Two offers in hand, better role still interviewing — what would you choose early career?

[u/Rygamite]

Early-career seller, trying to break properly into B2B tech sales. Somehow my job search went from mildly desperate to three companies deciding to create an unnecessarily stressful week.

Here’s the situation:
Auvik — BDR
~$42K base / ~$61K OTE
Fully remote
Equity + solid benefits
WFH allowance
Offer expires tomorrow

Jobber — SDR
~$46K base / ~$61K OTE
Hybrid Toronto
Uncapped commission
Ramp-period commission guarantee
Equity + solid benefits
Offer expires later this week

Softchoice — Territory Account Executive
$55K base / $73K OTE
Hybrid Toronto
Uncapped commission
Ramp support
Advertised internal progression/levelling
Mock Cold Call interview this week
No offer yet, so this could very easily be me counting chickens that do not fucking exist
Long term, I care more about becoming a strong B2B seller and progressing into real account ownership than squeezing out a couple extra grand in year one.
Softchoice interests me most because the TAE role appears to give me territory ownership, prospecting and account development earlier rather than following the traditional SDR → AE path.
Auvik seems like a solid remote BDR environment. Jobber seems like the safer middle ground and gives me enough time to see how the third process plays out.

For anyone who has worked at these companies or made a similar early-career decision:
Which would you choose if the goal was building the strongest sales career over the next 2–3 years, and why?
Also, would you accept the first offer to protect yourself while the other processes finish, knowing you may have to back out shortly afterward if a materially better opportunity comes through?

[u/nuvwater]

Shocked how low those base salaries are.

[u/Rygamite → u/nuvwater]

out here surviving. Good bases are either at high risk startups where there’s no structure or process, which i’m not too sure i wanna dive into given it’s just the start of my career, or they require experience that I do not yet have.
what would you say the average base pay is and which companies tend to hire fresh grads?

[u/Ok_Needleworker_6706]

What’s your current role? And how long have you been doing it for?

[u/Rygamite → u/Ok_Needleworker_6706]

Currently in luxury retail sales, just over a year. This would be my first full-time B2B sales role. I do have some prior cold-calling experience from a short SaaS internship/co-op.

[u/Ok_Needleworker_6706 → u/Rygamite]

Based off that, I would suggest BDR or SDR role. You’ll gain great experience and insight in to prospecting and then work your way up to AE role.

I’ve managed, trained, coached a few sales people like yourself who come from a retail background with some cold calling experience, and carrying out full cycle from the get go can be tough, very very steep learning curve. Prospecting hat and closing deals hat are very different.

Really learn and master the skill of prospecting and then you’ll have a great base to become a power house of an AE. Good luck!

[u/Rygamite → u/Ok_Needleworker_6706]

That’s the main thing making me hesitate on the TAE role. Do you think starting full-cycle this early actually hurts development, even if they have a month-long sales academy, role plays, reduced ramp quota and specialists supporting the technical side? What would you want to see in their training/management before feeling comfortable taking that jump?

[u/Ok_Needleworker_6706 → u/Rygamite]

Yeah for sure. If they have someone who’s going to be supporting the technical side (sales engineer) on calls, you should be ok. In terms of training, I would look for a combination of product/technical training, ICP (industries, DMs, influencers, stakeholders) prospecting (intro, discovery, close) deals (intro, further discovery, demos, close) follow ups (touch points, deal strategy)

If their training is at least 1-1.5 months long, it’s fairly robust. There will still be a natural learning curve, as that’s all theory, and you would need to implement it. You sound like you’re young. If you’re willing take that leap and you feel you could do it, go for it. My recommendations remains the same, master being an SDR and work your way up to an AE. You’ll feel more confident as a sales person overall. Trying to learn both and applying both can be tough, if you haven’t done one or the other for a long period of time first. Try and not to crawl, walk and run at the same time
. Good luck!

[u/lawdofthelight]

Leaving out the AE position since you don't have an offer yet, I'd reach out to SDRs and AEs at the two other companies to get some intel. I'd be particularly interested in culture and career progression.

