How to Land a Dream Job as an SDR — Tools and Tactics for Getting Hired

When it comes to the ultimate goals in life, landing a dream job is probably on almost everyone’s list. The idea of a dream job presents a unique journey to each individual, shaped by their personal ambitions and preferences.  

While today’s unpredictable and disruptive business landscape is anything but accommodating to young professionals, the demand for talented sales representatives stays strong. 

The good news is that companies across all industries are always looking for talented SDRs to help their potential customers make the first step toward a purchase. The pitfall? It’s a ruthless, competitive environment out there, with companies having to decide among tens or hundreds of applicants for each position. 

Whether you’re a sales newcomer or a seasoned pro, simply waiting for your dream job to knock on your door or blasting out CVs without a clear vision will not cut it. SDRs thrive on setting sales goals and then strategizing ways to achieve them, and that’s the same approach they should apply to their dream job search. 

Let’s dive into the best proactive steps and tools SDRs can leverage to get battle-ready for their career journey ahead and ensure that they will get that dream offer when the opportunity occurs. 

Creating your dream job search strategy

The best way to strategize your dream job hunt is to treat it like a sales strategy, something that all SDRs know a thing or two about. Rather than trying to sell a product, SDRs will attempt to sell their expertise and potential. 

If you think about it, searching for a job involves a great deal of prospecting and engagement, only instead of prospects, you will be targeting companies and their hiring decision-makers. 

And just as in sales, the final step of this journey is to close the deal, or in our case — get the job. But before we begin executing the job search strategy, it’s crucial to get two things in check. 

Define your dream SDR job 

Clearly defining your dream SDR job is the absolute first step in turning it into a reality. Without doing so, you’ll embark on a journey without a final destination, which admittedly sounds like fun but won’t work for a job hunt. 

Ask yourself which factors are most important to you, your lifestyle, and your goals. Of course, compensation plays a major part in goal-setting for SDRs, with those confident in their abilities opting for no-cap commission-based structures, but there are so many other things to consider. 

• What are your other biggest personal drivers — job security, schedule flexibility, or a friendly corporate culture?
• What are your long-term career goals, and which SDR job would be the best steppingstone to achieve them?
• What’s your ideal niche/industry to work in?
• What’s your ideal work environment (remote/office/hybrid)?

Craft the perfect CV for the role

Once SDRs can envision their dream job, they can then begin creating the most effective strategy tailored to their goals, starting with polishing up and tailoring their CV to the dream position. 

SDRs can make the necessary tweaks to mold their resumes as relevant to their dream companies/niches as possible, aligning their value proposition on paper accordingly. 

Designed exactly for this task, AI CV generators like Resume.io help type in seconds the most tailored and professional resume based on your prompts, highlighting experience, skills, and achievements most relevant to the desired future employer while removing all the unnecessary extra fluff. 

Other than that, Grammarly’s AI tool allows you to optimize your resume skillset — just type in your dream job title and get a list of the most relevant soft and hard skills to include. Once your CV is ready, you can also spend a few minutes with Grammarly to ensure there are no grammatical errors, and you’re good to go.

Considering that nowadays most companies use applicant tracking systems (ATSs) to qualify candidates in the initial recruitment stage, 75% of resumes never reach the hiring managers. To ensure their CV isn’t one of them, SDRs can turn to special resume scanners like Jobscan and Enhancv that use AI algorithms to suggest keyword and structure optimizations for the best ATS compatibility. 

Pro tip: If you’re targeting any specific company or business niche, try to reverse engineer their job posts to create a really relevant CV. For example, if you’re looking to join a lead generation agency, analyze some of the sales agent job descriptions out there and add a few details that would make your resume more appealing to those companies.

How to get an SDR job?

Now that you’ve identified your dream job and optimized your resume, do you really believe that you are ready and qualified to start applying? 

Work experience, achievements, and high-profile references matter a lot to employers, so if you feel like you’re not 100% ready for your dream job at this very moment — the best plan of action is to focus on closing all those gaps in your resume. 

But once an SDR feels ready to kick off their dream job search, here are the 4 tactics that will help tip the scales in their favor and get that much-deserved offer.  

1. Showcase your personal brand  

As a sales professional, you will inevitably start building your own personal brand in the industry to grow your audience and credibility with prospects and fellow sales reps. 

The reason companies care about this is crystal clear — your personal brand is an asset you bring along to your new company in the form of your audience and network. Besides, as an SDR, you will be the face of a business as the first point of contact for potential customers. 

Since most professional branding is done on LinkedIn, there is a common misconception that other, nonprofessional social media accounts don’t matter in the workplace, and it’s okay to go crazy there. 

But as an aspiring sales leader, your personal brand transcends across all aspects of your life. In fact, almost 80% of recruiters said they have rejected candidates due to their social media presence. 

That’s why it’s a good idea to clean up your social media accounts from anything that could potentially jeopardize your dream job, or at the very least — make them private. 

Pro tip: To check out how you would look in the eyes of your future employers, simply google yourself in incognito mode and ensure that you’re happy with everything you discover. 

