Great Opportunity to Start Career, but You Will Have to Deal with Some B.S.
Pros
This can be a great opportunity to get into a lucrative industry. If you are put on a good client who takes their Business Development seriously (and knows a thing or two about sales) the potential to be hired out is a fantastic option and career path. MemoryBlue also offers some great, albeit lacking in a few areas, training for SDRs, mainly revolving around cold calling. I learned a ton while working here. Training sessions are offered on a weekly basis, and in the ATX office group call evaluations are a staple. The potential for continued development is there if you're willing to put in the time. MemoryBlue is also very well connected in the high tech industry and has a decent alumni network. If you recently graduated from college this will be a great place for you to meet people your own age and have a social life outside of the office. Company events happened frequently before the pandemic and were always a great time. The people in the ATX office are all friendly, welcoming, and helpful to new people. All around the Austin office has a great group of people to work with from management down to SDRs.
Cons
Just so whoever is reading this knows ahead of time, being an SDR is a grind. No matter where you go this job has the potential to be grueling, mundane, redundant, etc., so none of that can be put on memoryBlue. Most of my woes come from corporate as opposed to the Austin Office specifically. I've never been micromanaged so much in my entire life. There are two meetings a day just to cover daily metrics and make sure people are actually working. There also seems to be a fair amount of politics working against the teams in Austin and San Jose. For instance, we would have an SDR hit their quota for a month and get to the top of the leaderboard which entitles them to a pretty substantial bonus. The leadership in our HQ office in DC would do everything in their power to raise that SDR's quota (which they had already surpassed) and take away their spot on the leaderboard and their bonus. This happened on more than one occasion to multiple SDR's in ATX. Meanwhile, SDRs in Boston/DC would surpass quota every month and their quotas were never changed/raised. Management also puts too much focus on cold calling. In some industries cold calling is simply ineffective, but in the eyes of management cold calling activity is all that matters. Prepare to be under the microscope if you don't hit your activity numbers. Even if cold calling doesn't prove effective on your campaign and seems like a waste of your time because no one even answers the phone you will not be given an exception. Lastly, the pay is LOWWWWWWW and the bonus structure is meh. On top of that I felt like I was working in a fraternity/sorority the entire time which isn't always fun for someone who isn't into that scene but it does make for abundant opportunities to go out and be social.
