Generative AI, economic pressure, and increasingly technical buyers are reshaping the responsibilities and structures of go-to-market (GTM) teams across tech. In this environment, hiring teams need to adjust their job descriptions accordingly.
When job descriptions reflect expectations that no longer match how the position operates today, you risk attracting candidates who are unequipped to meet modern demands. In this blog, we explain how to optimize your job descriptions to effectively highlight the adaptability and AI fluency you need from your sales candidates.
AI is Blurring the Boundaries Between Sales Roles
For most of the past two decades, most GTM roles operated in clearly separated lanes with predictable handoffs between them. Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) generated and qualified leads, Account Executives (AEs) carried deals to close, managers oversaw teams, and senior leaders focused on scaling the broader motion.
Today, tech sales teams are becoming smaller as they rely more heavily on automation. The work that remains for human sellers requires technical depth to draw undocumented knowledge directly out of customers.
In this new model, titles are beginning to overlap as sellers cross into adjacent lanes, making recycled job descriptions largely ineffective. A JD written for a narrow, single-lane role may not surface the candidates who can operate across the wider scope these teams are moving toward.
AI Fluency as a Requirement for Customer-Facing Roles
Buyers in the modern technology market increasingly expect sellers to answer detailed product questions, explain integration requirements, and validate technical feasibility earlier in the conversation. The seller who relies primarily on relationships while deferring technical questions to a product team is usually less convincing than competitors who demonstrate genuine product expertise upfront.
Going forward, fluency with AI tools needs a clear place in the requirements section of your customer-facing roles, framed at the depth each title needs. A description that treats this competency as a “nice to have” may read as dated to the strongest candidates. Effective JDs, on the other hand, outline the specific competencies a seller should bring and distinguishes non-negotiables from preferences.
Updating SDR Job Descriptions for AI Skills
The SDR role has changed significantly over the past three years as automation has absorbed tasks such as lead generation and qualification. Certain aspects of your existing SDR job description may still hold, but it should now account for how candidates work alongside AI prospecting tools.
Hiring teams should assess how candidates use AI-powered solutions and whether they can build and refine prompts that drive effective outreach at scale. Your JD can reflect this by naming familiarity with AI outreach, account research, and pipeline tools alongside the qualification judgment and communication skills that have always defined strong sales development work.
Some companies are reframing the role entirely. The emerging Sales Development Analyst title, for example, signals an expectation that candidates arrive already fluent in these tools without needing to learn them through a structured ramp.
Updating AE Job Descriptions
The modern Account Executive plays a greater role during technical conversations. Your AE description should reflect the technical depth and AI fluency necessary to engage with modern buying committees without leaning entirely on Sales Engineers (SEs).
A second shift is also shaping the role: experience selling into, or working within, AI-driven environments. Enterprise buyers increasingly expect sellers to demonstrate that understanding from the first conversation. The strongest AE descriptions clarify both the technical competencies required and the AI-native buyers the seller will engage.
Updating EAE Job Descriptions for AI Skills
Enterprise Account Executives (EAEs) sell larger and more complex deals to decision-makers who often sit at the senior executive level. Your Enterprise AE description should reflect the heightened technical credibility these buyers expect early in the process.
Because enterprise deals are longer and more consultative in nature, trust must be established in early conversations. Your description should specify the technical depth required as well as the enterprise stakeholders the candidate will be expected to engage. Mark each competency and buyer persona as required or preferred based on relevance.
Strong Job Descriptions are the Foundation of an AI-First Hiring Strategy
Betts has spent more than 15 years helping technology companies build go-to-market teams through every major shift in how software is sold. Contact Betts here to discuss how our ready-made job description templates and recruiting expertise can help you build the go-to-market team your AI-first motion requires.