September 25, 2025 • 52 mins
This Week's Episode:
In this episode of Software Sales Simplified, hosts Kevin and Matt discuss the current landscape of hiring and recruitment in the software sales industry with expert Robyn Gilmartin. They explore the impact of AI on recruitment processes, the challenges candidates face in a competitive job market, and the importance of networking and building relationships. Robyn shares insights on how candidates can stand out, the role of experience in hiring, and strategies for companies to streamline their recruitment processes. The conversation also touches on shifting priorities in recruitment and the need for companies to retain top performers.
About our Guest - Robyn Gilmartin:
Robyn Gilmartin is a seasoned recruiter with nearly 30 years of experience building high-performing teams in the software / SaaS industry. She works directly with executives in growth mode to attract and retain elite GTM talent who consistently outperform. Robyn’s placements don’t just fill roles, they consistently accelerate business outcomes. Her candidates regularly stack rank at the top of their teams, earn Rookie of the Year and President’s Club honors, and advance quickly into leadership.
Where to Learn More About Robyn:
You can find Robyn’s profile on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robyngilmartin/
You can find ForefrontSearch here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/forefront-executive-search-llc/
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Software Sales Insights
03:59 Current Trends in Hiring and Recruiting
08:07 The Shift from Candidate-Driven to Client-Driven Markets
12:06 The Role of AI in Recruitment
20:47 Standing Out in a Competitive Job Market
24:38 Networking and Building Relationships for Success
30:38 The Importance of Storytelling in Interviews
32:39 Navigating the Recruitment Landscape
35:21 The Reality of Internal Hiring Practices
38:10 Age and Experience in the Job Market
40:08 Bad Practices in Hiring and Retention
43:02 The Evolution of Sales Compensation
46:33 Streamlining the Recruitment Process
52:35 Like Follow and Subscribe
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome to Software Sales Simplified Move to Success, your
weekly podcast for the latest and greatest in software sales
insights and how to become a better seller.
Whether you're a seasoned professional or just getting
started, please make our podcastyour one stop shop for the
latest and greatest. My name is Kevin Donville, I
(00:28):
have over 30 years experience insoftware sales and consulting
and implementation as does my Cohost and good friend Matt Long.
Matt, how are you doing here today?
I'm doing fantastic today, really looking forward to this
session. As am I, as am I.
You know, we've been sales leaders multiple times over,
implementation leaders and so forth.
(00:49):
And hiring and recruiting of people has always been a
challenge, and in some markets more than others, right?
Yeah, for sure. And then especially now, I mean,
I've not been looking for a job the past year and a half, but
what I see on LinkedIn is it's just totally insane at the
moment. And we want to have a dig into
what's actually going on from a professional in this space.
(01:13):
But that's why I'm really looking forward to this, to find
out what is actually going on with all the AI bots and the AI
responses. And are we just, is it just
machines hiring machines at thispoint?
Yeah, there there is a lot of moving parts going on in the
marketplace right now. And to help us make sense of
that, we have brought on, as youcorrectly identified, a real
(01:34):
expert in the industry with respect to hiring, recruiting
and all things related to that. Robin Gilmartin.
Robin, How are you? I'm good guys.
It's been a minute. It's been a.
Minute. And, and both Matt and I have
had many conversations with you,both personal and professional,
over the course of our careers. You've been a very welcome
(01:57):
partner in our success and our ability to be able to do our
jobs properly. But we know you, we are very
familiar with your background, your capabilities and your
expertise. But the folks listening to our
podcast, they probably aren't. So if you would be so kind, take
a minute or and tell everybody who you are.
Thanks for having me. Like I said, it's been a minute.
It's really nice to see you guys.
(02:17):
So I've been in recruiting. I usually say for longer than I
care to share or remember. I've seen the UPS, the downs on
the sideways. You know, I, I started my well
recruiting career. We'll start it with that on the
outside as I'm doing now and continue recruiting from there.
I got recruited to be in sales actually, so I've run a sales
desk. I sat as an individual
contributor. I ended up running the team
(02:40):
until they got acquired my favorite boss on earth.
Who you you are both very familiar with.
Then recruited me over to be hisinternal recruiter for a company
that was pretty small, didn't have recruiting at the time.
So I had to you know, set up allthe processes, the procedures
that we were working with. I don't know 75,000 out started
recruiters at the time. So I did the internal thing,
(03:01):
they got acquired and I said that's it, third time's a charm.
So about 12/13/14 years ago, I decided to go out on my own.
It's a boutique little business.I've always worked software.
SAS companies mostly go to market, so I would call that
sales, marketing, customer success, account management,
sort of anything that's client facing I can do.
(03:24):
Folks like you guys like the S ES who can speak my lingo, but
probably not the engineering side.
I don't understand the questions.
I never mind the answers. So I try and stick to what I
know. But yeah, thanks again for
having me. It's going to be a blast.
Well, your perspective by havingbeen someone who actually sat in
the chair and had to do the job that you're recruiting for and
the and the positions you're trying to fill.
(03:44):
But that gives you a unique perspective from that.
And you know, you've talked about having 30 years experience
in, in a mixture of those different roles as we were
talking about at the beginning of the the podcast today, it
seems almost like the world has come unhinged with respect to
recruiting and jobs and hiring and firings in the layoffs.
(04:05):
What, what are some of the most prevalent trends you're seeing
with respect to hiring and recruiting in 2025?
And what does that mean for, fornext year?
Because we're, we're getting near the end of 2025.
So we got a pretty good read on that.
But what's coming next year, do you think?
Yeah. So you know, it's been an
interesting Rd. guys, right? Like the past couple of years,
we went from all of these massive layoffs from every
(04:28):
software company under the sun. We came back from that and
people were kind of, from my perspective, just trying to hang
on to their current accounts andcurrent current clients, not
really selling much net new. In the midst of that, here come
these two pretty letters called AI, right?
So if you have AI in your name, you might get some VC funding.
If you don't forget it, you're not getting it.
There have been hardly any IP OS.
(04:50):
And so the fallout from that from a recruiting perspective.
And you know, Kevin and I, you and I have chatted about this
interview cycles really follow sales cycles.
And so I'm talking to the sales guys on feet in the street and
they're running into the same issues where everyone's trying
to do more with less. If you don't have a rock solid
ROI, the CFO ain't buying it, right?
(05:14):
And it's all these need to have technologies.
So when it falls into recruiting, you know, I would
tell you the A is out there, people are using bots, they're
trying to screen resumes. Is it effective?
Maybe, right? I think we can narrow down the
playing field. We can start to not spend so
much man hours trying to find the right people.
(05:34):
But when it comes to real recruiting, it's not about
keywords, it's not about what's on the resume.
It's not about probably even thecompany you've been at.
It's really personal. It's figuring out who is that
person? What are they good at?
Why are they bigger, better, faster, different than the other
thousand resumes sitting on the desk, Right?
So I think people are still trying to do more with less.
(05:57):
They're trying to figure out where this is going to fit in.
They're trying to handle it. I think a number of companies,
from an internal perspective, you know, it's taking longer.
People are looking for purple sprawls, as I lovingly like to
call them, you know, And I thinkit's going to continue until we
can figure out, you know, this train that's really coming down
the track. Yeah, you mentioned the looking
for purple squirrels. We I've often used the phrase
(06:18):
Unicorn. I mean, you're, you're basically
trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Take whatever analogy you want. We're I'm seeing the job
requests that are coming out. You know, Matt and I get pinged
every once in a while with somebody who's either looking
for a, a new role or is looking to fill 1.
And when they tell me what they're looking for, I'm like,
if I find that person, I will hire them.
(06:38):
I'm not, but but they're asking as you, as you've identified,
they're asking for these really high bar setted levels and
expectations with respect to background capabilities and
experience and performance, right and performance proven
track record. Right.
Then they turn around and when you send them someone like that,
(06:59):
you're hearing from several people and some have even been
on the show. The hiring cycles are
ridiculously long, like months and months long with repeated
what's. What do you think is driving
this need to do that and why is it so different from what it
used to be, say, even five yearsago?
Yeah. So I would tell you pre COVID,
(07:20):
maybe let's call it 5-10 years ago, it was a much more
candidate driven market. I mean, the hiring budgets were
out there, the money was flowing.
The IPO is the VC money. There was, there was money and
people were hiring and there wasn't this thing called AI,
right? There were, in my opinion, far
less technologies. So there, it wasn't quite as
competitive from a selling perspective.
(07:41):
You know, hey, listen, like I said, I've been in this longer
than I care to share or remember, right?
So you've got client driven markets, which this in my mind
is, and you've got candidate driven markets.
And 510 years ago it was a candidate driven market.
And if you didn't make an offer,they're gone.
You know, I'd have people sitting 35 offers within two
weeks. Like no kidding, you'd call me
(08:03):
today. I just started looking, what do
you have for me? And within two weeks you've got
5 offers. I mean, that's crazy, right?
So we are completely on the other end of that spectrum and
pendulum. There aren't as many jobs, there
aren't as many hiring, there aren't as many, you know, really
openings at the end of the day. So clients now feel like, well,
(08:24):
there's a ton of talent. I don't have to rush because the
next person's come down the road.
But what they don't realize is that Unicorn, as you like to
call it, isn't always out there,right?
So I'm getting requests of I need this much experience, this
much quota. You can't have jumped around one
year, one year, 2 year, one year, Forget it.
I'm not going to hire that whicha lot of people have in this
(08:46):
market, right? I mean, with layoffs and
startups, there's always good reasons for it.
Some DPS won't even look at it. And then beyond that, they find
the person and they put them through, to your point, months
and months of interviews. Why?
