Sales & Customer Success

Sales Development Representative Job Description

A Sales Development Representative starts relevant conversations with prospective customers and qualifies whether a real problem, fit, and next step exist before sales discovery.

Clarify the segment, lead sources, territory, channels, qualification standard, and hand-off before adapting the candidate-facing copy.

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Candidate-facing template

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Sales Development Representative

Location: [Location or working arrangement]
Employment type: [Full-time or part-time]
Reports to: [SDR Manager or Sales Development Lead]

About the role

[Company name] is looking for a Sales Development Representative to create qualified conversations within [customer segment or territory]. You will research accounts, contact relevant people with useful context, explore early needs, and prepare a clear hand-off when a genuine sales conversation is justified.

What you will be responsible for

Research assigned accounts, contacts, triggers, and use cases before choosing an outreach angle.
Run timely inbound follow-up and thoughtful outbound sequences across approved channels.
Hold early qualification conversations covering current situation, problem, relevance, timing, and stakeholders.
Record accurate account, contact, consent, conversation, qualification, and next-step information in the CRM.
Prepare accepted-meeting hand-offs that explain why the prospect agreed to continue and what remains unknown.
Use response and conversion evidence to improve targeting, messaging, cadence, and collaboration with marketing and sales.

What success looks like

Account Executives receive meetings with relevant context and a credible reason for discovery.
Prospects receive accurate, respectful communication matched to their likely situation.
The team can distinguish targeting, message, channel, timing, and qualification problems from activity data.

Essential qualifications

Clear spoken and written communication suited to concise business outreach.
Curiosity and listening skills that move beyond a memorised pitch.
Ability to research, prioritise, follow up, and maintain complete CRM records.
Resilience and learning discipline when response is limited or feedback is direct.
Good judgement around accuracy, contact preferences, confidential information, and approved outreach practice.

Preferred qualifications

Customer-facing, prospecting, recruitment, service, or commercial internship experience.
Familiarity with [industry, buyer group, product category, or territory].
Experience using a CRM, sales-engagement platform, professional network, or call tool.

Tools and working knowledge

Customer relationship management system
Sales engagement, calling, email, and calendar tools
Account research, intent, and professional-network platforms

Package: [State base range, currency, target incentive, quota basis, payment frequency, ramp, benefits, and any caps or thresholds.]

[Company name] welcomes different routes into sales and will discuss reasonable adjustments for interviews, communication tasks, and the working environment.

How to apply

Apply through [method] with a short example of how you researched a person or organisation before starting a useful conversation.

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Sales Development Representative

Location: [Location or working arrangement]

Employment type: [Full-time or part-time]

Reports to: [SDR Manager or Sales Development Lead]

About the role
[Company name] is looking for a Sales Development Representative to create qualified conversations within [customer segment or territory]. You will research accounts, contact relevant people with useful context, explore early needs, and prepare a clear hand-off when a genuine sales conversation is justified.

What you will be responsible for
- Research assigned accounts, contacts, triggers, and use cases before choosing an outreach angle.
- Run timely inbound follow-up and thoughtful outbound sequences across approved channels.
- Hold early qualification conversations covering current situation, problem, relevance, timing, and stakeholders.
- Record accurate account, contact, consent, conversation, qualification, and next-step information in the CRM.
- Prepare accepted-meeting hand-offs that explain why the prospect agreed to continue and what remains unknown.
- Use response and conversion evidence to improve targeting, messaging, cadence, and collaboration with marketing and sales.

What success looks like
- Account Executives receive meetings with relevant context and a credible reason for discovery.
- Prospects receive accurate, respectful communication matched to their likely situation.
- The team can distinguish targeting, message, channel, timing, and qualification problems from activity data.

Essential qualifications
- Clear spoken and written communication suited to concise business outreach.
- Curiosity and listening skills that move beyond a memorised pitch.
- Ability to research, prioritise, follow up, and maintain complete CRM records.
- Resilience and learning discipline when response is limited or feedback is direct.
- Good judgement around accuracy, contact preferences, confidential information, and approved outreach practice.

Preferred qualifications
- Customer-facing, prospecting, recruitment, service, or commercial internship experience.
- Familiarity with [industry, buyer group, product category, or territory].
- Experience using a CRM, sales-engagement platform, professional network, or call tool.