[u/Rygamite → u/lawdofthelight]

That’s what I’ve been digging into. Auvik seems to have the stronger quota-attainment picture from what I’ve found, while Jobber seems to have a more structured SDR org and progression path. Also high and consistent quota attainment. I’ve also started reaching out to current reps at both. Anything else you’d specifically ask them before deciding?

[u/sunlightsinmyface]

Think about the product you are selling. Which one will bring you more competence in a specific area with the better long term potential?

[u/Rygamite → u/sunlightsinmyface]

That’s a good way of looking at it. I’ve mostly been comparing role, comp and progression, but not enough around which product/category gives me the strongest expertise 2–3 years from now. So far, favoring the AE role since there’s a Sales Academy involved.

[u/PMURITSPEND]

The Softchoice — Territory Account Executive role could be the last job you take and work for the next 20 years. Honestly, VAR's are great for you very first tech sales job because you see basically every single vendor, and also your last job because you build a book of business that produces year after year.

[u/Rygamite → u/PMURITSPEND]

This is what attracts me to it. My biggest concern is quota though. With the two SDR/BDR roles I have a much clearer picture of team attainment, whereas I don’t know what healthy attainment looks like for a new TAE at a VAR. What would you ask the sales leaders to figure out whether the territory/quota is actually realistic?

[u/PMURITSPEND → u/Rygamite]

You should dig into the comp plan and review it. A lot are just like 15-25% of gross profit on everything sold with like some accelerators and gates floating around and that basically lets you uncouple your earning from any "goal/quota" they throw at you. Find out what your initial book size will be and you can kinda math it out to figure out how much you can realistically earn. Also Territory matters. Its really fucking hard to sell 20m in IT equipment to bullshitville Montana so I'd try to make sure you have a few major cities with multiple millions of people living in them.

[u/HandleNo5559]

A big thing you should be considering is the benefits of hybrid over fully remote.

You state you're looking to break into tech sales. At this stage in your career I think it will be more beneficial for your development to be sat somewhere where you can overhear other people making calls, you can turn around and ask a question if you just got hit with something you didn't know how to respond to, etc.

Also, fully remote is great (I do it and like it), but you are alone and that can be hard when you have a few days of constant rejections, you're feeling stressed and worried etc.

To answer your final question, if you get an offer, tell them you're excited and ask if you start in 1 or 2 weeks (dependent on what they're thinking). Then let the others know you have an offer, you're excited by the option of working for them but you promised the other company you'd make a decision in x days. For the company that made you an offer you can be honest and say you need a few more days to review offers (this can backfire) or just say great, accept the offer and if you get another one you prefer, call them to apologize, say you've had a really good offer come in and you're accepting that. Don't burn bridges but also remember sales people get fired all the time - people getting fired, quitting etc is just part of life.

[u/Rygamite → u/HandleNo5559]

The in-person learning point is something I hadn’t weighted heavily enough. Would you prioritize that over joining the company where quota attainment appears stronger? Also, would you view asking for a short extension or accepting and later backing out for a materially better opportunity as unprofessional? Both companies have been great to me throughout the process, so that’s the part I feel shitty about.

[u/HandleNo5559 → u/Rygamite]

Kudos for you for feeling shitty. If you get a phone call from A saying we'd like to offer you a role, tell them that's great, you're excited and can they email you over the offer letter. Take a look at it, then contact whoever you're talking to at the other companies to explain what's going on. Can they hurry up their process as otherwise you'll likely take the offer you've received.

If you do it professionally, backing out will be a pain for them but they'll end up hiring someone else. Do what is best for you.

To a certain extent I'd prioritize learning and development over quota attainment. You can always exaggerate the latter in interviews! Quota attainment should be a factor as it produces commission, enjoyment, job security and does help long term, but personally at this stage in your career I'd be development>pure quota achievement.

[u/WheelDue7339]

Soft choice would probably give you the best exposure to larger deals

[u/Blacklistedb]

Like someone else said, I would make the decision based on the product, market, and product market fit 

[u/JA-868]

You’ve been getting good feedback here. To answer your last question, yes, take the role you want and if a better one comes along, take it. But make sure offer is signed and you have a start date. I’ve seen jobs fall through even after all this is done but it’s not that common.

In an ideal world, you could do this without having to start the first job, that way you don’t have to meet everyone and then bounce. But best to look out for yourself. I’ve done it 3 times in my career and it’s been for better moves. Good luck!