They're looking for reasons to say no rather than yes.
They think there's something better.
I've always related recruiting to real estate, right?
(09:07):
So if you see a house and it looks pretty perfect, are you
going to look for another house or are you going to buy it?
Yeah, exactly. I'm just curious how much of
these, you know, like not inappropriate, but sorry, I
can't think of the word right now.
That's OK. Point how many of the job
(09:28):
listings are created by AI? And so they're just saying, give
me the best fit for this thing. What are all the traits that
they'd have? And they just put that out
there. I'm wondering if that is getting
very unrealistic. That's what for unrealistic.
So, you know, I've heard different things.
So I don't post jobs. It's just not how I recruit,
right? When I was internal with you
guys, I did just to it was more of a marketing exercise, right?
(09:52):
Like, hey, here's this great company, we're growing, we're
recruiting. I personally don't because I'm a
sort of point and shoot recruiter.
Like you're going to give me that purple squirrel list of
requirements and I'm going to gofind those requirements and I
hope to send you three or five candidates and not 100 or even
20, right? I do hear there's a lot of posts
(10:14):
out there. They're getting hundreds of
resumes within an hour and then three months later they get
posted again. Like did you not find the right
person in the 100? Is it a real job?
Did someone forget to click the button in the ATS, which is
basically CRM for recruiting, right?
It's an applicant tracking system.
Do they forget to close the job?Right, So the requirements are
(10:36):
through the roof. The jobs, sometimes they're
real, sometimes they're not. I just heard this Horror Story
from a buddy of mine of a retired, very successful CRO.
His son's now in the market. Got a call from a recruiter, set
up a call. She wouldn't tell him what the
company was, what the job was, what the comp was, just getting
the phone. He picks up the phone and it's
the VP and he's like, hi, nice to meet you.
(10:59):
I don't even know what company I'm recruiting for or
interviewing with like what whathas happened.
How How does the How does the candidate properly present
themselves? He.
Can't. Yeah, exactly.
So I'm, I'm hearing stuff like that a lot.
Yeah. So my question and to kind of
back up on, on Matt's question, yeah, is this because everybody
(11:23):
is just shoving it over to AI, let AI take care of this
internally writing the the pros for the job description, doing
the filtering and no one's applying logic as much anymore
or doing a little bit of elbow work, elbow work.
Involved. I think it's a little bit of
both, right? I mean, I think you've got a lot
(11:43):
of recruiters who are now doing a lot of internal work and they
work really hard. But when you've got thousands of
resumes in front of you, it's impossible to look at all of
them, right? So if I throw AI at it, maybe
it'll narrow some down for me. Maybe it'll find the keywords
I'm looking for, maybe it'll float some to the top.
How good is it? I mean, again, I don't recruit
(12:05):
with AI. I mean, I might look for
profiles with AI, but I, the number of people that I've
looked at a resume, I'm like, I'm not really sure if this is
going to be a right fit. And I get them on the phone.
I'm like, Oh my God, this person's a rock star.
Right. So what people now need to
remember is the piece of paper gets you in the door, right?
And that piece of paper, to yourpoint about AI, might need the
(12:30):
right keywords, it might need the right phrase, it might need
the exact right thing. But when you get on the phone,
make sure you've got your stories, make sure you've got
your Rois, Make sure just like asales cycle, you're looking at
someone why my software is better than the others.
If you're in sales or really anywhere, you better be able to
(12:50):
tell people why you're better than the others.
Yeah, I'm just curious from a applicant standpoint because
you're getting thousands of resumes.
I don't even know if all these resumes are even real people,
right? I don't know if there's been
sent out for one, but how do youeven, I know the resume gets you
in the door, but you know, how do you stand out in this just
this cluttered thing? I mean, there's keywords and
(13:12):
other stuff, but what recommendations do you have to
just get that call back or get notice out of that?
File, I mean, it's, yeah, it's a, it's an interesting question,
Matt, and it's a really great one.
I think, you know, you can talk to 25 different VPS and you're
getting at 25 different answers.And that's the problem with
recruiting, right? My personal opinion on a piece
(13:33):
of paper needs to look ROI, especially in this market.
So I talked to sales reps that say, you know, I'm responsible
for the New England territory and I sell security.
OK. I don't know what I really care,
right. I get other resumes that say I
was the first person hired. I did the largest deal in
company history, my quotas X my attainments.
Yi Stack ranked two out of 50. I did the largest deal.
(13:57):
I have the biggest clients. I Which one do you guys want to
hire? Yeah.
Which one are you calling first?Right.
There are also resumes or peoplewhen I get them on the phone who
say I made 70% of my quote on I'm like, OK, which is pretty
common right now, right? But what they forget and what I
then the next question is how many reps in your team?
(14:19):
50 Where do you stack rank two? I'm like, OK, guys, stack
ranking two out of 50 is very different than 70%.
So the number of resumes I get that are all words and no
numbers or, you know, just attainment doesn't give me much.
It doesn't give me, you know, isit a benchmark of a $400,000
(14:41):
quota or $2,000,000. I just think you've got to tell
the story as much as you can as brief as possible.
The other if I can add on to that instead of responsible for
initiated, created, developed very different.
In words rather than passive words, right?
Yeah, and show me where you've made a difference.
Talking about outcome and impactrather than just talking about
(15:03):
roles and responsibilities. And it makes perfect sense.
It doesn't have to be sales. I mean, you could talk about
that anywhere. You could talk about saving
cost, increasing revenue, decreasing the time in their
process, creating a playbook that equaled X number of leads
or deals or whatever. There's always ROI.
(15:24):
You got to look at what are the KP is for your job, how are you
being measured and how do you put that in a piece of paper
without making it 5 pages because I'm not going to read 5
pages. I really appreciate everything
you're bringing up about some ofthe limitations of AI.
Not that AI is not a great thing, it's there's a lot of
great things about AI, but thereare some places where the human
(15:45):
experience, especially someone'sgot years of experience, can go
beyond that. So why should a person consider
engaging A recruiter such as yourself rather than relying on
those AI tools? What what?
What do they get beyond the AI? Experience is still an infant,
right? And sure, it does a lot.
I don't know if we know what it does yet.
(16:06):
We don't know how accurate it isyet.
I mean, I think a lot of it is, and it's getting better every
day. Got it.
But when you're talking about recruiting someone, you're not
asking them which keywords are on their resume.
You're not asking them which keywords might fit to their
experience. I really need to get to know you
and your experience. 1 is a matchmaker, right?
(16:27):
So one is, sorry, let's go the other way around. 1 is skills
based, can you sell, can you getin?
Can you drive? Can you sell?
Can you multi thread? Can you whatever the case is to
get me through that whole sell cycle, right?
And the other part is matchmaking.
So do you fit in the culture? Are you like me and going to hit
in between the eyes? Are you a little more soft
(16:47):
spoken? Right?
Very different. And I talked to seros like this
all the time. Those offends us in the
northeast are pretty like hit mebetween the eyes.
Here's where I'm at. Like it or don't take it or
leave it, right? Some of the Southwest, that New
York Rep probably ain't going tosell in Texas and the Texas Rep
ain't going to sell in New York.So there's a lot more.
(17:08):
There are many more nuances to recruiting than keywords.
Beyond that, you need to know the questions to ask.
You can't just did you make yourquota?
Yes. Great.
OK, so how'd you do it? And does AI understand that?
Do you know bots understand thatmaybe do they know the next
(17:29):
question to ask? I'm not convinced.
And let's remember this is a buying session and a selling
session. And how do you do the rest of
the story right, I mean. Even if, even if the AI says
this is my person because they know how to get in, they know
how to multi thread, they know how to run a sales cycle.
Are they sold on you? Why do they want to come work
(17:51):
for you? So, you know, I think you and I
chatted the other day about a post that I said interviews are
buying and selling and someone came back at me like, they're
not selling. I'm like, yes they are, of
course they are. We are you absolutely right.
You have to tell me why I want to work for your company.
If that's not selling, I don't know what is.
And I don't want to hear about beers on Fridays, right?
(18:12):
So I want to be able to look at someone and say, hey, I've
worked with this VP for 20 years.
He's phenomenal. He's fair, He's a wingman.
He'll stick up for you. He'll strategize with you.
He'll get in the trenches with you.
That's selling. Absolutely.
No, no, no, I wholeheartedly agree.
I mean, you know, people are always and asking me if hey, can
you introduce me to somebody, here's what I'm looking for, or
(18:33):
hey, I'm in the market, here's what I'm looking for.
And then when I write, for example, a letter of
introduction, and I know I've sent you a few, I talk about the
elements that are important to both people because that's, and
in many cases, we're talking about an intangible something
that's not quantifiable. It's a very qualitative thing
(18:54):
we're talking about to the pointyou brought up earlier on when
you were talking about some of the things you found out with
the people that you would be interviewing.
There's a whole other story thatwasn't in the resume, it didn't
show that is so relevant to whether or not that person is
the right the right candidate ornot.
And if you're just using an automated tool and not relying
(19:16):
on your expertise and your experience as a hire, as a
hiring body, or as a person who's trying to represent what
you can deliver, you may be selling yourself short.
Well, and it's, it's been interesting.
You know, you said at the very beginning, I was a head of sales
and I ran A-Team and I was in a seat.
I know how to sell and I, I soldtechnology.
(19:37):
I know what I'm looking for, right?
And I can work with my executives to say maybe that'll
work or maybe it won't. Have you thought about this,
right when we talk about that ideal pie in the sky, sure,
that'll work. But where can you flex?
Do you have to have every singleone of those?
It's interesting you bring that up though, because we we worked
with some of the same people. Yeah.
