Sales Development Representative, Handshake
$90-100k
OTE
+ Equity
The career platform for Gen Z
Be an early applicant
The career platform for Gen Z
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$90-100k
OTE
+ Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To democratize access to opportunity and ensure any student can build a great career no matter who they know, where they live or what school they attend.
Role
Who you are
- This role is best suited for someone who works with focus, consistency, and accountability
- The people who succeed here balance volume with quality, learn quickly from feedback, and hold themselves to a high bar
- When challenges come up, they pause, reassess, and find a better way forward
- Success in this role requires steadiness under pressure, clear communication, and a genuine commitment to continuous improvement
Desirable
- Have 6–12 months of SDR experience or have worked in a consulting, closing, or operations role with clear quota ownership
- Can demonstrate proven attainment in any quota-driven role
- Have advanced written communication skills and can convey context clearly and succinctly
- Don’t get derailed by a bad month; you analyze it, adjust, and come back stronger
- Take complete ownership of results and can point to concrete examples of how you improved a process or outcome
- Are coachable, consistent, and can manage a high volume of activity without losing quality
- Bring curiosity and composure to conversations with senior leaders
- Are motivated by measurable impact, not hypothetical success
- Experience in consulting or operations
- Internship experience in a performance-based or client-facing environment
- Hired for a job or internship from Handshake
- Familiarity with Salesforce, Outreach, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, or Gong
What the job involves
- Handshake is hiring a Sales Development Representative to join our Employer SDR team
- You’ll be the first point of contact for prospective employer partners; responsible for building qualified pipeline and maintaining a high standard in every interaction
- This is a fast-paced, metrics-driven environment where results matter
- You will have an opportunity to learn and grow in this role
- We support our SDRs and seek to promote them internally based on their demonstrated success in the role, alignment with our values, and a passion for helping students
- You'll consistently hit or exceed monthly targets; starting at Month 2, new hires are expected to exceed their ramping quota
- Generate and qualify a high volume of outbound opportunities through thoughtful, personalized outreach
- Manage and convert inbound leads quickly and efficiently, maintaining a high level of context and professionalism
- Partner closely with Account Executives on territory plans, messaging, and deal strategy
- Track activity and insights accurately in Salesforce, Gong, and Outreach
- Reflect on performance weekly; what worked, what didn’t, and how to improve
Our take
The three founders of Handshake established their company in an attempt to eliminate inequality and make the student hiring landscape fairer. The Handshake platform acts as a LinkedIn for college students, pairing students from every walk of life with more than 650K employers, including the entire Fortune 500, which includes Google and Nike.
The graduate recruitment platform is open to any student with a valid @.edu email address, with more than 17M active users from thousands of colleges and universities. With a student-first philosophy, the company generates revenue from both universities and employers rather than students.
Valued at $3.5B, Handshake has gained traction in a competitive market, although it has strong competition from recruiting giants LinkedIn and Indeed. It stands out, however, by helping students build new relationships and skills, rather than simply making connections to people they already know.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
2% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
Jan 2022
$200m
SERIES F
May 2021
$80m
SERIES E
Total funding: $434m
Company benefits
- Health Insurance: Comprehensive medical , dental, and vision coverage
- Fertility and family forming: Through a partnership, Handshake offers comprehensive family benefits, including infertility treatments and a $15K stipend, to its employees.
- LGTBQ+ coverage: All medical plans cover transgender services.
- Mental health: Discounts on a variety of wellness apps and an Employee Assistance Program with access to five free counseling sessions.
- Tax savings: Tax-advantaged benefits to save money on healthcare, dependent care, and other expenses.
- Learning & development: Employees are provided with an annual stipend to use towards professional development, career development workshops, manager trainings, and 1-on-1 coaching through external partnerships
- Community leader support: Employee Resource Group leaders are compensated with a quarterly bonus for the high-impact work the role requires
- Parental leave: Leaves of 16 weeks for birth-giving parents and 10 weeks for non-birth-giving parents; the policy applies to adoptions as well. Handshake also partners to provide one-on-one coaching on preparing for leave and coming back from leave
- Flexible time off: No accrued time off or waiting period to take vacation. Two paid flexible holiday days off to observe holidays that closely align with religious, cultural, and personal needs
- Sabbatical: Paid six-week sabbatical to recharge and reset beginning at six years of continuous, full-time employment, and every four years thereafter
- Volunteer time off: Two days off for social and civil activism, volunteer work, and/or any related activities, including attending and participating in protests
- Life & disability insurance: Essential benefits and automatic coverage with basic life insurance, plus short-term and long-term disability coverage.
- 401k match: Dollar-for-dollar match up to 1% of pay, with a max of $1,200 per year.
Company HQ
Financial District, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Garrett Lord
(Co-Founder & CEO)Majored in Computer Science at Michigan Technological University. Interned at Palantir Technologies before co-founding Handshake in 2012.
Ben Christensen
(Co-Founder)Graduated from Michigan Technological University with a degree in Computer Networking & Systems Administration. Interned at Target and worked as a Developer at Up and Running Software. Was part of Arbor Networks' ASERT Security Research team.
Scott Ringwelski
(Co-Founder)Attained a degree in Computer Software Engineering from Michigan Technological University. Co-founded Handshake in 2012.
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