What you'll get
- 6 copy-ready blocks
- 6 min read
- Exercise 1: The account brief (set before interview, 45 minutes of their time)
- Exercise 2: The email (live, 15 minutes)
- Exercise 3: The call (live role play, 10 minutes)
- Exercise 4: The no (verbal, 5 minutes)
- Exercise 4: The no (verbal, 5 minutes)
An SDR job description is a targeting document: the words decide who applies. Ask for a hunter who smashes quotas and you will interview performers; ask for someone who enjoys working out how a logistics firm makes money, and the pipeline changes. This kit is the ad, four exercises and the scoring sheet, built for teams selling to named accounts. (If you landed here looking for an SDR role rather than hiring one, the exercises below are also exactly what to practise.)
Part 1: The job description
SALES DEVELOPMENT REPRESENTATIVE: [company]
What the job is
We sell [what] to [who]. Your job is opening conversations inside
named target companies: researching them, finding the people who feel
the problem and earning the first meeting. You will work a list of
[n] accounts deeply rather than a database loudly.
What you will actually do
- Research accounts until you can say why each one, why now
- Write short, specific emails and LinkedIn notes, by hand
- Call buyers and gatekeepers with an honest opener
- Map who decides in each account, not just who replied
- Keep an account tracker current enough to run Monday's review
What we measure
Accounts worked, real replies, people mapped, next steps dated,
and in time, qualified meetings. We do not run activity leaderboards.
What makes someone good at this
Curiosity about how other companies work. Plain writing. Comfort
hearing no. The discipline to follow a cadence and the judgement to
break it when a human answers.
Pay and progression
[Base], [variable, tied to what], [the honest progression path and
its usual timeline].Publish the pay. The researchers you want will not apply blind, and the ad's honesty is itself a filter. Whether to hire at all, or outsource the first year, is the hire or outsource decision sheet.
Part 2: The four exercises
Exercise 1: The account brief (set before interview, 45 minutes of their time)
"Here is a company we might sell to: [real target account]. In under
a page: why would they buy from us, why now, and which three people
would you approach first? Use only public information."Scores research instinct, the core skill. A candidate who finds the trigger event and names plausible roles beats any interview answer.
Exercise 2: The email (live, 15 minutes)
"Write the first email to one of your three people. Under 90 words.
Then tell me what you would change if it got no reply."Watch for: their fact in the first line, one small ask, a human voice. The no-reply answer reveals whether follow-up means adding value or adding volume.
Exercise 3: The call (live role play, 10 minutes)
"I am the operations director from your brief. Call me. I will be
busy and fair, not hostile."Score with the run half of the call review rubric: honest opener, the researched reason, listening, a clean exit. Polish matters less than whether they ask a question and stop talking.
Exercise 4: The no (verbal, 5 minutes)
"Last quarter you worked an account for six weeks. The buyer just
said a flat no. Walk me through what you do in the next ten minutes,
and the next month."The answer you want mentions logging it, asking one graceful question, checking who else sits on the committee and parking with a date. The answer you fear is "move on to the next lead" or a plan to argue.
Part 3: The scoring sheet
0 = weak 1 = fine 2 = strong
Research: found the real trigger [ ]
Research: three sensible people [ ]
Writing: specific first line [ ]
Writing: small ask, human voice [ ]
Call: honest opener and reason [ ]
Call: listened, asked, exited clean [ ]
The no: grace plus a next move [ ]
Motivation: why this job, truthfully [ ]
13+ hire or final round
9-12 one targeted follow-up exercise
<9 a kind no within two daysEvery candidate gets a decision within a week. SDR candidates are interviewing your company's follow-up discipline too, and they talk.
Worked example (illustrative, not a real company)
Tessaro Analytics interviews two candidates. One has two years of SDR experience and smashes the energy questions, but the account brief recycles the target's About page and the role-play pitches for four unbroken minutes. The other is a career-changer from logistics operations: the brief finds a warehouse expansion Tessaro's own team had missed, the email quotes it in line one, and the answer to the no exercise is "log it, ask what changed, check the map, park it to their budget season". The sheet says 8 and 14. Tessaro hires the second, and the 30-60-90 plan starts Monday. All names are invented.
Five mistakes to avoid
- Advertising for a hunter. The word selects for people who treat accounts as prey and lists as ammunition. Named-account work is closer to journalism; advertise for that.
- Interviewing with questions instead of work. Everyone has rehearsed answers about resilience. The four exercises are the job in miniature; nothing a candidate says predicts like what they do.
- Hiding the pay and the quota maths. Candidates who join blind leave fast, and the ramp you will spend on them leaves too. The ad states both; the interview defends neither.
- Scoring on confidence. The best researchers often interview quieter than the best performers. The sheet weights what the role weights, which is why confidence is not a line on it.
- Slow decisions. A week of silence after an exercise the candidate spent 45 minutes on teaches them exactly how your company treats effort. Decide fast, tell them kindly, either way.
Why this works on named accounts
Common questions
What should an SDR job description include?
What the company sells and to whom, the actual daily work (research, writing, calling, mapping, tracking), how performance is measured, what makes someone good at it and the pay. Specifics attract the curious and filter the quota-tourists; vague energy-speak does the reverse.
What should you look for when hiring an SDR?
Curiosity about other businesses, plain writing, comfort with rejection and evidence of discipline from any field. Experience matters less than most ads assume: the habits of a volume shop can cost more to untrain than a career-changer costs to ramp.
How do you interview an SDR candidate?
Make them do the job small: a researched account brief, a 90-word email, a short role-played call and a question about handling a no. Score against a fixed sheet, weight the research and the grace, and give every candidate a fast answer. The exercises double as a preview that lets good candidates select you back.
More from the Academy
SDR 30-60-90 Onboarding Plan
For managers onboarding an SDR without a plan beyond "watch Priya, then dial".
You leave with a month-by-month plan: learn the buyer, then the motion, then own a list, with ramp-fair measures for each phase.
SDR Daily Plan
For SDRs and their managers tired of days that end busy and empty.
You leave with an hour-by-hour plan built around named accounts, two protected call blocks and the four numbers worth logging at the end of each day.
First Sales Hire or Outsource Decision Sheet
For founders doing all the selling and running out of week.
You leave with a two-line job split, eight scored questions, a cost sum in your own figures and a first-90-days plan for either path.
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