(19:57):
Sure. And whenever I would interview
one of their sales candidate, the first question they would
ask me is. Did they close you?
So it absolutely is a selling activity.
Absolutely no doubt about it. Same process.
Is a lot of hiring done strictlyremote now and the office visits
and coming in is is less and less or is that still a key
(20:20):
component for some of these companies that are really?
It's a great question. So I think it depends on the
role, right? I mean, I think when it comes to
real corporate roles though, those are going to be in office.
You want those team meetings, sales, Sometimes it depends on
the level, right? So if we've got some junior reps
who are still learning, need to be mentored, more and more of
those are moving in office or hopefully closer or in an
(20:44):
office, might not be in office 100% of the time.
It might be hybrid. The Series A companies love to
have people face to face. But as you move up the ranks and
up the tracks, when you're talking to folks like us, you've
been around for a little bit, right?
Hopefully you've got some trust and you know there's going to be
a quarterly meeting or an off site or whatever.
(21:06):
Those enterprise reps are primarily still remote.
Yeah, that makes sense. But I was, I'm curious then.
So if that's the way that thingsare trending right now and yet
everybody seems to be, as we were just discussing a moment
ago, kind of really leaning intothe AI tools.
Is it possible then? Well, I think it is based on
what you were just saying, that people are giving themselves a
(21:29):
disservice. They're not doing, not surfacing
up the things that they're trying to find in these
candidates. Is there a lot of mismatching
going on? Is that what's causing so many
delays and so much over over reliance and on these tools
rather than just picking up a phone and talking to somebody?
Potentially, right. And again, hey, guys, when
(21:50):
you've got 1000 resumes and theywere say I'm responsible for the
New England territory, I can't talk to 1000 people, right?
So there's some of that. There's some of if it's an in
office requirement and you know,Matt lives in Hawaii and I'm in
Boston. I just don't have time now.
If you somewhere in your either resume or cover letter, which I
(22:11):
don't use any more, whatever it's going to be say, hey, I am
moving to Boston on this day. That might perk my ears more
than I live in Hawaii, right? But the mismatch, you know, it's
tough because AI to me is still new.
Are we looking at keywords or are we looking at results?
Doesn't know how to do that. Doesn't know how to interpret
(22:33):
the results, Right. So even as a very old recruiter,
I had a candidate not that long ago who sent me her resume.
And I said, hey, thanks. My VP, my CRO is looking for
very specific things. You know, I'll keep you in mind
and hopefully our paths will cross again.
She very kindly wrote back to meand said, can I please have 5
(22:53):
minutes? Here's what I can give you.
Here's what I add to the table within 5 minutes I was like,
she's my hireright. So sometimes you'd catch person
someone on the right time. It's it's no joke, right?
It's tough to stand out in this market when you do have
applicants and there are thousands of them.
Again, I'm not an applicant person because when I'm hired,
(23:15):
I'm doing more outbound than inbound and my outbound is
primarily still on LinkedIn. So if your LinkedIn profile, I
had this profile two weeks ago, a month ago.
Senior account manager. Well, that to me sounds like a
farmer, right? And so I had a job for this guy.
It had gotten filled. He called me a month later and
(23:37):
said, hey, I'd love to talk to him.
Like that job's been filled. All I have is net new.
He's like, I'm all that new. Like, well, your title, Senior
account manager. Right, right.
And he had been at the company long enough that he didn't know
that was a farmer rule. So you know, in this market, I
would also say have your LinkedIn profile look like your
resume and again, add the numbers.
(24:00):
Yeah, that. So I guess then what to take
away from this, if you're the, if you're an applicant and you
know that these AI tools are outthere, you'd better make darn
sure that the terminology you'reusing in the way you've
categorized and laid out your resume then really highlights
the true nature of your skill set.
So there's, it's on the on the higher E as well.
(24:22):
It's not just the big bad AI tools are being used by the the
companies and that's confusing things.
You know, it's theirs. Yeah.
So what other advice might you give to somebody who looking in
the industry right now, knowing that they're up against these
waves of people coming in and trying to get to these jobs,
What else might they try? And.
Yeah. I mean, I, I think right now
(24:43):
it's all about relationships as it normally is, right?
If one of you guys called me, I've known you for a long time,
right? I already know your skills.
I already know your style. I already know what you can do.
I've had a lot of sales folks that I say call your clients,
call your big clients, what are their softwares are they using,
right? What are they really like right
(25:03):
now? What's the ROI model?
So right now it's a big networking exercise.
It's getting out, it's meeting people again, guys, interview
cycles or sales cycles. So when you're trying to get in
touch with the prospect, what doyou do?
You're not sending me your PowerPoint deck, right?
I mean, I'm not just going to stick my resume in an inbox
because like we've talked about,there are hundreds of thousands.
(25:26):
It's hard to stand out. Even if you have the perfect
looking resume with all the numbers, sometimes it's still
hard to find. You've got to imagine these
recruiters are looking through thousands, right?
And even if the AI tool picks upthe keywords, if you didn't have
the right one, maybe it's not coming through.
Or you've got a recruiter that occasionally they're a bit more
junior in their career, they're still learning their VPS or
(25:49):
higher Managers have said go look for someone with these
skills and these keywords. And God forbid you don't have
those exact words in your resume, you're not going to get
chosen. So it's networking, it's
reaching out, it's everything that you would do in sales.
Do your research, find the buyers right, the Champions and
start developing relationships with them.
(26:12):
So you're still selling, but you're the product now?
Yes, Sir. Oh wow.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Subscribe to that as well. As you know, your network is
your best option for getting hired.
You know who you know and who you've worked with in the past.
And that's always the big question mark, right?
When you're bringing someone high level onto the team in
sales so much this stuff is made-up.
(26:32):
You really don't know what they're like.
And so there's trust in already having that relationship with
someone for sure. And then resonate.
What's that? I was sorry.
Networks extend, right? It goes beyond the people that
you know. Maybe they know someone who
knows someone, right? They know AVC.
They know A. Right.
(26:52):
And then you have your resume onhot standby.
And I, I mean, would you even suggest I mean this?
What I would do is I would customize that resume before I
send it to them specifically forthat job.
I mean, not so blatantly that italigns up, but like know what
the requirements are. And then you send it as the
proof point because someone's going to validate that, right?
But the trust is already there to get you in the door.
(27:14):
Yeah. And I, you know, to be honest,
Matt, I try not to have people have to customize their resume
for every single job they're applying to.
You know, when it comes down forme again, I want to know your
quota attainment, deal size, clients, where'd you stack rank?
What kind of deals are you doing?
That's going to tell me pretty much everything I need to know.
(27:35):
And if you're someone who's madetheir quota year after year,
quarter after quarter, you're stack ranking at the top of your
echelon there. You know, I mean, again, this is
purely sales, right? Then you don't really need to
customize it. Now, if you were to Series A
company and no one knows what your company does, you might
need a little blurb versus saying, I work for IBM, right?
(27:59):
But it's really applicable anywhere, whether you're in
marketing or tech support. What are the KPIs?
How are you being measured in your job?
Put that on a piece of paper. That's what stands out.
Clear metrics, right? Clear metrics about success.
Just to your point, building your business case, just like
(28:19):
you would when you're selling your software.
But now you're the product, so you got to build the business
case for the person you're speaking with, right?
That's right. You brought up something a
moment ago and I want to kind ofgo back and touch on it again,
talking about standing out and I, I, I'm with you about the
whole thing about trying to customize every single resume
that you send out. It's it's it in this particular
(28:42):
market, I think it'd be impossible to do that for every
single one. But I have seen folks taking
advantage of platforms like LinkedIn to go and promote their
successes, their contributions, taking advantage of some of
those additional element things.Like you've said, I'm not going
to go and put up a PowerPoint, but some do around they were
(29:03):
they've they're actually they'representing themselves as the
product or they're talking abouttheir success history, right.
Have you seen that be a good strategy and and what advice
might you give to somebody around that?
You mean on their profile? Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah, I mean, listen, that's
where I spend a good chunk of myday.
So if your profile, Kevin says I'm a senior account executive
(29:27):
at XYZ company with no detail and Matt says, hey, I'm a senior
strategic account executive, I've been here for five years,
Here's my quota attainment deal size.
I mean, all the things that we've talked about makes my job
a little easier, right? So to your point, yes, you are
now selling yourself. And so you guys know how to demo
(29:49):
software, you know what to show,what not to show, where the bugs
are, what's going to work and what's not.
It's the same thing, right? So I also have a lot of reps who
say I don't want to sound cocky.Like what's cocky?
If you're first, if you're staffranking number one or two out of
fifty, time and time and time again, that's a fact.
(30:10):
That's not like, well, I'm the best thing since sliced bread.
That's just I work my tail. I know what I'm doing and you
need to go show that to someone.How do you do it?
I often ask people, what's your secret sauce?
How do you get in? And if someone says I send a
bunch of emails, I'm like reallylike, OK, but if I give you some
(30:32):
unknown series, a company, you need to go evangelize, tell me
how you're going to get in. I need more than end mails,
right? So to your point, the LinkedIn,
the resume, whatever it is, is the piece of paper that's going
to get you in the door, hopefully, right.
Once you're in the door, now youneed the stories.
(30:52):
And our old favorite friend or VP of product used to tell us,
how do, I don't want to know howyou could, would, should do
something. I want to know how you've done
it. And I've plagiarized that ever
since the day he told me probably 25 years ago, right?
I mean, he was the one that said, I have so many product
people walk through this store that tells me that tell me how
(31:14):
they could do something. So I could walk you through how
I would run a deal cycle, but how different is it if you say
here's what I did, here's how I broke in, here's how I
multithreaded and pick a specific deal, you can work
through the details, guys. The process is the same.