Similarly, SDRs must optimize their LinkedIn profiles since that is where they will be building and showcasing their brand the most. I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to call LinkedIn a tool, but how can you not when it’s the ultimate platform for social selling and a goldmine of companies and decision-makers for research, outreach, and networking? 

You never know when an inbound job opportunity may arise — perhaps a hiring manager from one of your dream companies coming across you online — so it’s best to present yourself professionally at all times across all channels. 

2. Apply your SDR skills  

First things first, it definitely makes sense to go on the top employment sites like Jooble, sales/SaaS job boards and narrow down your search to get the ball rolling. Who knows, maybe there are a couple of SDR vacancies that tick all your boxes available right away? 

Once you’re ready to knock on some doors and apply for available positions, it’s time to implement the good-old SDR processes — prospecting and engagement.  

Based on your ideal company profile, start building targeted lists of the most relevant companies you would like to work for along with the contact info of their hiring decision-makers. I would recommend you gear up with a reliable email finder to make this step seamless and fast. 

After doing your homework on each company to draw up some effective personalized templates, the time for outreach has come.  

And who better than SDRs can appreciate the power of a sales engagement platform (SEP) when launching automated outreach campaigns? Since platforms like Reply.io will fully automate all communications, this is definitely another tool I would recommend using in a job hunt. 

Pro tip: Using sales software when applying for an SDR job is also a great opportunity to showcase your professional skills. In fact, I see many companies listing the common SEPs (including Reply.io) as the desired skills in their job descriptions!

After launching multichannel sequences with emails, LinkedIn messages and requests, and follow-ups, SDRs need to stay on top of these communications, ideally also setting trigger alerts for those high-value replies. 

A reliable CRM platform is one way to go, but most SDEs are also more than capable of organizing ongoing outreach campaigns as well as incoming replies — like with our Consolidated Inbox! So if one tool is what you’re after — I’d suggest the latter. 

Then there are job search organizers like Huntr that provide more specialized assistance for job seekers. They keep track of all applications in real time with visual lists and Kanban boards, along with powerful analytics to ensure no opportunity slips by you.  

3. Embrace the power of networking 

Sales reps know better than anyone that not every opportunity turns out to be a closed deal for one of a hundred reasons, and it’s no different in the job application process. 

As with prospects, their inbox won’t be flooded with replies and invitations from dream-job companies, but SDRs also know that this does not mean game over. They know it could also result in new meaningful connections and introductions in the field, new communities and resources discovered, in other words — networking. 

The sales industry thrives on networking, and nobody should underestimate its powers. According to a recent LinkedIn survey, a whopping 73% of folks out there landed their jobs thanks to a friendly introduction or referral from someone in their circle.

Meaningful networking entails connecting with sales peers, perhaps with those working or having experience in your dream company or niche, as well as sharing valuable industry knowledge and engaging with other people’s posted content. 

Staying active in their dream field will help SDRs elevate their social selling and connect with other sales pros who may very well turn out to be the ones making that recommendation or introduction that could lead to your dream job. 

Pro tip: Social media is also a great source of professional development for ambitious SDRs where they can keep their hand on the pulse with key sales trends. To do that, follow industry influencers, engage in meaningful conversations with peers, or attend webinars and other events you come across on LinkedIn.

4. Close the deal with the interview 

After applying for numerous top SDR positions and reaching out to key people in the relevant firms, an SDR will eventually start getting invitations to interview — the most important part of the SDR hiring process. 

While it’s just the first step in the complex recruitment process, this may be the best and only chance for SDRs to showcase why they are the best person for the job, just like they would do with a product in a sales meeting. 

And just as in a sales meeting, it’s important to do your homework and learn everything there is to know about the company you’ll be interviewing with. I remember reading somewhere that a  significant factor in acing a sales job interview lies in the art of asking recruiters the right questions, and I couldn’t agree more. So take the time to prepare some great questions to show that you mean business.   

SDRs will basically attempt to sell their personal value proposition to the hiring manager, focusing on what they would bring to the table. This means that besides researching the company, it’s important to practice articulating and pitching your most noticeable and relevant selling points before stepping into what could be a once-in-a-lifetime job interview.  

There will be objections, hurdles, and tough interview questions, just as there are in virtually every sales meeting. So be prepared to think on your feet, address all questions professionally, and negotiate on the spot. 

Pro tip: Don’t forget to follow up with recruiters and sales leaders after being interviewed by them. Who knows, maybe that short “thank you” email will be the deciding factor between you and another candidate. 

Let the dream job search journey begin 

Landing your dream job as an SDR is a long, demanding journey. But once you can envision it and create a coherent plan of action, you’ve already done half the job. 

Just like anything in sales, hunting for that perfect job opening will take a lot of time and effort on your part, but it wouldn’t really be a dream job if it were easy to get, now would it? 

The great news is that SDRs can mirror the sales process throughout their entire job hunt — creating a well-defined strategy, targeting the most relevant companies and decision-makers, earning those interviews, and then successfully closing the deal after getting that job offer.  

No matter if you are just beginning your dream job pathway or have been trying to land it for years — don’t give up. The SDR job of your dreams is somewhere out there, waiting for you to press on through all the obstacles and become the best sales rep you can be. Best of luck!