As a recent college graduate, the job search is sometimes difficult or overwhelming because everyone seems to be looking for candidates with “experience,” leaving recent grads confused and stressed.

We asked LaunchSource alum and sales pro, Tim Bordieri what he looked for in entry-level candidates when interviewing for his sales team. Here’s his take on the three biggest things hiring managers look for other than direct work experience.

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“Because it's an entry-level position, hiring managers can't rely on past success in the role as much as they would for other sales positions. Instead, what most sales leaders look for in the interview is energy, curiosity, and intelligence.

When asked about the most important quality in an SDR, the answer you hear a lot is "hustle". It's a buzzword that essentially translates to the will to do anything in order to achieve your goals. Energy in an interview is a perfect chance to show you're excited about the opportunity and ready and willing to do anything it takes to make the company successful. A lot of the time it's the only way to prove you have hustle considering most SDR's apply to the role with limited or no experience.

As for the curiosity, you can show this off by going above and beyond in your pre-interview research. Intellectual curiosity is important in any job role, but particularly in sales. Learning everything you can about your product, company, and industry will give you a leg up over other reps who choose to only learn surface level information. Beyond that, preparation for an interview will show that you have what it takes to properly prepare for discovery calls and important meetings.

Intelligence may seem broad but in this case it basically boils down to your ability to understand the big picture. Every sales organization has goals that they're trying to achieve as a whole and close to 100% of those organizations leverage data to drive towards them. The most successful SDR's and sales reps understand the big picture direction of their companies and make sure that they use all the data and tools available to them to better their craft. Modern sales is increasingly metrics based, and understanding the big picture while leveraging all the information at your disposal is critical to success.”

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