Tools and working knowledge
- Customer relationship management system
- Sales engagement, calling, email, and calendar tools
- Account research, intent, and professional-network platforms

Package: [State base range, currency, target incentive, quota basis, payment frequency, ramp, benefits, and any caps or thresholds.]

[Company name] welcomes different routes into sales and will discuss reasonable adjustments for interviews, communication tasks, and the working environment.

How to apply
Apply through [method] with a short example of how you researched a person or organisation before starting a useful conversation.

Performance expectations

What good performance looks like

Use these outcomes to replace vague activity lists with the evidence the hiring manager expects to see after the person joins.

Accepted meetings meet the agreed fit and context standard rather than only reaching a calendar target.

Follow-up is prompt and persistent within approved contact and consent practices.

The representative improves conversion by learning from objections, call review, and cohort evidence.

Hiring-manager intake

Questions to settle before advertising

Record specific answers so sourcing, screening, and interview decisions use the same definition of the role.

1
Is the role inbound, outbound, account-based, event-led, or a defined combination?
2
Which territory, customer profile, personas, languages, and time zones are assigned?
3
What makes a meeting accepted, qualified, rejected, or returned by the Account Executive?
4
Which activity and outcome measures determine quota and incentive payment?
5
What coaching, call review, product education, data, and prospecting support are provided during ramp?

Evaluation criteria

Evidence to use in a Sales Development Representative scorecard

Agree the criteria before interviews begin, then score examples against the same evidence standard.

Criterion

Useful evidence

Concern to explore

Relevant prospecting

Connects account evidence to a plausible problem and writes a concise, specific reason to engage.

Uses generic personalisation or high-volume messaging without a customer hypothesis.

Early discovery

Listens, asks focused follow-ups, recognises uncertainty, and earns a sensible next step.

Rushes to book a meeting without establishing relevance or records untested assumptions as facts.

Learning discipline

Uses feedback and conversion evidence to test one targeting or messaging change at a time.

Attributes every poor result to lead quality or simply increases volume.

Structured interview

Sales Development Representative interview questions and strong signals

Ask the same core questions in the same order, then use follow-ups to understand the candidate’s individual contribution.

Choose a company you would contact for our product. What would you research first?

Strong answer signal

Prioritises fit, likely trigger, relevant person, current approach, and a testable reason for outreach.

Tell me about a time someone rejected your first suggestion but you kept the conversation useful.

Strong answer signal

Listens, clarifies the objection, adapts without pressure, and respects the person’s decision.

How would you respond if your meetings target was on track but Account Executives rejected many hand-offs?

Strong answer signal

Examines rejection reasons, calibration, call evidence, and qualification standards before changing activity.

Related titles

Check the scope behind the title

Business Development Representative — often more outbound or new-market focused, although many companies use the titles interchangeably.

Lead Development Representative — may concentrate on responding to and qualifying marketing-generated enquiries.

Inside Sales Representative — can include qualification, product presentation, and direct closing; check the sales motion.

Common hiring mistakes

Problems to remove before publishing

Publishing activity quotas without defining customer segment, data quality, channels, and accepted-meeting criteria.

Calling the role entry-level while requiring several years of identical product and industry experience.

Using “book meetings” as the whole outcome and ignoring hand-off quality, prospect experience, and learning.

Continue the hiring workflow

Related roles and recruiter resources

Related job descriptions

Business Development Representative Account Executive Sales Manager Account Manager

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Source and review notes

How this template was prepared

Language: International English
Prepared by: ATZ CRM Editorial Team
Review: ATZ CRM Recruitment Editorial Review
Last reviewed: 2026-08-05

O*NET: Sales Representatives of Services

Reference for occupation tasks, knowledge, skills, abilities, and work activities.

ESCO: occupations and skills

Reference for internationally recognised occupation and skills terminology.

Qualifications, compensation, licences, working conditions, and equal-opportunity wording must be checked for the role and location before use.

Recruiter questions

Sales Development Representative job description FAQs

What does a Sales Development Representative do?

An SDR researches prospects, starts relevant conversations, qualifies early fit and need, records context, and hands suitable meetings to a closing salesperson.

Should an SDR job description include activity targets?

Yes when they shape daily work, but also define accepted-meeting quality, conversion, prospect experience, territory, data, and how incentives are calculated.

Does an SDR need previous sales experience?

Not always. Communication, curiosity, preparation, resilience, and learning evidence can predict success, particularly when the employer provides structured coaching and product education.