Entry-Level Positions For Aspiring Account Managers
While a customer-facing role straight out of college is "extremely rare," a common entry-level path in sales or tech involves starting as a business development representative, "responsible for lead generation"—a role that, while challenging, provides valuable skills like cold-calling and networking. After gaining experience as a business development representative, inside sales representative, and then outside sales representative, a career progression toward account management becomes more attainable.
Sales, Business Development, Lead Generation, Communication Skills, Cold Outreach
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Aman Sheth
Account Manager
ELREPCO
Purdue University Class of 2019
Currently pursuing MBA at UCLA Anderson
Engineering - Mechanical
Electronics & Semiconductors
Sales and Client Management
Immigrant
Video Highlights
1. Many entry-level roles in sales exist for undergraduate students, such as business development representative (BDR).
2. BDR roles involve lead generation through cold outreach (emailing and calling), providing valuable experience in communication and sales.
3. While an Account Manager role directly after college is rare, starting as a BDR allows skill development and potential advancement to Inside Sales Rep and eventually to an Account Manager role, or similar positions like Account Executive
Transcript
What entry-level positions are there in this field that an undergraduate college student might consider?
If you're lucky, you can get a customer-facing role right out of college, sort of like I did. However, I'm very much in the minority. The dream is to work directly face-to-face with a customer.
Normally, the traditional path for people entering the tech industry or sales is to start as a Business Development Rep. You're essentially responsible for lead generation. There are all kinds of names for lead generation roles, such as Sales Development Rep.
Essentially, that role involves a lot of cold outreach, including cold emailing and cold calling. Companies always need an army of lead generation people. Starting out in that is very much within reach for college students, even those with no experience. If you can show you're eager to learn, hungry, and driven, you will be able to land a Business Development Rep role.
Normally, that's about a year's worth of work. Sometimes you move from there to an Inside Sales Rep, where you support the outside sales people like account managers and account executives. As an Inside Sales Rep, you process orders and do a lot of the back-end work. You do that for a year, and then you graduate to an outside sales rep, like an account manager.
Ideally, you want to start as high on that ladder as you can. If you're not able to land an account manager or account executive role right out of college, which is extremely rare, maybe a startup might be willing to entertain that idea.
But if you're not able to start there, it's great to start out in business development as a Business Development Rep. They pay well. It's a good job to start with because you really learn how to get comfortable speaking to strangers.
It can be nerve-wracking to pick up the phone and cold call people. Frankly, there's no better way to get over that fear than to do it for a whole year. It sounds like a thankless job, and a lot of people can get burned out from that type of role.
However, the skills you learn from doing that are super valuable. You won't learn that in college, or in your Calculus class. The art of being able to speak to another person on the phone or in person is super important. It's great training for one or two years, and you also make pretty decent money doing it.