRs

Connect with the selected SDRs and decide on the compensation and commission. Ensure you understand their payroll expectations and negotiate accordingly. 

Next, extend your offer letter to all the candidates who have been selected. In the case of passive sourcing, extend to only those who were aligned with you on the compensation and are willing to move forward. 

Not to forget – Always have a deadline for the joining date and mention the necessary documents required by your recruiting team. 

Step 6: Onboard Candidates Who Accept the Offer

• Get the required documents and set up the offer agreements with candidates.
• Organize an orientation session for the onboarded candidates. 
• Introduce them to the entire team and the teams they will be working with.
• Guide the new candidates about your HR tools and communication channels
• Onboard them to the sales management tools you use internally. 
• Provide candidates with forms for benefits and perks like Health Insurance.  

Supercharge Your Hiring for SDRs with Nurturebox 

Hiring skilled Sales Development Representatives is crucial but challenging at the same time for organizations. 

To find the best SDRs who would further drive your prospect engagement and sales cycle, – leverage automation for accelerating passive talent sourcing and engagement. 

Nurturebox is a one-stop talent sourcing and engagement automation platform. Take a look at how you can source SDRs from LinkedIn using Nurturebox:

• Install the Nurturebox Chrome plugin and sign up.
• On your LinkedIn profile, begin searching for Sales Development Representatives with boolean searches stating the required experience from targeted locations and including other criteria.
• Add qualified candidates to your sourcing campaign pipeline with just a click.
• Automate candidate engagement through email, Whatsapp, and LinkedIn direct messages for reaching out and nurturing candidates at scale.