picked.ai/hire/sdr
Hire a sales development representative
How to hire a
sales development representative.
Salary bands, time-to-fill, what good actually looks like, and the assessment we put every candidate through. Built on nine years of validated psychometric data from Neuroworx.
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~30 seconds
Title, level, three must-haves. We syndicate, screen, score, and shortlist. First 50 candidates free.
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£48,500
Median salary · United Kingdom
£42-£55k OTE senior range
42d
Typical time-to-fill
down to 2.5d with Picked
412
Applicants per role
Series A · public posting
9 / 412
Make it to interview
industry · pre-AI screening
Salary bands
What it costs to hire one.
2026 H1 · base + variable
LevelUSUKEURemote
IC1 / Junior SDR$48-$67k OTE£30-£42k OTE€32-€45k OTE$40-$55k OTE
IC2 / Senior SDR$67-$88k OTE£42-£55k OTE€45-€59k OTE$55-$73k OTE
Source · 2,847 anonymised offers placed via Picked Q4 2025 to Q1 2026. Updated monthly.
What good looks like
Past credentials. Present signals.
01
Persistence
Comes back to the same account after three months with a new angle. Can name the account they finally cracked on attempt eleven.
02
Voice quality
Sounds like a human on a cold call. Has a recording they are proud of and a recording they wince at, and can explain the gap.
03
Curiosity about the buyer
Reads the buyer before the call, not just the company. Asks one question that the prospect was not braced for.
04
Coachability
Has changed a habit in the last quarter because a peer pointed it out. Can name the habit and the peer.
05
Honesty about what is working
Will tell you which step of the sequence is doing the work and which step is dead weight. Has killed a step that everyone else still ran.
Nine years of Neuroworx outcome data on 14,000 sales development representative hires says: the candidates rated high on persistence + curiosity about the buyer outperform high-prestige-CV candidates by a wide margin in the first twelve months.
Read the paper →
What Picked puts every candidate through
Four stages. Each one written down.
From the Neuroworx item bank · 1,247 items live
01
Triage
CV + cover screened against must-haves. Title, level, language, region, three skills you set. Hard filters first. The model spends no time on people you would not even read.
~12 seconds · $0.12
02
Conversational screen
A 12-minute voice or chat conversation against six structured probes: motivation, scope of last role, the thing they are proudest of, biggest production mistake, what they would build with a free month, why this role.
~12 min · $0.31
03
Role-fit assessment
A scoped task drawn from the bank. Submit a short writeup. Scored against a published rubric on judgement, craft, and pragmatism.
30-60 min · $0.28
04
AI first-round interview
A 20-minute voice interview against six items drawn from the IC3 item bank. Includes behavioural ("tell me about a time"), technical or scenario ("walk me through how you would approach"), and an ownership probe.
~20 min · $0.24
The 1,247 items for sales development representative are split across 42 sub-rubrics. Every item has been calibrated against twelve-month performance outcomes from 14,083 prior hires.
See sample items ↗
Sample interview questions
A few from the item bank.
01
Walk me through the last meeting you booked. From the first touch to the calendar invite.
Listen for: A real account, the channel that worked, the message that got the reply, the AE handoff.
02
Tell me about a sequence you killed because it was not working. What did you replace it with?
Listen for: A specific sequence, a real reason, the version that replaced it, the lift they measured.
03
Play me your last cold call. What would you change about the first thirty seconds?
Listen for: A specific moment in the opener. A named change they would make. They have actually listened to themselves.
04
A buyer picks up the phone and says "I have ninety seconds". What do you say?
Listen for: They earn the next sixty. They ask a question before they pitch. They are not selling the product, they are selling the meeting.
05
What is the most useful disqualification you made this quarter?
Listen for: A real account, a clear reason, the conversation with the AE about why they did not pass it.
See all 30 questions →
Job description template
Copy. Paste. Replace the bracketed bits.
sdr.md
276 words · 3 min read
# [Junior/Senior] sales development representative · [city] or hybrid

We are hiring our [Nth] SDR. You will own outbound into [verticals], paired with [the AE or pod]. The team is [N] SDRs, [N] AEs, and [the sales leader]. We run sequences in [cadence] and review every [day].

## You will be good here if

- You have booked [N]+ meetings per month for [N] months in a row and can talk about which sequences did the work.
- You listen back to your own cold calls and can name one thing about the first thirty seconds you would change.
- You kill a sequence step that is not earning its place rather than running it because it is in the template.

## What you will not get

A list and a script and a target. We expect you to read the account before you touch it, edit the sequence when it stops working, and tell the AE when the lead is not real.

## Compensation

[Currency][low] to [high] base. [low] to [high] percent commission against booked-and-held meetings. OTE [Currency][total]. We post the band because we mean it.

## How we hire

30-second post, screen + assessment via Picked, 20-min interview via Picked, one 30-min role-play with the sales leader plus a 15-min team call. We aim to give a yes or no in 7 days.

## What is the rubric

Persistence, voice quality, curiosity about the buyer, coachability, honesty about what is working. Not the meeting count on your last CV.

That is the JD. Apply via [link] or just send a paragraph about the last sequence step you killed and why.

[Your name], [your title]
Full JD template page →
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Hire sales development representatives · Picked.ai