The interview process and the sales process are exactly the
(31:35):
same. So you're going to show a client
how they're going to use your product, what the ROI is.
You're going to show a company what you can do and what the ROI
is. Yeah, I question also around,
you know, if I were looking, I would also reach out to people
like you, recruiters I've workedwith in the past.
That's one of my first things aswell.
It's like, hey, I'm on the market.
Do you know of anything? What?
(31:56):
How can you help me? I'm just curious because
traditionally it's always been the employer pays the recruiter
Finder fee right? Has that even switched to?
Do even applicants now pay it all or is that we've not
breached that area yet? I mean, for me it hasn't.
I've seen a lot of career consulting, a lot of resume
work, a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of money out there.
(32:19):
Is it worth it for me? It's not right, but that's
something to be really cautious about to Matt, right?
Because because those clients are paying the fees.
Some recruiters, and I love my job, but this industry, some
recruiters are going to say I got the best job and sliced
bread and they know that people are nervous and they know
they're a little desperate and they're going to try and throw
some spaghetti and soil and see if it'll stick.
(32:41):
Yeah. You have to be really careful
about knowing where your resume is, knowing who has it, knowing
where it's going, the confidentiality of it,
especially if you're still in a job, and making sure you value
the people and you can trust them.
There's some scary stories out there, unfortunately.
I'm sure, I'm sure there's a lotof them because it's become so
(33:03):
hard to judge, you know, what's genuine anymore.
And I think AI certainly we've we've talked about this in other
episodes. AI certainly has has made that
explode even further, right. We've I've seen, I'm sure you've
seen it as well, where like the interviewer is AI and the
applicant is also. AI is.
It's, it's just insane in my mind, but it's it's a natural
(33:25):
progression. I think of kind of where we've
come and hopefully it's going tostart veering back somehow as we
all figure this AI thing out. Right.
Yeah, it has to. But that's that's why the you
know who you know is so criticalbecause that they get a real
person is vouching for you as a real person with real abilities.
And I think that's the highest phrase and sense of trust you
(33:47):
can get. So again, whether it's the VCs,
the execs you've worked with, the sales engineers, the
marketing, the, I mean, people, people have huge networks,
right? Use them, you never know who
knows who. You know, it's interesting, I'm
hearing you talk about this and you know, two years ago I found
myself back and Matt, we both found ourselves back in the job
(34:10):
market. And an interesting thing we
found him that was just mentioning about whether things
are real or not. There were jobs I was applying
for where if you looked at my resume and you look at the job
description, it's look it look like you, you wrote it based on
my job description, right? And then I would send into
those. I even had people inside that
(34:30):
organization that could help escalate it or get it in front
of the right people and even talk to the people who ran those
departments to try and, you know, put a little bit of of a
spotlight on my resume only to find out two months into the
process that it was originally intended.
They had to put it out to the real world.
But there always was an expectation internally that they
(34:53):
were going to hire an internal candidate.
How prevalent is that still in the marketplace right now given
the the nature of the job market?
And are there any real segments of the industry that are getting
a bit more of a boom than the other ones?
And it in how do those two things factor together?
(35:13):
Is there still a lot of false leads because we're going to
hire internal? And if not, is there a
particular industry if someone'slooking for work that they
should be targeting? Yeah, I mean, that's an
infuriating process, so I'm sorry they had to go through
that. I can't say it doesn't happen,
right? I mean, I'm pretty black and
white. I've always joked like I'm from
(35:34):
the Northeast, I'm from Boston. I'm going to tell you where it's
at, right? So if I have a job, I can
promise you it's open. The ones that we see on
LinkedIn, it depends where they come from, right?
So it's hard for me to sort of speak specifically to that.
Does it happen 1000%? Should it 1000% not Right?
That should never happen. I mean, and it's unfortunate in
(35:55):
this market that people are, in my opinion, being taken for
granted. I mean, you're having these
candidates run through loops. I just heard the other day there
was ACEO who went through eight months of interviews, 8 months.
And the guy looked at the board and said, so you went through
your IPO without me. And they said, Yep, I'm like,
(36:17):
OK, so if you've talked to your CFO, your COO in the board, the
CRO, who else is there? And you're talking about
somebody to run your company through an IPO.
So now you can imagine if I'm hiring a sales Rep, I'm talking
to everyone under the sun, right?
So back to your question, is it there internal?
Sometimes there are, sometimes maybe they have an earmark,
(36:39):
sometimes they say, well, let mecheck the market, Let me see if
there's anyone else better than the person I have in mind.
There's so much that happens behind the scenes and
recruiting, it's hard to give you a specific answer to that
specific question. So and there's probably 1000
different answers to the same question, right?
So did they have someone maybe do they want to find someone
better? Maybe did that person maybe give
(37:01):
notice and then they convince them to stay?
Maybe right there's there's again 1000 different answers of
what can be going on there. I've questioned that's maybe a
little of a touchy subject, but when I got laid off, you know, a
couple years ago was like, OK, well I can go try to get another
job. But I'm feeling that my age is a
(37:24):
factor now. And with age comes salary
expectations and things like that from my 25 plus years of
experience, right? But it's like I've really
feeling like I can get another job.
But in a year I might be on the chopping block again, because
you start looking at the salaries.
It's like, well, this guy's got to go, right?
So I mean, how, how real is that?
(37:46):
Because I know I've talked to other people that have gone
into, you know, young startup companies and stuff.
They're like, that person just seems too old, right?
So it's something legally it's alittle touchy area, but we know
that it happens. And if you are senior in your
career, are there any bits of advice that you give to a person
like that? I mean, obviously they're going
to see you at some point and they know if you are, they're
(38:08):
going to see your history, but any any advice around that?
Yeah, it's a tough one, Matt. Like you said, it's a legal
question and it's so far illegal.
It's not even funny. But we can't touch that, right?
So you know, the advice that I have is there's a lid for every
pot. So for every job, there's a
person, for every person there'sa job.
And I've been saying that for forever and a day of all these
(38:28):
little cliche sayings, right. So, you know, is the Series A
start up with a bunch of 25 and 30 year olds at your spot?
Maybe not right? And they they'll come up with
every reason you're too expensive, you've got too much
experience, you're over experienced for what I need.
You'll never hear it's because you're too old because they
can't, right. But there are plenty of
(38:49):
companies now. There may be some of the, let's
call them more seasoned companies.
Maybe they're larger, maybe theyhave more jobs, more folks at
that same level. Maybe they need someone more
experienced. And I would argue, you know, we
all stayed in our careers. I've had fewer than 10 jobs in
my number of years, and I'm now seeing, you know, 5 jobs in six
(39:13):
years. Yeah.
So if I'm the hiring company, I want someone with the staying
power, I want someone that's going to stick around, who has
the knowledge, who has the wherewithal, who has all of
that. At the end of the day, the hire
managers going to make the ultimate decision.
But the advice I would give is you've just got to find the
right spot, right? Like don't fight the uphill
battle. Even if you might be a perfect
(39:33):
spot, you may not enjoy there either, right?
Culturally or whatever it's going to be, but there's always
jobs up there. There's room for everybody a
little bit more challenging in this market.
Yeah, there's a, you're pointingout a few kind of like bad
behaviors that can happen out there in in the hiring market
right now. And you made a posting a couple
(39:55):
of days ago where you were talking about a comment and no,
no, no, I'm not going to call anybody out it just it, you
know, I responded immediately assoon as I saw it.
Yes, I've seen one million times, right.
It was the whole thing about when someone goes and and does a
great job in Year 1. They smash their OTE, they
overcome, and then year 2 comes around and their reward for that
(40:18):
is they double up the person's quota, shrink their territory,
but keep their OTE at the same amount, which is basically like
showing them the door without showing them the door.
What other kinds of bad practices have you seen out
there where it's like you have to look at the person going, you
know, you're just, you're shoving people out the door, but
that's strategy. Great.
But you know. It's interesting because they
(40:39):
don't think it's shoving people out the door.
They think they're saving their pockets, right?
And so you hear comments like, well, the sales Rep can't make
more than the CFO, the CEO, the CRO.
Well, hey guys, if they're bringing you $3,000,000 worth of
business, do you care how much you pay them?
Really. So they do.
I've talked to some really phenomenal reps in the last,
(41:00):
especially like 3 months. This is happening over and over
and over, and they all tell me the same story.
My OTE stays the same. My quota is going up year after
year after year, and I just don't have the ability to make
money anymore. They're asking me to bring in
more for less. So we talk about how to hire A
(41:22):
players. Everyone wants the A players,
everyone wants to bring them in.But once you have them, to your
point, don't send them out the back door, right?
So that practice seems to be a big one right now.
And I do think there's a lot of eyes on finances.
There's a lot of eyes on ROI. There's a lot of eyes even from
(41:43):
so talk about software sales. When the three of us all worked
in marketing applications, it was a big hot topic.
Now the big hot topic is data and security.
There aren't as many marketing applications anymore.
I mean, they're out there, but they're not doing a ton of
hiring like they were, right? When you've got something with
(42:04):
an ROI, you've got something that's a need to have and you've
got a really good rap. Don't let him go that easy.
Don't push him out the door thateasy.
I mean, one of these guys had been there for 10 years.
He's like, how much more can I do, right?
And he's like, and I hit it every year, but I'm making the
same money and working twice as hard with less accounts.
(42:27):
Well, the argument could be madenow sitting up the being the guy
who had to sit on the other sideof the chair one of those
quotas. So let me switch hats on you
now. I got white 1 and I'm throwing
the Black Hat on now. So but ten years increasing his
quota, but he still made it every single time.
