Introduction to Hiring SDRs

Hiring SDRs is one of the most important responsibilities to nail as an organization. It serves two high ROI purposes, one short term and the other long term. First, it maximizes your SDR team’s impact on the organization's growth. A great SDR team can create huge amounts of pipeline that amplifies a revenue team’s strong points and negates weak points. Second, and maybe more importantly, it provides you the talent pool in which the future of your organization will pull from. SDRs come from diverse backgrounds and skill sets, so they can fill a diverse set of roles throughout the organization. Their time in the SDR seat will give them the right mentality to tackle any role. Not only that, SDRs are affordable to hire relative to the roles they will be promoted into. By hiring great SDRs you fuel the rocket ship and create a talent pool to handle all of the growth in stride.

Things to Consider

Whether you’ve hired SDRs before or not it’s key to keep in mind that it isn’t a one size fits all approach. Top performers come from diverse backgrounds and skill sets and that’s a positive, so don’t typecast your SDR hiring. Here are some key points to consider before fielding candidates:

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• Direct experience is overrated - Every great SDR at one point had never been an SDR. Experience in the role is only necessary if this person is not truly an SDR and instead is also building out the function in your organization. Experience can be positive or negative. In many cases an experienced SDR may be burnt out, learned bad habits, and more difficult to get culture buy in from. Or they may be excited for a new opportunity, have learned great habits that will help them ramp faster, and be able to impart wisdom on the entire team. It just depends. Having experienced SDRs on a team is a great idea, but do not disqualify inexperienced reps.
• It isn’t rocket science - It doesn’t take a genius to do the SDR role. You do need a base level of aptitude to learn the systems, script, and so on, but if you can grasp those concepts, you can be a top performer. It’s not that hiring really smart people is a bad idea, but if you put it too high on the list you will miss out on gems. 
• You can’t evaluate coachability in an interview - Coachability is key to success in the SDR role, but it’s impossible to evaluate. Anyone looking to land the role will tell you they’re coachable, have some stories to back it up, or even go along with an exercise where they incorporate feedback. That doesn’t tell you how coachable they actually will be when they are sitting in the role and need coaching. The good news is there is a way to tell.

So What Really Matters?

The number one trait you should look for when hiring SDRs is a burning desire to succeed in the role. As long as you are hiring people with a base level of aptitude, desire will dictate an SDRs ceiling. Desire decides if an SDR is coachable when push comes to shove or not. Desire dictates if someone is going to embrace or wither in the grind of the role. The great byproduct of looking for candidates with a deep desire is you will naturally bring in all different backgrounds and skill sets. Some of the archetypes you’ll find:

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• Career changers looking for higher earning potential - You’ll find former teachers, military backgrounds, artists, and more. 
• New college grads 
• Sales people from different industries 

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That’s the sort of diversity that enhances the wisdom and tribal knowledge of your team, and eventually your entire organization. All of these archetypes will find success in the role with their unique twist as long as they have a burning desire to.

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Evaluation Guide

Once you’ve filled your applicant pool it becomes time to determine whom to evaluate and how to properly evaluate them. Here are the steps and matters to consider:

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• Do an initial evaluation on as many serious applicants as you can. In two hours you can have eight 15 minute introduction calls completed. That’s just 5% of one person’s work week. Do this across multiple team members or weeks and you will find your next great hire. The ROI for your time is tremendous as this ensures you meet the absolute best applicants.
• Ask the questions that tell you innately who the person is. some text
  • Why do you want to be in sales?
  • Do you care more about winning or not losing?
  • What’s your why?
  • How badly do you want to succeed?
  • How many extra hours would you put in if you were failing?

This is what really matters. You can train the right person on how to sell, qualify leads, and the rest of the role later. You cannot make someone right for the role. As long as they’ve done their research and put time into preparing, it’s okay if they don’t know how to use your tech stack yet.

• Assign quick “homework”. Once you’re reasonably far along in an interview, create a cold email assignment with some instructions. How great or bad the email is only matters at the extremes. Look for who incorporated the feedback and how quickly they completed the assignment. 
• Only proceed with candidates you already could see yourself hiring. Your first interview is going to tell you more than any subsequent interview. Save everyone the time and only proceed with candidates that you already see fitting. This will make up for the extra time you are spending at the top of the hiring funnel.
• It has to be a resounding yes. Everyone involved in the hiring process should be a resounding yes in order to hire someone to the team. Here’s a great rule of thumb: if your team is <10 reps you should only hire someone you think has the potential to be the absolute best rep on your team. If your team is >10 reps you should only hire someone you think has the potential to be in the upper quartile. 
• Make an offer fast. If it is a resounding yes, don’t sit around hoping there may be better out there. Make your interview process fast and make an offer once you are certain of the person. This really should be 4 interviews maximum averaging 30 minutes.

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They’re Evaluating You Too

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If you want to attract the top talent then you have to be selling the team and opportunity as much as the candidate is selling themselves. Here are the keys to putting together a compelling, attractive offer:

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• Make the interview process seamless. An attractive candidate is going to judge you on how long the process takes. Not only that, if it takes too long they’ll have accepted another offer.
• Make the money make sense. Below market pay will only attract sub par candidates. You need to be competitive with the market.
• Career path, career path, career path. The number one thing nearly every SDR cares about is the career path. Almost everyone views the role as a stepping stone to a greater career. Provide great career opportunities following the SDR roles and you can attract great reps. This is not just limited to the AE role, but CSM, SDR Manager, Deal Desk, and more.

Conclusion

If you are hiring SDRs, it is worth being serious about hiring the right SDRs. Your people are your company, and SDRs likely represent one of the most numerous roles you will hire for. Getting the process right is not just about having a great SDR team, but also having a great future in terms of talent. SDRs come from diverse backgrounds and skill sets and succeeding in such a difficult role speaks volumes about them as an employee in any role. 

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