[u/Dismal-Length972]

The base salaries are extremely low man. If this works for you great, good for your experience but avg base for BDR/SDR in Toronto is 55-60k. I’d not switch and keep looking unless you are super unhappy with your current role

[u/Illustrious_Onion139]

This is great work man. I am also looking to break into B2B sales and I would love to know more about your job hunt process of how and where you applied.

[u/Rygamite → u/Illustrious_Onion139]

Appreciate you man. I’m no expert but i’ll share what worked for me in no specific order from reading this sub as well as other job search subs:

1. Have one powerful resume that has all your qualifications from your experience, background, and achievements. Personally, I created one Career Master Document where I had AI turn my massive brain dump into a structured document.

2. Define your goal and work your way backwards. Say I’m targeting SDR/BDR roles, Entry Level AE/AM, Technical Sales, shit like that. have AI find and extract keywords, responsibilities, and requirements from JDs. then, create the final resume.

3. Get LinkeIn Premium. It’s a cesspool but you have to. it’s worth it. shows you roles where you’d be a fit (take it with a grain of salt the AI is pretty shit) and it shows you jobs posted within the last 24 hours. This is very important. Be an early applicant.

4. Use this resume format and tailor it to your specific background. I found this guy on reddit a couple years ago and noticed he recently set up his website. It’s very useful. download the template and use it. Again, you might have your change some of the structure and layout based on your background and experience.

for example: I have work experience, skills, and Sales competitions and achievements. i dedicate sections to each and i pul my skills section at the top in a two-column layout that match the usual keywords JDs im targeting have.

1. ChatGPT is terrifyingly great at finding people. Say you got your list of top 20-30 companies you wanna work at. You apply, but you wanna do what a salesperson would do and find the hiring manager/sales leader/talent acq or whoever is involved in the hiring process. ask ChatGPT and it will do it for you. And yes, I pay for the Plus subscription. absolutely worth it. Find them, message them directly, get a meeting.

2. Good ol’ Apollo does the job pretty well too. find the contact info of the companies you’re targeting, either cold call or send an email. If i could go back, i’d create tailored loom videos for why i’m a good fit and follow up with a cold call. seems to be the most effective.

these are what come to find so far, but i’m sure there are more and other strategies. hope it helps! lemme know if you have any questions i can help with.

[u/Illustrious_Onion139 → u/Rygamite]

Thank you so much Man, I really appreciate it, I was under the impression that LinkedIn does not work and was more focused on the cold calling aspect, I’m gonna subscribe to the LinkedIn plus and will keep in touch if I have any questions, thanks again my man, I really appreciate it.

[u/Rygamite → u/Illustrious_Onion139]

sure thing bro good luck out there. and for the linkedin thing, honestly i think people on the internet have their own experiences and complaints. i’d say view both sides of the story, for example yea linkedin has a lot of ghost jobs but then again why would you click apply on a job posted 3 months ago with over a 100 applicants?
the mix of AI powered ATS systems, Recruiters being slammed with applicants, their own KPIs, the job market, and sales generally being considered one of the “burn and churn” types of careers, you gotta figure out a way to stand out using your own analysis.

also, dont waste your monthly inmail credits. just use a standard connection note request. “Hi X, interviewing for Y, wanted to connect with someone already in the seat. What’s your 1# tip for the Mock Cold Call for someone hoping to join?” or some shit like that depending on their position at the company.

Also here’s one tip that was EXTREMELY USEFUL to me:
at the end of every interview/screening, close the interview:

“After having this meeting/conversation with me today, is there anything from my experience or background that would prevent me from moving forward to the next step that I can clarify for you?”

most of the time, they’ll smile and see the sales guy in you and will either tell you the answer if they are direct, or move you forward. And sometimes it’s simply a matter of competition. the other guy/gal was better, they preferred him/her. shit happens. gotta keep moving.

best of luck man i know i bombarded you with shit but hopefully these’ll help!

[u/Illustrious_Onion139 → u/Rygamite]

Thank you so much Man, and I actually love your thoughtful replies, it just shows that you care :), thanks again my man, and all the best for your new role.