Here’s something most sales leaders learn the hard way: hiring the wrong SDR costs you way more than just their salary. You lose pipeline momentum, team morale takes a hit, and you burn months trying to course-correct someone who was never the right fit.
I’ve watched companies throw money at experienced SDRs with impressive resumes, only to see them flame out within 90 days. Meanwhile, that former college athlete with zero sales experience? They’re crushing quota and getting promoted to AE ahead of schedule.
The difference isn’t luck. It’s knowing what actually makes a great SDR and how to identify those traits during the hiring process.
The Truth About Hiring SDRs
Let’s clear something up right away: experience is overrated. There, I said it.
Don’t get me wrong, someone with a year or two of proven SDR success can hit the ground running faster. But if you’re choosing between a 5-year sales veteran who’s defensive about feedback and a hungry career-changer with grit and coachability, take the career-changer every single time.
Here’s why: you can teach someone your product, your methodology, and your tools. You can drill talk tracks until they’re second nature. What you absolutely cannot do is teach work ethic, resilience, or the ability to take coaching without getting defensive.
Think of it this way. The SDR role is basically professional rejection management with occasional wins. Someone dials 50 prospects a day, gets hung up on 40 times, has 8 decent conversations, and books maybe 2 meetings if they’re good. Then they wake up tomorrow and do it again. And again.
The person who succeeds isn’t the one with the smoothest pitch. It’s the one who can handle hearing “no” 47 times, learn from each interaction, adjust their approach based on feedback, and still bring energy to call number 48.
What Actually Makes a Great SDR
After hiring and working with hundreds of SDRs, certain patterns emerge. The top performers almost always share five core traits.
Coachability is number one, and it’s non-negotiable. Great SDRs actively seek feedback, implement it quickly, and don’t make the same mistake twice. They ask questions like “What should I have said differently?” instead of making excuses about why the prospect wasn’t interested. In interviews, these people light up when you give them feedback. They lean in, take notes, and ask clarifying questions.
Resilience separates the SDRs who make it from those who don’t. This job will beat you down daily. The best SDRs treat rejection like water off a duck’s back. They lost the deal, sure, but they’re already thinking about the next one. Watch for people who’ve pushed through genuinely hard things, whether that’s working full-time through college, recovering from injury to make the team, or building something from nothing.
Competitiveness drives the results. Top SDRs want to win. They check the leaderboard. They push to hit quota early. They get frustrated when they have an off week. This doesn’t mean they’re jerks, it means they have internal standards and they hold themselves accountable. Former athletes often bring this naturally, but you’ll find it in debate team captains, academic overachievers, and anyone who’s genuinely driven to excel at something.
Organization might sound boring, but it’s critical. SDRs juggle dozens of prospects across multiple campaigns, channels, and stages. The disorganized ones miss follow-ups, forget context, and leave meetings on the table. Great SDRs build systems. They block time for prospecting, prep before calls, and keep meticulous notes. Ask candidates to describe how they organize their day and listen carefully. The good ones have thought about this.
Communication skills are the actual job. SDRs need to write compelling emails, carry confident conversations, handle objections smoothly, and ask smart qualifying questions. You can spot this in the first phone screen. Are they articulate? Do they listen and respond thoughtfully? Can they explain complex ideas simply? If someone struggles to communicate clearly in an interview, they’ll struggle 100x more on a cold call.
Who to Look For (and Who to Avoid)
Certain backgrounds consistently produce great SDRs. Former athletes bring competitiveness, resilience from losses, and understanding of coaching. People who worked their way through college demonstrate work ethic and time management. Career changers who deliberately chose sales often outperform people who “fell into it” because they’re genuinely motivated to build this career.
Military veterans bring incredible discipline and resilience. People with customer service backgrounds already know how to handle difficult conversations and stay patient under pressure.
On the flip side, some patterns raise concerns. Recent grads with zero work experience are higher risk, not because they can’t succeed, but because you don’t know how they handle professional pressure yet. Serial job-hoppers who’ve bounced between companies every 6-9 months might bring drama or unrealistic expectations. People who can’t articulate why they want to do sales are probably just applying everywhere.
The red flags are usually behavioral. If someone shows up late to the interview without acknowledging it, imagine how they’ll treat prospect meetings. If they blame former managers for everything that went wrong, they’ll probably do the same to you. If they get defensive when you give feedback in the interview, that’s exactly how they’ll react to coaching.
