Jeff Garon and Melanie Sovann
Want to get the best candidate pool possible to build your Sales Development team? Of course you do… unfortunately, so does every other company out there, meaning you’ll have to compete for their time, attention and interest just as you would in a bake-off against competing products and services with a potential buyer.
You could get lucky finding great talent through a basic job listing, recruiters, referrals and other methods, but it’s a safe bet to assume you’ll need a compelling job description to capture interest from the best potential talent out there.
This leaves you with essentially two options:
- Put out a basic, boring job description to save yourself some time and effort, and filter through whatever resumes come your way.
- Treat this as your sales pitch to your future team, getting them excited about your company and their potential career trajectory.
So, ask yourself who do you really want on your team… whoever you can get, or the best you can get.
Assuming you want the best, read on for some tips and tricks to craft your job description like a shiny lure to catch the best fish (talent):
What to include:
- A bio of what your ideal candidate looks like
- A quick hype-up about your company and it’s product/service
- What success looks like
- Where that success can take them
- Truly essential qualifications
- How to grab your interest
A bio of what your ideal candidate looks like
What are the values you want in a new SDR? Energy, optimism, desire to learn, desire to succeed, desire to advance? Lay out a high level profile of the person you are looking for, and to save yourself time (as well as that of the wrong candidates), make it clear who you aren’t looking for.
A quick hype-up about your company and it’s product/service
Is your company destined for success? Do you have amazing clients? Be concise (you want them to demonstrate some research on their part too), but make it exciting and let them know you are a team they should want to fight to get on.
What success looks like
Combine your expectations on how they will be assessed and rewarded. Don’t be misleading (they won’t be closing deals initially), but describe what their role is, who they support, who supports them, and the value they will be driving for your company.
Don’t scare them off saying you expect 250 calls per day… that may be something they do, but you want quality touches and results, not quantity. The best candidates probably won’t be compelled to dial and email mindlessly… they will want to find their own ways of generating interest efficiently, and you’ll want to support their creativity and initiative.
Where that success can take them
Make it clear that this can be a career in of itself, and a stepping point to other roles if desired. You want to create career opportunities, and let them achieve their goals. How much do they want to make? The world is their oyster in the realm of sales… find the candidates who have the drive and desire to achieve their goals, and give them the platform to make it happen!
Truly essential qualifications
Having a long list of required qualifications is old school. You may have a few must-haves, but keep that list short. What you really want, is curiosity, energy, capability and drive. Do you really, truly care what their GPA was? Does 2+ years of CRM experience matter for this type of position?
Think hard about what can be learned on the job or through easy training options. Don’t miss out on a fantastic candidate because they aren’t an excel wizard… you can teach them what’s needed, and they can improve their skills as desired.
How to grab your interest
Now that you’ve built some excitement about the role and your company, give them a shot to showcase their interest. Don’t make it too easy on them though. Ask a question of them in relation to the role or your company/product/service, and see who addresses that in their cover letter. Do you have a trial or newsletter? Give them a friendly nudge to check it out or sign up. When the resumes come in, see who’s taken that extra step in engagement as a factor in your decision process. Do you want the SDR who uses the same generic template for all of their prospecting for your company, or the SDR who uses research and personalization to increase their success.
Demonstrated effort and initiative up front is a great predictor of their work style and aptitude once hired. You are already setting the tone with your awesome new job posting, now it’s time to see who’s up to the challenge given your amazing job description.
Just be prepared to recognize and reward these incoming allstars accordingly for supporting your growth goals once they are on board, producing results and exceeding quotas!
Melanie Sovann is an educator, blogger and senior writer based in LA, she is a content editor and senior writer at BestEssay Education and Grab My Essay.
Jeff Garon is Senior Researcher at Tenbound Research Labs.