So how does how does a recruiterinfluence an organization in
(42:50):
their policies with respect to stuff like quota and
incentivizing that kind of performance in a way that keeps
the the ball moving down the field but doesn't disincentivize
the top? Well, into your point, right?
You've worked on the other side.So if I'm going to hit 1.2, can
I make it 1.4? Probably.
(43:12):
But if you're at 1.2 and all of a sudden it's two and the next
year it's three, those are the people I'm talking to.
Right. So it's a far cry, right?
So yes, can you push someone to do more?
Sure, but if they're doing more,than give them the value for
doing more, especially when a lot of reps aren't making their
(43:33):
quota right now and it's not necessarily their fault, right?
When half the organization or 3/4 of the organization isn't.
There's always been an 8020 rule.
It's leaned in more in the otherdirection right now.
Lots of reps making seventy, 8090% of their number.
That might not be bad. And again, let's circle way
back. If you're stack ranked two out
of 50, you're hitting for the fences, right?
(43:55):
You're doing something right. Maybe the quotas overstated, so
I know we took that off track, but no.
No, no one. Thing that I've noticed over the
25 plus years that I've been in software sales was when we got
into it, it seemed like it was agood living.
I mean, you worked hard, sure, but you made a lot compared to
everything else going on. And I noticed, you know, as I
(44:19):
kept going forward in my career,it seemed like it got harder and
harder to make that money. You're blowing out your numbers
got less and less. You know, it.
Of course, it varied from place to place.
But towards the end, I was like,I'm working not twice as hard,
but I'm working really hard and I'm making less money now,
especially with the cost, everything going up where it
(44:42):
just felt like it wasn't the same.
It didn't have the same status that it once had in terms of if
you're a good seller and gettingnew customers, they rewarded you
and it now seems like that's notthe case.
Have you seen something similar to that?
I don't know. I think it's still out there,
Matt. I think, you know, again, you
got to pick the right pony. You got to find the right
company, the right application, the right Tam, the right ICP,
(45:06):
the right da, da, da, da, da, right.
I still think there's a lot of money to be made out there.
I still know reps making tons ofmoney.
Is it hard? Yeah, If I'm going to date all
three of us, we used to make a lot of money because we would
have on Prem and you have a hugeimplementation and services fees
and you'd make a ton of money because they had to have it,
(45:27):
right. And then we went to what was
first hosted cloud, then SAS. I mean they're all the same
thing, right? But all those fees went away.
So how did I start to make money?
And then in comes the SMB and the mid market and now I can do
volume. And then those companies wanted
to get to enterprise, but they couldn't quite scale.
Well, now they're starting to scale and they're able to scale.
(45:49):
So the deal sizes have come backbecause we went through a real
lull when things first started to turn down that track.
The SAS applications were 7080 or 100 grand, right?
And it took a lot of time to figure out and get used to the
security behind it and all the stuff that you guys know far
better, better than I do, right?But now we're past that turn, so
(46:10):
now we're at the AI turn. So what can we do with AI?
How far can we get with these applications?
How much value can we add with these applications?
So again, to circle way back, I think the money's still out
there. I still know plenty of people
doing 7 figure deals, ACV, nevermind TCV, right?
And they aren't huge companies. They don't have to be the
oracles and sales forces to get to those deal sizes.
(46:32):
They're out there. It's it's it's finding the right
one for sure. So in today's market, and we're
going to have to start bringing this home here pretty soon as
much as I'm enjoying every minute of this.
What advice would you give to somebody, software company right
now that needs to recruit? What advice would you give them
so that they streamline the process to find the best client
(46:55):
as quickly as possible? Yeah, candidate.
Yeah. So I'm going to turn the tables.
You guys have interviewed before, so and you've both hired
before. So when you're hiring, what are
you looking for? So my very first thing, before I
even take on a search, do you know what you're looking for?
Because if you don't, I can't start, right?
(47:17):
And it doesn't mean that you can't switch or you can't ebb
and flow, but you should have a pretty good idea what you want,
what that person has done, wherethey've come from.
And then I'm probably going to squeeze the brakes on you like
you have to have that, right? So if I find a superstar who can
blow through walls, do they haveto have a Rolodex?
(47:39):
Do they have to know your industry?
I'd rather have someone with thegreat drive and determination
than the Rolodex and industry experience.
So it's these ebbs and flows. Where can you give, where can
you push where? What's your ideal pie in the sky
person and where can you flex onthat?
So that's step one. Step 2 is when you start to see
(47:59):
that person. Don't put them through 25
interviews, don't make it 4 months, right?
People still want to be excited.And I've always said no matter
what the market, it's a buying session and a selling session.
So yes, you need to buy. Yes you need to make sure this
person's for you 1000%. You also need to tell them why
(48:20):
they want to come work for you because worst case scenario, you
say that's not the person for meand they go running around
online telling all their friends, I can't believe I
didn't get this job. I really wanted to work there.
It's free marketing, right? So move the process along, give
them feedback. Please don't ghost.
Please just be honest with people, right?
(48:41):
People want honest answers. They don't mind that they got
turned down as long as you tell them and you give them some good
reason why so they can understand, right?
So again, no matter what the market is, these processes right
now have gotten out of control. You know, a good recruiting
process shouldn't really be morethan three, 4-5 weeks at the
(49:04):
most, right? So you see a resume, you
schedule an interview, you get back to them within 24 hours and
next steps or reason why you're not moving forward.
If you do that two or three times, you get to a negotiation
process, you make an offer, it'saccepted.
You have two more weeks to get someone out in in the door after
(49:26):
their two weeks notice. It should be 5 or 6 weeks.
And guys, it's September 24th. We're heading up to the end of
the year. Yeah.
Right was a long answer to your short question.
No, no, it's totally fine. You know, Robin, it's, it's
always interesting to get your perspective and I always
(49:47):
appreciate it because it really provides clarity.
And you know, I, I've sat on both sides of the chair where
I've been personally looking fora job and I've been looking for
the right person. And every time you've been able
to go and provide me with additional perspective that
helps make either side of that equation a much easier and much
more. No, no, no, trust me, thank you
(50:07):
because it, you've really helpedme a number of times.
If someone else is out there right now and they're either on
the hiring side or they're on I need a job side and they, they
wanted to reach out to you to, to explore partnering with you
on either side of the equation. What's the best way for them to
reach out to you? It's probably through my
LinkedIn page, right? I mean, my e-mail and phone
(50:30):
number should be on there. So by all means reach out
through that. Robin at forefrontsearch.com.
I would say Robin with AY, it's RBYN at forefrontsearch.com and
mobile and everything should be on there as well, so.
Fantastic. Well, we'll make sure we put it
in the description so that anybody who's looking and by the
way, I can't recommend Robin enough to help you on either
(50:52):
side of the equation from that perspective.
No, no, no, you've that's that'spraise that you have definitely
earned from vast engagements. So and I wholeheartedly endorse
it. And anybody looking, please
reach out and and look out for Robin.
But unfortunately, we are going to have to bring this episode to
a close. As much as I'm having good time
(51:13):
chatting with my two friends here, Matt, it was wonderful
talking with you today. Anything you'd like to go and
share before we go and bring theepisode to a close?
Just that it's just been a really fascinating conversation.
I think these are things top of everyone's mind, whether you are
currently looking or even at a job, you know these things you
hear about. And so I really appreciate the
(51:34):
candor and just the frank discussion around some of the
things that are going on there. So thanks.
Thanks again, Rob. Thanks again for having me guys,
really great to see you both. Thank you for coming in.
And one of the key things I'm taking away from this is that
idea of before you even start writing up that job description,
really get clarity in your own mind as the hirer.
What is it you want? What is it you really need in
(51:56):
order to be successful with the person you're bringing on?
I think that's incredibly solid advice, but unfortunately, this
does bring us to the close of our episode.
We want to thank Robin for coming in and spending time with
us today and sharing her experience and her perspective.
I learned a lot and I'm sure youguys did too.
We also want to thank you for coming in and spending time with
us and listening to our podcast.Please come back again next week
(52:19):
or go to our website where you can go and buy a copy of our
book all about the methodology, the move methodology, which has
made Matt and I so successful inthe past.
But until then, ladies and gentlemen, until we see you next
week, please like, follow and subscribe and we'll see you
again next week. Take care.
Welcome to Software Sales Simplified Move to Success, your
weekly podcast for the latest and greatest in software sales
insights and how to become a better seller.
Whether you're a seasoned professional or just getting
started, please make our podcastyour one stop shop for the
latest and greatest. My name is Kevin Donville, I
(00:28):
have over 30 years experience insoftware sales and consulting
and implementation as does my Cohost and good friend Matt Long.
Matt, how are you doing here today?
I'm doing fantastic today, really looking forward to this
session. As am I, as am I.
You know, we've been sales leaders multiple times over,
implementation leaders and so forth.
(00:49):
And hiring and recruiting of people has always been a
challenge, and in some markets more than others, right?
Yeah, for sure. And then especially now, I mean,
I've not been looking for a job the past year and a half, but
what I see on LinkedIn is it's just totally insane at the
moment. And we want to have a dig into
what's actually going on from a professional in this space.
(01:13):
But that's why I'm really looking forward to this, to find
out what is actually going on with all the AI bots and the AI
responses. And are we just, is it just
machines hiring machines at thispoint?
Yeah, there there is a lot of moving parts going on in the
marketplace right now. And to help us make sense of
that, we have brought on, as youcorrectly identified, a real
(01:34):
expert in the industry with respect to hiring, recruiting
and all things related to that. Robin Gilmartin.