Watch for people who can’t provide specific examples. When you ask about a time they overcame adversity, vague generalizations mean they’re either hiding something or haven’t actually faced real challenges. Great candidates tell detailed stories with clear outcomes.
Building an Effective Hiring Process
Your hiring process should accomplish two things: identify the right traits and give candidates a realistic preview of the job. Here’s what actually works.
Start with a focused job description that sets clear expectations. Don’t just list responsibilities, paint a picture of what success looks like. Be honest that this is a high-activity role with significant rejection. The people who get excited about that challenge are exactly who you want.
For compensation, be transparent. List the base salary range, explain how variable comp works, and show the path to promotion. Entry-level SDRs typically earn $40-50K base with OTE around $60-70K. Experienced SDRs with 1-2 years might see $50-65K base with $75-90K OTE. Adjust based on your market, SF and NYC typically run 20-30% higher, remote can be 10-20% lower.
The interview process should have 4-5 stages. Start with a 15-20 minute phone screen to assess basic fit and communication skills. Ask about their background, why they’re interested in sales, and what they know about your company. You’ll quickly identify who did their homework and who’s mass-applying.
The main video interview should go deeper on traits. Spend 45 minutes really understanding how they think and operate. Instead of theoretical questions, use behavioral prompts. “Tell me about a time you received tough feedback. How did you respond and what did you do with it?” Listen for ownership and growth, not defensiveness.
For resilience, try “Describe a significant failure or rejection. How did you handle it?” The best answers show vulnerability, clear lessons learned, and evidence of bouncing back stronger.
To assess competitiveness, ask “What’s an accomplishment you’re most proud of and what drove you to achieve it?” You want to hear passion, sustained effort, and genuine pride in the outcome.
Organization reveals itself when you ask “Walk me through how you organize your day. What systems do you use?” Strong candidates describe specific processes, tools, and prioritization frameworks. Weak candidates say something vague like “I just stay on top of things.”
The Skills Assessment That Actually Works
Here’s where most companies drop the ball. They interview well but never actually see the candidate do the job. Then they’re shocked when the hire can’t write a coherent email or freezes on calls.
Give them a timed writing exercise. Something like “You have 15 minutes to write a cold email to a VP of Sales at a mid-market SaaS company about our solution.” This reveals writing quality, how they structure value propositions, whether they attempt personalization, and if they can follow instructions under time pressure.
Then do a role play. Tell them “I’m a prospect. Call me and try to book a meeting. I’ll throw some objections at you.” You’re not looking for perfection, you’re looking for confidence, recovery, and coachability.
Here’s the critical part: give them feedback immediately after. Say “Here’s what worked well: you had strong energy and asked good qualifying questions. Here’s what you could improve: you didn’t address my main concern about budget. How would you handle that differently?”
Now watch closely. Do they get defensive? Make excuses? Or do they think about it and give a thoughtful response? This 30-second interaction tells you more about coachability than any interview question.
Reference Checks Nobody Else Does
Most companies either skip reference checks or ask such softball questions that they’re useless. Don’t make that mistake.
Call former managers, not just references the candidate provides. Ask direct questions and listen for what’s not said. “On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate their work ethic?” If someone hesitates or says “probably a 7,” that’s a red flag. Strong performers get immediate 9s and 10s.
Ask “How did they handle rejection or adversity?” and wait through the silence. Vague answers like “they were fine” mean there’s a story they’re not telling you. Specific positive examples mean you’ve got someone resilient.
“Were they coachable? Can you give me an example?” This is where you find out if someone actually implemented feedback or just nodded and kept doing what they wanted.
The most revealing question: “Would you hire them again? Why or why not?” Listen to the energy in their voice. Genuine enthusiasm is obvious. Hesitation, even with a “yes,” tells you everything.
Setting Up Comp That Drives Performance
SDR compensation should be simple enough to understand but motivating enough to drive behavior. The standard structure is base salary plus variable comp tied to quota achievement.
Entry-level SDRs might have a $45K base with $15K variable at 100% quota, putting OTE at $60K. If their quota is 15 qualified meetings per month, that’s roughly $83 per meeting. Add an accelerator where meetings above 120% quota pay 1.5x and suddenly they’re chasing that number.
For experienced SDRs, you might offer $55K base with $25K variable at quota, making OTE $80K. Set quota at 18 meetings per month, paying about $115 per qualified meeting with a 2x accelerator above 120%.
The variable portion should be 25-35% of total OTE. Too low and it doesn’t motivate. Too high and it creates income instability that stresses people out.
