Role overview
An SDR (Sales Development Representative) generates qualified pipeline through outbound activity — cold calls, email sequences, LinkedIn outreach — and books meetings for AEs (Account Executives). The role is high-volume, metric-driven, and rejection-heavy.
Most SDR hires are early-career. The signal you are screening for is not "have they sold the same product before" — it is grit, coachability, and a credible pattern of doing hard things.
Job criteria
Use these as the criteria you ask Reordinal to score against. Adjust to fit your motion.
- 1–3 years of professional experience (or strong evidence from college / pre-career projects)
- Demonstrable outbound or customer-facing track record (sales, SDR, BDR, retail, hospitality, fundraising, debate)
- Comfort with high-volume cold outreach (calls + email + LinkedIn)
- CRM familiarity (Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft) — nice to have, not required
- Strong written communication — readable, specific, no fluff
- Time-zone fit with the AE team they support
What to screen for
- A real outbound pattern. Numbers in the resume — calls per day, meetings per quarter, quota attainment. Specific over generic.
- Coachability evidence. Promotions, sales-bootcamp completion, mentorship, "ramped from X to Y in N months."
- Resilience signal. Athletics, performing arts, debate, fundraising, prior cold-outreach roles. Things that build comfort with rejection.
- Writing quality in the resume itself. Their resume is a sample of their first cold email. Read it that way.
- Curiosity about the buyer. If the cover letter or screening answer references your customer, market, or product specifically — that is the bar.
Red flags
- Vague achievements with no numbers ("crushed quota," "exceeded expectations") and no specific motion described
- Job-hopping on a sub-9-month cadence with no story for why
- "Account executive" titles at companies where the candidate has <1 year of full-cycle experience (often a title-inflation signal)
- Heavy reliance on AI-generated cover letters that match nothing in the rest of the application
- Discomfort with cold outreach mentioned anywhere in the application
Resume keywords
outbound, cold calling, cold email, prospecting, pipeline generation, qualified meetings, quota, Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft, Apollo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, BDR, SDR
Interview questions
- Walk me through a quarter where you missed quota. What did you change for the next one?
- Describe the last cold sequence you wrote. Why those steps in that order?
- You have 50 leads, two hours, and one shot to book five meetings. Where do you start?
- Tell me about a time someone said no in a way that hurt. How did you reset for the next call?
- What is something you have taught yourself in the last six months, and how?
- What questions would you ask our AEs in your first week to ramp faster?