Robin, How are you? I'm good guys.
It's been a minute. It's been a.
Minute. And, and both Matt and I have
had many conversations with you,both personal and professional,
over the course of our careers. You've been a very welcome
(01:57):
partner in our success and our ability to be able to do our
jobs properly. But we know you, we are very
familiar with your background, your capabilities and your
expertise. But the folks listening to our
podcast, they probably aren't. So if you would be so kind, take
a minute or and tell everybody who you are.
Thanks for having me. Like I said, it's been a minute.
It's really nice to see you guys.
(02:17):
So I've been in recruiting. I usually say for longer than I
care to share or remember. I've seen the UPS, the downs on
the sideways. You know, I, I started my well
recruiting career. We'll start it with that on the
outside as I'm doing now and continue recruiting from there.
I got recruited to be in sales actually, so I've run a sales
desk. I sat as an individual
contributor. I ended up running the team
(02:40):
until they got acquired my favorite boss on earth.
Who you you are both very familiar with.
Then recruited me over to be hisinternal recruiter for a company
that was pretty small, didn't have recruiting at the time.
So I had to you know, set up allthe processes, the procedures
that we were working with. I don't know 75,000 out started
recruiters at the time. So I did the internal thing,
(03:01):
they got acquired and I said that's it, third time's a charm.
So about 12/13/14 years ago, I decided to go out on my own.
It's a boutique little business.I've always worked software.
SAS companies mostly go to market, so I would call that
sales, marketing, customer success, account management,
sort of anything that's client facing I can do.
(03:24):
Folks like you guys like the S ES who can speak my lingo, but
probably not the engineering side.
I don't understand the questions.
I never mind the answers. So I try and stick to what I
know. But yeah, thanks again for
having me. It's going to be a blast.
Well, your perspective by havingbeen someone who actually sat in
the chair and had to do the job that you're recruiting for and
the and the positions you're trying to fill.
(03:44):
But that gives you a unique perspective from that.
And you know, you've talked about having 30 years experience
in, in a mixture of those different roles as we were
talking about at the beginning of the the podcast today, it
seems almost like the world has come unhinged with respect to
recruiting and jobs and hiring and firings in the layoffs.
(04:05):
What, what are some of the most prevalent trends you're seeing
with respect to hiring and recruiting in 2025?
And what does that mean for, fornext year?
Because we're, we're getting near the end of 2025.
So we got a pretty good read on that.
But what's coming next year, do you think?
Yeah. So you know, it's been an
interesting Rd. guys, right? Like the past couple of years,
we went from all of these massive layoffs from every
(04:28):
software company under the sun. We came back from that and
people were kind of, from my perspective, just trying to hang
on to their current accounts andcurrent current clients, not
really selling much net new. In the midst of that, here come
these two pretty letters called AI, right?
So if you have AI in your name, you might get some VC funding.
If you don't forget it, you're not getting it.
There have been hardly any IP OS.
(04:50):
And so the fallout from that from a recruiting perspective.
And you know, Kevin and I, you and I have chatted about this
interview cycles really follow sales cycles.
And so I'm talking to the sales guys on feet in the street and
they're running into the same issues where everyone's trying
to do more with less. If you don't have a rock solid
ROI, the CFO ain't buying it, right?
(05:14):
And it's all these need to have technologies.
So when it falls into recruiting, you know, I would
tell you the A is out there, people are using bots, they're
trying to screen resumes. Is it effective?
Maybe, right? I think we can narrow down the
playing field. We can start to not spend so
much man hours trying to find the right people.
(05:34):
But when it comes to real recruiting, it's not about
keywords, it's not about what's on the resume.
It's not about probably even thecompany you've been at.
It's really personal. It's figuring out who is that
person? What are they good at?
Why are they bigger, better, faster, different than the other
thousand resumes sitting on the desk, Right?
So I think people are still trying to do more with less.
(05:57):
They're trying to figure out where this is going to fit in.
They're trying to handle it. I think a number of companies,
from an internal perspective, you know, it's taking longer.
People are looking for purple sprawls, as I lovingly like to
call them, you know, And I thinkit's going to continue until we
can figure out, you know, this train that's really coming down
the track. Yeah, you mentioned the looking
for purple squirrels. We I've often used the phrase
(06:18):
Unicorn. I mean, you're, you're basically
trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Take whatever analogy you want. We're I'm seeing the job
requests that are coming out. You know, Matt and I get pinged
every once in a while with somebody who's either looking
for a, a new role or is looking to fill 1.
And when they tell me what they're looking for, I'm like,
if I find that person, I will hire them.
(06:38):
I'm not, but but they're asking as you, as you've identified,
they're asking for these really high bar setted levels and
expectations with respect to background capabilities and
experience and performance, right and performance proven
track record. Right.
Then they turn around and when you send them someone like that,
(06:59):
you're hearing from several people and some have even been
on the show. The hiring cycles are
ridiculously long, like months and months long with repeated
what's. What do you think is driving
this need to do that and why is it so different from what it
used to be, say, even five yearsago?
Yeah. So I would tell you pre COVID,
(07:20):
maybe let's call it 5-10 years ago, it was a much more
candidate driven market. I mean, the hiring budgets were
out there, the money was flowing.
The IPO is the VC money. There was, there was money and
people were hiring and there wasn't this thing called AI,
right? There were, in my opinion, far
less technologies. So there, it wasn't quite as
competitive from a selling perspective.
(07:41):
You know, hey, listen, like I said, I've been in this longer
than I care to share or remember, right?
So you've got client driven markets, which this in my mind
is, and you've got candidate driven markets.
And 510 years ago it was a candidate driven market.
And if you didn't make an offer,they're gone.
You know, I'd have people sitting 35 offers within two
weeks. Like no kidding, you'd call me
(08:03):
today. I just started looking, what do
you have for me? And within two weeks you've got
5 offers. I mean, that's crazy, right?
So we are completely on the other end of that spectrum and
pendulum. There aren't as many jobs, there
aren't as many hiring, there aren't as many, you know, really
openings at the end of the day. So clients now feel like, well,
(08:24):
there's a ton of talent. I don't have to rush because the
next person's come down the road.
But what they don't realize is that Unicorn, as you like to
call it, isn't always out there,right?
So I'm getting requests of I need this much experience, this
much quota. You can't have jumped around one
year, one year, 2 year, one year, Forget it.
I'm not going to hire that whicha lot of people have in this
(08:46):
market, right? I mean, with layoffs and
startups, there's always good reasons for it.
Some DPS won't even look at it. And then beyond that, they find
the person and they put them through, to your point, months
and months of interviews. Why?
They're looking for reasons to say no rather than yes.
They think there's something better.
I've always related recruiting to real estate, right?
(09:07):
So if you see a house and it looks pretty perfect, are you
going to look for another house or are you going to buy it?
Yeah, exactly. I'm just curious how much of
these, you know, like not inappropriate, but sorry, I
can't think of the word right now.
That's OK. Point how many of the job
(09:28):
listings are created by AI? And so they're just saying, give
me the best fit for this thing. What are all the traits that
they'd have? And they just put that out
there. I'm wondering if that is getting
very unrealistic. That's what for unrealistic.
So, you know, I've heard different things.
So I don't post jobs. It's just not how I recruit,
right? When I was internal with you
guys, I did just to it was more of a marketing exercise, right?
(09:52):
Like, hey, here's this great company, we're growing, we're
recruiting. I personally don't because I'm a
sort of point and shoot recruiter.
Like you're going to give me that purple squirrel list of
requirements and I'm going to gofind those requirements and I
hope to send you three or five candidates and not 100 or even
20, right? I do hear there's a lot of posts
(10:14):
out there. They're getting hundreds of
resumes within an hour and then three months later they get
posted again. Like did you not find the right
person in the 100? Is it a real job?
Did someone forget to click the button in the ATS, which is
basically CRM for recruiting, right?
It's an applicant tracking system.
Do they forget to close the job?Right, So the requirements are
(10:36):
through the roof. The jobs, sometimes they're
real, sometimes they're not. I just heard this Horror Story
from a buddy of mine of a retired, very successful CRO.
His son's now in the market. Got a call from a recruiter, set
up a call. She wouldn't tell him what the
company was, what the job was, what the comp was, just getting
the phone. He picks up the phone and it's
the VP and he's like, hi, nice to meet you.
(10:59):
I don't even know what company I'm recruiting for or
interviewing with like what whathas happened.
How How does the How does the candidate properly present
themselves? He.
Can't. Yeah, exactly.
So I'm, I'm hearing stuff like that a lot.
Yeah. So my question and to kind of
back up on, on Matt's question, yeah, is this because everybody
(11:23):
is just shoving it over to AI, let AI take care of this
internally writing the the pros for the job description, doing
the filtering and no one's applying logic as much anymore
or doing a little bit of elbow work, elbow work.
Involved. I think it's a little bit of
both, right? I mean, I think you've got a lot
(11:43):
of recruiters who are now doing a lot of internal work and they
work really hard. But when you've got thousands of
resumes in front of you, it's impossible to look at all of
them, right? So if I throw AI at it, maybe
it'll narrow some down for me. Maybe it'll find the keywords
I'm looking for, maybe it'll float some to the top.
How good is it? I mean, again, I don't recruit
(12:05):
with AI. I mean, I might look for
profiles with AI, but I, the number of people that I've
looked at a resume, I'm like, I'm not really sure if this is
going to be a right fit. And I get them on the phone.
I'm like, Oh my God, this person's a rock star.
Right. So what people now need to
remember is the piece of paper gets you in the door, right?