Tie compensation to outcomes, not just activity. Meetings booked matter, but qualified meetings that advance to real opportunities matter more. Some companies even include a small component based on pipeline generated or deals closed from their meetings.
Common Mistakes That Tank Your Hiring
The biggest mistake is hiring for experience over traits. That candidate with 3 years at a big tech company looks impressive until you realize they’re set in their ways, can’t adapt to your smaller company’s scrappiness, and don’t take coaching well.
Skipping the practical assessment is mistake number two. Someone can interview beautifully and completely fail at actually doing the work. Always include role plays and writing exercises.
Ignoring red flags because you need someone now is how you end up managing someone out 90 days later. Trust your evaluation. If you have concerns, pass and keep looking. The cost of a bad hire is always higher than leaving the seat empty another month.
Rushing the process creates regret. Yes, you need pipeline and having an unfilled SDR role hurts. But hiring the wrong person hurts worse. They miss quota, drag down team morale, take up management time, and then you’re back to hiring again anyway.
Weak reference checks leave blind spots. Actually call people. Ask hard questions. If something feels off, it probably is.
Building a Sustainable Hiring Pipeline
Don’t wait until you desperately need an SDR to start recruiting. Build a continuous pipeline.
Referrals are your highest-quality source. Offer your team $1,000-2,500 for successful referrals, typically split 50% at hire and 50% after 90 days. Your top performers know other high performers, and they’re invested in protecting team culture.
LinkedIn recruiting takes effort but yields solid candidates. Search for people with the right backgrounds, former athletes in customer service roles, recent grads from competitive schools, career changers showing consistent progression.
Job boards drive volume but require heavy screening. You’ll sift through a lot of mediocre applications to find gems, but they’re in there.
University recruiting works well for entry-level roles. Partner with career services, attend job fairs, offer internships that can convert to full-time. You get moldable talent without bad habits, though it takes longer to ramp them.
Making the Offer They’ll Accept
When you’ve found the right person, make the offer count. Call them first, don’t just send an email. Start positive: “We’d love to offer you the SDR role.” Then walk through the details, base salary, OTE, start date, benefits, and importantly, the growth path.
Make it clear this isn’t just a job, it’s a career trajectory. “Most of our AEs started as SDRs. The typical promotion timeline is 12-18 months for top performers.” That future vision matters more than you’d think.
Set a decision deadline but make it reasonable. “We’d love to hear back by Friday” gives them time to think without dragging out. Be available for questions. Address concerns directly.
Follow up with a written offer that includes everything: job title, compensation structure, benefits, equity if applicable, and start date. Make it easy for them to say yes.
What Happens After You Hire
Finding great SDRs is only half the battle. The other half is onboarding and developing them properly. Even the best candidate will fail without structure, training, and coaching.
Set clear expectations from day one. Give them a 30-60-90 day plan with specific milestones. Assign them a mentor or buddy who can answer questions and show them the ropes. Invest in real training, product knowledge, methodology, tool proficiency, talk tracks.
Manage performance actively. Weekly one-on-ones to review metrics, listen to calls, and provide feedback. Monthly reviews to track progress against goals. If someone’s struggling at 60 days, you need to know and intervene. If they’re still struggling at 90 days despite coaching, it’s probably not the right fit.
Top performers need development too. Give them stretch goals, involve them in training new hires, create a path to promotion. The worst thing you can do is neglect your stars because they don’t “need” attention.
Key Takeaways
Hiring great SDRs comes down to knowing what matters and having the discipline to evaluate for it. Traits beat experience every time. Coachability, resilience, competitiveness, organization, and communication are your core requirements. Everything else can be trained.
Build a process that actually tests for these traits. Use behavioral interview questions, practical assessments, and thorough reference checks. Don’t skip steps because you’re in a hurry.
Be transparent about compensation and career path. The right candidates want to know they’re building toward something, not just dialing for dollars.
When you find red flags, trust them. Hire slow, fire fast. The cost of a bad hire is always higher than waiting for the right person.
And remember: hiring is just the beginning. Great SDRs are made through strong onboarding, consistent coaching, and clear growth opportunities. Get both parts right and you’ll build a team that consistently crushes quota.
Ready to Build Your SDR Team?
Hiring and ramping SDRs takes time you might not have. If you need qualified meetings now while you build your internal team, we can help. Book a call to learn how Flowleads delivers consistent pipeline without the hiring headaches.