This guide is for anyone who wants a first sales development role and has never carried a quota. By the end you'll have a CV that reads as SDR material, a working understanding of how outreach is done, a role-play you can survive, and a realistic idea of where the job leads. Most of it takes a few weeks of evenings, not months.
An SDR (sales development representative) is the person who starts the sales conversation. You find prospects, contact them by email, phone and LinkedIn, and book meetings for an account executive to run. Most SaaS companies hire graduates and career changers into the role with no sales history, because they'd rather train the process than hunt for a finished article. Having sat on the other side of hiring tables for engineering teams, I've watched SDRs work alongside us for years, and the ones who got in cold had done the preparation below.
Step 1: Learn what the day actually looks like
Before you write a word of CV, understand the work. A typical day starts in the CRM (Salesforce or HubSpot at most companies you'll meet). You open a list of accounts, usually built by marketing or by you, and work through them in a tool like Outreach or Salesloft, which sequences your emails, calls and LinkedIn touches over a couple of weeks. Contact data comes from ZoomInfo, Apollo or LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
A new lead comes in, you research the company for ten minutes, you write an opening line that isn't generic, you send it. Then you ring. Most calls go nowhere. Someone is in a meeting, someone hangs up, someone tells you politely to go away. Then, occasionally, a person says "actually, send me a time." That's the job.
How you'll know it's worked: you can describe a day in that order to a stranger, naming the tools, without sounding like you read it off a careers page.
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Step 2: Translate what you've already done into SDR evidence
You don't need sales experience. You need proof of the behaviours underneath it. Hiring managers screen for three things: resilience after rejection, curiosity about other people's problems, and the discipline to do repetitive work well.
Hospitality, retail, call centres, charity fundraising, bar work and customer support all produce that evidence. So does anything where you chased people who didn't want to be chased: organising a society, collecting sponsorship, running a stall. A former teacher who handled thirty parents' evenings has more talking-to-strangers practice than most graduates.
Rewrite each bullet on your CV so it shows a number or an outcome you can honestly state, such as volume handled, targets hit, repeat customers won. If you can't measure it, describe the situation plainly. Don't inflate. Interviewers ask follow-ups, and an invented figure falls apart in about ninety seconds.
How you'll know it's worked: a stranger reading your CV for ten seconds could say "this person talks to people for a living and keeps going."
Step 3: Get the vocabulary right
You'll sound unprepared if you can't use the basics. Learn these properly:
- ICP (ideal customer profile): the type of company a seller targets
- Qualification: deciding whether a prospect is worth an account executive's time (BANT and MEDDIC are common frameworks)
- Cadence or sequence: the planned run of touches
- Pipeline and quota: the meetings or revenue you're measured against
- AE: the account executive who closes what you book
And know what you'd be measured on. Most SDR roles score you on meetings booked or opportunities created, not on emails sent. Saying that in an interview marks you out.
How you'll know it's worked: you can explain the difference between an SDR and an AE in two sentences, without notes.
Step 4: Pick targets that actually hire beginners
SaaS and tech firms hire the most first-time SDRs, particularly scale-ups with a structured onboarding programme. Look at the job description, not the employer's name. Phrases like "full training provided", "no previous experience required" and "clear progression to AE" are good signs. A role that demands two years of outbound experience isn't for you yet.
Basic salary for a first SDR role in the UK tends to sit roughly between £24,000 and £32,000, with on-target earnings (OTE) often landing around £35,000 to £50,000 once the variable element is included. London pays higher, and the gap shows up in the base more than the commission. Check the split. A job advertised at £45,000 OTE with a £24,000 base and a hard-to-hit target is a different proposition from one with a £32,000 base.
You can browse current SDR and entry-level sales roles on OHUB to see how employers phrase what they want.
How you'll know it's worked: you've shortlisted ten roles where the requirements genuinely match what you can show.
Step 5: Prepare for the outreach role-play
This is where most beginners lose offers. Many employers run a live task: a cold call, a cold email, or both. Here's the usual process. You're given a fictional prospect, a short product description and five to ten minutes. The interviewer plays a busy, slightly sceptical buyer.
What they're watching isn't perfection. It's whether you:
- Open with something specific rather than "how are you today?"
- Ask a question and then stop talking
- Handle "not interested" without folding or arguing
- Close by asking for a small, concrete next step
Practise out loud, ideally recorded on your phone. Writing a script isn't enough, because the awkwardness only shows when you hear yourself. Do the research on the actual company before the interview, including who their customers are and what they sell. That ten minutes of preparation separates you from most of the room.
For emails, keep it short. Three or four sentences, one clear ask, a subject line that reads like a person wrote it. Read it aloud. If you wouldn't say it, rewrite it.
How you'll know it's worked: you can run a two-minute cold call, recorded, and hear yourself ask a real question and pause for the answer.
Step 6: Handle the interview itself
Expect a short screening call, then a hiring manager interview, then the role-play, sometimes combined. Common questions: why sales, why this company, tell me about a time you were told no, how do you handle a bad day. Have real, short answers ready.
The question "why sales?" trips people up. Don't say "I'm good with people", which every candidate says. Say what you actually like about the work, such as starting conversations, working to a number, or the quick feedback loop. Be honest if the money matters to you. Hiring managers expect it.
And ask them things. How is the team's quota set? What does the first ninety days look like? How many SDRs moved into AE roles in the past year, and how long did it take? The last question tells you more about the company than any careers page.
How you'll know it's worked: you leave having asked at least two questions that changed how you felt about the role.
Step 7: Understand where the job leads
SDR is a starting point, and most companies expect to move you on within roughly 12 to 24 months. The usual route is SDR to AE, either in an SMB (small and mid-sized business) team or, later, mid-market or enterprise. Some people move sideways into customer success, sales operations or marketing. A smaller group stays in outbound and becomes a team lead or SDR manager.
The path is looser than it looks on a progression chart. Promotions depend on headcount, your manager and whether the company is growing. If you want the full map, these two pieces go deeper: sales career progression from SDR to enterprise and the routes from SDR to sales leader.
If you're applying to engineering-led or developer-tool companies specifically, there's a quirk worth knowing. Your buyers are often engineers, and they can smell a script from the first line. A little technical curiosity (reading the product docs, understanding what an API is) goes further there than polish.
How you'll know it's worked: you can name where you'd want to be in two years and what you'd need to hit to get there.
If a step goes wrong
No interviews after twenty applications. The CV is usually the problem. Reread step 2, cut anything that doesn't show talking to people or hitting a target, and put outcomes first. Apply to fewer roles, but write a short, specific note for each.
You froze in the role-play. Common, and fixable. Record yourself ten times and listen back. If you're rejected after a role-play, ask for feedback. Some employers will give it, and what they say is worth more than another week of general practice.
You keep getting "we went with someone with experience." Look at the roles you're applying to. Some are quietly aimed at people with a year of outbound behind them. Go back to step 4 and target firms that advertise structured training.
You've got an offer and something feels off. Check the base salary, the quota, and how many of the current team hit it. A high turnover on the SDR team tells you something. Ask.
You started, and hate the calling. It's a rough few weeks for almost everyone. If it hasn't eased by the end of the third month, talk to your manager about whether a different route, such as customer success or sales operations, suits you better. The skills transfer.