And that piece of paper, to yourpoint about AI, might need the
(12:30):
right keywords, it might need the right phrase, it might need
the exact right thing. But when you get on the phone,
make sure you've got your stories, make sure you've got
your Rois, Make sure just like asales cycle, you're looking at
someone why my software is better than the others.
If you're in sales or really anywhere, you better be able to
(12:50):
tell people why you're better than the others.
Yeah, I'm just curious from a applicant standpoint because
you're getting thousands of resumes.
I don't even know if all these resumes are even real people,
right? I don't know if there's been
sent out for one, but how do youeven, I know the resume gets you
in the door, but you know, how do you stand out in this just
this cluttered thing? I mean, there's keywords and
(13:12):
other stuff, but what recommendations do you have to
just get that call back or get notice out of that?
File, I mean, it's, yeah, it's a, it's an interesting question,
Matt, and it's a really great one.
I think, you know, you can talk to 25 different VPS and you're
getting at 25 different answers.And that's the problem with
recruiting, right? My personal opinion on a piece
(13:33):
of paper needs to look ROI, especially in this market.
So I talked to sales reps that say, you know, I'm responsible
for the New England territory and I sell security.
OK. I don't know what I really care,
right. I get other resumes that say I
was the first person hired. I did the largest deal in
company history, my quotas X my attainments.
Yi Stack ranked two out of 50. I did the largest deal.
(13:57):
I have the biggest clients. I Which one do you guys want to
hire? Yeah.
Which one are you calling first?Right.
There are also resumes or peoplewhen I get them on the phone who
say I made 70% of my quote on I'm like, OK, which is pretty
common right now, right? But what they forget and what I
then the next question is how many reps in your team?
(14:19):
50 Where do you stack rank two? I'm like, OK, guys, stack
ranking two out of 50 is very different than 70%.
So the number of resumes I get that are all words and no
numbers or, you know, just attainment doesn't give me much.
It doesn't give me, you know, isit a benchmark of a $400,000
(14:41):
quota or $2,000,000. I just think you've got to tell
the story as much as you can as brief as possible.
The other if I can add on to that instead of responsible for
initiated, created, developed very different.
In words rather than passive words, right?
Yeah, and show me where you've made a difference.
Talking about outcome and impactrather than just talking about
(15:03):
roles and responsibilities. And it makes perfect sense.
It doesn't have to be sales. I mean, you could talk about
that anywhere. You could talk about saving
cost, increasing revenue, decreasing the time in their
process, creating a playbook that equaled X number of leads
or deals or whatever. There's always ROI.
(15:24):
You got to look at what are the KP is for your job, how are you
being measured and how do you put that in a piece of paper
without making it 5 pages because I'm not going to read 5
pages. I really appreciate everything
you're bringing up about some ofthe limitations of AI.
Not that AI is not a great thing, it's there's a lot of
great things about AI, but thereare some places where the human
(15:45):
experience, especially someone'sgot years of experience, can go
beyond that. So why should a person consider
engaging A recruiter such as yourself rather than relying on
those AI tools? What what?
What do they get beyond the AI? Experience is still an infant,
right? And sure, it does a lot.
I don't know if we know what it does yet.
(16:06):
We don't know how accurate it isyet.
I mean, I think a lot of it is, and it's getting better every
day. Got it.
But when you're talking about recruiting someone, you're not
asking them which keywords are on their resume.
You're not asking them which keywords might fit to their
experience. I really need to get to know you
and your experience. 1 is a matchmaker, right?
(16:27):
So one is, sorry, let's go the other way around. 1 is skills
based, can you sell, can you getin?
Can you drive? Can you sell?
Can you multi thread? Can you whatever the case is to
get me through that whole sell cycle, right?
And the other part is matchmaking.
So do you fit in the culture? Are you like me and going to hit
in between the eyes? Are you a little more soft
(16:47):
spoken? Right?
Very different. And I talked to seros like this
all the time. Those offends us in the
northeast are pretty like hit mebetween the eyes.
Here's where I'm at. Like it or don't take it or
leave it, right? Some of the Southwest, that New
York Rep probably ain't going tosell in Texas and the Texas Rep
ain't going to sell in New York.So there's a lot more.
(17:08):
There are many more nuances to recruiting than keywords.
Beyond that, you need to know the questions to ask.
You can't just did you make yourquota?
Yes. Great.
OK, so how'd you do it? And does AI understand that?
Do you know bots understand thatmaybe do they know the next
(17:29):
question to ask? I'm not convinced.
And let's remember this is a buying session and a selling
session. And how do you do the rest of
the story right, I mean. Even if, even if the AI says
this is my person because they know how to get in, they know
how to multi thread, they know how to run a sales cycle.
Are they sold on you? Why do they want to come work
(17:51):
for you? So, you know, I think you and I
chatted the other day about a post that I said interviews are
buying and selling and someone came back at me like, they're
not selling. I'm like, yes they are, of
course they are. We are you absolutely right.
You have to tell me why I want to work for your company.
If that's not selling, I don't know what is.
And I don't want to hear about beers on Fridays, right?
(18:12):
So I want to be able to look at someone and say, hey, I've
worked with this VP for 20 years.
He's phenomenal. He's fair, He's a wingman.
He'll stick up for you. He'll strategize with you.
He'll get in the trenches with you.
That's selling. Absolutely.
No, no, no, I wholeheartedly agree.
I mean, you know, people are always and asking me if hey, can
you introduce me to somebody, here's what I'm looking for, or
(18:33):
hey, I'm in the market, here's what I'm looking for.
And then when I write, for example, a letter of
introduction, and I know I've sent you a few, I talk about the
elements that are important to both people because that's, and
in many cases, we're talking about an intangible something
that's not quantifiable. It's a very qualitative thing
(18:54):
we're talking about to the pointyou brought up earlier on when
you were talking about some of the things you found out with
the people that you would be interviewing.
There's a whole other story thatwasn't in the resume, it didn't
show that is so relevant to whether or not that person is
the right the right candidate ornot.
And if you're just using an automated tool and not relying
(19:16):
on your expertise and your experience as a hire, as a
hiring body, or as a person who's trying to represent what
you can deliver, you may be selling yourself short.
Well, and it's, it's been interesting.
You know, you said at the very beginning, I was a head of sales
and I ran A-Team and I was in a seat.
I know how to sell and I, I soldtechnology.
(19:37):
I know what I'm looking for, right?
And I can work with my executives to say maybe that'll
work or maybe it won't. Have you thought about this,
right when we talk about that ideal pie in the sky, sure,
that'll work. But where can you flex?
Do you have to have every singleone of those?
It's interesting you bring that up though, because we we worked
with some of the same people. Yeah.
(19:57):
Sure. And whenever I would interview
one of their sales candidate, the first question they would
ask me is. Did they close you?
So it absolutely is a selling activity.
Absolutely no doubt about it. Same process.
Is a lot of hiring done strictlyremote now and the office visits
and coming in is is less and less or is that still a key
(20:20):
component for some of these companies that are really?
It's a great question. So I think it depends on the
role, right? I mean, I think when it comes to
real corporate roles though, those are going to be in office.
You want those team meetings, sales, Sometimes it depends on
the level, right? So if we've got some junior reps
who are still learning, need to be mentored, more and more of
those are moving in office or hopefully closer or in an
(20:44):
office, might not be in office 100% of the time.
It might be hybrid. The Series A companies love to
have people face to face. But as you move up the ranks and
up the tracks, when you're talking to folks like us, you've
been around for a little bit, right?
Hopefully you've got some trust and you know there's going to be
a quarterly meeting or an off site or whatever.
(21:06):
Those enterprise reps are primarily still remote.
Yeah, that makes sense. But I was, I'm curious then.
So if that's the way that thingsare trending right now and yet
everybody seems to be, as we were just discussing a moment
ago, kind of really leaning intothe AI tools.
Is it possible then? Well, I think it is based on
what you were just saying, that people are giving themselves a
(21:29):
disservice. They're not doing, not surfacing
up the things that they're trying to find in these
candidates. Is there a lot of mismatching
going on? Is that what's causing so many
delays and so much over over reliance and on these tools
rather than just picking up a phone and talking to somebody?
Potentially, right. And again, hey, guys, when
(21:50):
you've got 1000 resumes and theywere say I'm responsible for the
New England territory, I can't talk to 1000 people, right?
So there's some of that. There's some of if it's an in
office requirement and you know,Matt lives in Hawaii and I'm in
Boston. I just don't have time now.
If you somewhere in your either resume or cover letter, which I
(22:11):
don't use any more, whatever it's going to be say, hey, I am
moving to Boston on this day. That might perk my ears more
than I live in Hawaii, right? But the mismatch, you know, it's
tough because AI to me is still new.
Are we looking at keywords or are we looking at results?
Doesn't know how to do that. Doesn't know how to interpret
(22:33):
the results, Right. So even as a very old recruiter,
I had a candidate not that long ago who sent me her resume.
And I said, hey, thanks. My VP, my CRO is looking for
very specific things. You know, I'll keep you in mind
and hopefully our paths will cross again.
She very kindly wrote back to meand said, can I please have 5
(22:53):
minutes? Here's what I can give you.
Here's what I add to the table within 5 minutes I was like,
she's my hireright. So sometimes you'd catch person
someone on the right time. It's it's no joke, right?
It's tough to stand out in this market when you do have
applicants and there are thousands of them.
Again, I'm not an applicant person because when I'm hired,
(23:15):
I'm doing more outbound than inbound and my outbound is
primarily still on LinkedIn. So if your LinkedIn profile, I
had this profile two weeks ago, a month ago.
Senior account manager. Well, that to me sounds like a
farmer, right? And so I had a job for this guy.
It had gotten filled. He called me a month later and
(23:37):
said, hey, I'd love to talk to him.
Like that job's been filled. All I have is net new.
He's like, I'm all that new. Like, well, your title, Senior
account manager. Right, right.
And he had been at the company long enough that he didn't know
that was a farmer rule. So you know, in this market, I
would also say have your LinkedIn profile look like your
resume and again, add the numbers.
(24:00):
Yeah, that. So I guess then what to take
away from this, if you're the, if you're an applicant and you
know that these AI tools are outthere, you'd better make darn
sure that the terminology you'reusing in the way you've
categorized and laid out your resume then really highlights
the true nature of your skill set.
So there's, it's on the on the higher E as well.
(24:22):
It's not just the big bad AI tools are being used by the the
companies and that's confusing things.
You know, it's theirs. Yeah.
So what other advice might you give to somebody who looking in
the industry right now, knowing that they're up against these
waves of people coming in and trying to get to these jobs,
What else might they try? And.
Yeah. I mean, I, I think right now
(24:43):
it's all about relationships as it normally is, right?
If one of you guys called me, I've known you for a long time,
right? I already know your skills.
I already know your style. I already know what you can do.
I've had a lot of sales folks that I say call your clients,
call your big clients, what are their softwares are they using,
right? What are they really like right
(25:03):
now? What's the ROI model?
So right now it's a big networking exercise.
It's getting out, it's meeting people again, guys, interview
cycles or sales cycles. So when you're trying to get in
touch with the prospect, what doyou do?
You're not sending me your PowerPoint deck, right?
I mean, I'm not just going to stick my resume in an inbox
because like we've talked about,there are hundreds of thousands.
(25:26):
It's hard to stand out. Even if you have the perfect
looking resume with all the numbers, sometimes it's still
hard to find. You've got to imagine these
recruiters are looking through thousands, right?
And even if the AI tool picks upthe keywords, if you didn't have
the right one, maybe it's not coming through.
Or you've got a recruiter that occasionally they're a bit more
junior in their career, they're still learning their VPS or
(25:49):
higher Managers have said go look for someone with these
skills and these keywords. And God forbid you don't have
those exact words in your resume, you're not going to get
chosen. So it's networking, it's
reaching out, it's everything that you would do in sales.
Do your research, find the buyers right, the Champions and
start developing relationships with them.
(26:12):
So you're still selling, but you're the product now?
Yes, Sir. Oh wow.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Subscribe to that as well. As you know, your network is
your best option for getting hired.
You know who you know and who you've worked with in the past.
And that's always the big question mark, right?
When you're bringing someone high level onto the team in
sales so much this stuff is made-up.
(26:32):
You really don't know what they're like.
And so there's trust in already having that relationship with
someone for sure. And then resonate.
What's that? I was sorry.
Networks extend, right? It goes beyond the people that
you know. Maybe they know someone who
knows someone, right? They know AVC.
They know A. Right.
(26:52):
And then you have your resume onhot standby.
And I, I mean, would you even suggest I mean this?
What I would do is I would customize that resume before I
send it to them specifically forthat job.
I mean, not so blatantly that italigns up, but like know what
the requirements are. And then you send it as the
proof point because someone's going to validate that, right?
But the trust is already there to get you in the door.
(27:14):
Yeah. And I, you know, to be honest,
Matt, I try not to have people have to customize their resume
for every single job they're applying to.
You know, when it comes down forme again, I want to know your
quota attainment, deal size, clients, where'd you stack rank?
What kind of deals are you doing?
That's going to tell me pretty much everything I need to know.
(27:35):
And if you're someone who's madetheir quota year after year,
quarter after quarter, you're stack ranking at the top of your
echelon there. You know, I mean, again, this is
purely sales, right? Then you don't really need to
customize it. Now, if you were to Series A
company and no one knows what your company does, you might
need a little blurb versus saying, I work for IBM, right?
(27:59):
But it's really applicable anywhere, whether you're in
marketing or tech support. What are the KPIs?
How are you being measured in your job?
Put that on a piece of paper. That's what stands out.
Clear metrics, right? Clear metrics about success.
Just to your point, building your business case, just like
(28:19):
you would when you're selling your software.
But now you're the product, so you got to build the business
case for the person you're speaking with, right?
That's right. You brought up something a
moment ago and I want to kind ofgo back and touch on it again,
talking about standing out and I, I, I'm with you about the
whole thing about trying to customize every single resume
that you send out. It's it's it in this particular
(28:42):
market, I think it'd be impossible to do that for every
single one. But I have seen folks taking
advantage of platforms like LinkedIn to go and promote their
successes, their contributions, taking advantage of some of
those additional element things.Like you've said, I'm not going
to go and put up a PowerPoint, but some do around they were
(29:03):
they've they're actually they'representing themselves as the
product or they're talking abouttheir success history, right.
Have you seen that be a good strategy and and what advice
might you give to somebody around that?
You mean on their profile? Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah, I mean, listen, that's
where I spend a good chunk of myday.
So if your profile, Kevin says I'm a senior account executive
(29:27):
at XYZ company with no detail and Matt says, hey, I'm a senior
strategic account executive, I've been here for five years,
Here's my quota attainment deal size.
I mean, all the things that we've talked about makes my job
a little easier, right? So to your point, yes, you are
now selling yourself. And so you guys know how to demo
(29:49):
software, you know what to show,what not to show, where the bugs
are, what's going to work and what's not.
It's the same thing, right? So I also have a lot of reps who
say I don't want to sound cocky.Like what's cocky?
If you're first, if you're staffranking number one or two out of
fifty, time and time and time again, that's a fact.
(30:10):
That's not like, well, I'm the best thing since sliced bread.
That's just I work my tail. I know what I'm doing and you
need to go show that to someone.How do you do it?
I often ask people, what's your secret sauce?
How do you get in? And if someone says I send a
bunch of emails, I'm like reallylike, OK, but if I give you some
(30:32):
unknown series, a company, you need to go evangelize, tell me
how you're going to get in. I need more than end mails,
right? So to your point, the LinkedIn,
the resume, whatever it is, is the piece of paper that's going
to get you in the door, hopefully, right.
Once you're in the door, now youneed the stories.
(30:52):
And our old favorite friend or VP of product used to tell us,
how do, I don't want to know howyou could, would, should do
something. I want to know how you've done
it. And I've plagiarized that ever
since the day he told me probably 25 years ago, right?
I mean, he was the one that said, I have so many product
people walk through this store that tells me that tell me how
(31:14):
they could do something. So I could walk you through how
I would run a deal cycle, but how different is it if you say
here's what I did, here's how I broke in, here's how I
multithreaded and pick a specific deal, you can work
through the details, guys. The process is the same.
The interview process and the sales process are exactly the
(31:35):
same. So you're going to show a client
how they're going to use your product, what the ROI is.
You're going to show a company what you can do and what the ROI
is. Yeah, I question also around,
you know, if I were looking, I would also reach out to people
like you, recruiters I've workedwith in the past.
That's one of my first things aswell.
It's like, hey, I'm on the market.
Do you know of anything? What?
(31:56):
How can you help me? I'm just curious because
traditionally it's always been the employer pays the recruiter
Finder fee right? Has that even switched to?
Do even applicants now pay it all or is that we've not
breached that area yet? I mean, for me it hasn't.
I've seen a lot of career consulting, a lot of resume
work, a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of money out there.
(32:19):
Is it worth it for me? It's not right, but that's
something to be really cautious about to Matt, right?
Because because those clients are paying the fees.
Some recruiters, and I love my job, but this industry, some
recruiters are going to say I got the best job and sliced
bread and they know that people are nervous and they know
they're a little desperate and they're going to try and throw
some spaghetti and soil and see if it'll stick.
(32:41):
Yeah. You have to be really careful
about knowing where your resume is, knowing who has it, knowing
where it's going, the confidentiality of it,
especially if you're still in a job, and making sure you value
the people and you can trust them.
There's some scary stories out there, unfortunately.
I'm sure, I'm sure there's a lotof them because it's become so
(33:03):
hard to judge, you know, what's genuine anymore.
And I think AI certainly we've we've talked about this in other
episodes. AI certainly has has made that
explode even further, right. We've I've seen, I'm sure you've
seen it as well, where like the interviewer is AI and the
applicant is also. AI is.
It's, it's just insane in my mind, but it's it's a natural
(33:25):
progression. I think of kind of where we've
come and hopefully it's going tostart veering back somehow as we
all figure this AI thing out. Right.
Yeah, it has to. But that's that's why the you
know who you know is so criticalbecause that they get a real
person is vouching for you as a real person with real abilities.
And I think that's the highest phrase and sense of trust you
(33:47):
can get. So again, whether it's the VCs,
the execs you've worked with, the sales engineers, the
marketing, the, I mean, people, people have huge networks,
right? Use them, you never know who
knows who. You know, it's interesting, I'm
hearing you talk about this and you know, two years ago I found
myself back and Matt, we both found ourselves back in the job
(34:10):
market. And an interesting thing we
found him that was just mentioning about whether things
are real or not. There were jobs I was applying
for where if you looked at my resume and you look at the job
description, it's look it look like you, you wrote it based on
my job description, right? And then I would send into
those. I even had people inside that
(34:30):
organization that could help escalate it or get it in front
of the right people and even talk to the people who ran those
departments to try and, you know, put a little bit of of a
spotlight on my resume only to find out two months into the
process that it was originally intended.
They had to put it out to the real world.
But there always was an expectation internally that they
(34:53):
were going to hire an internal candidate.
How prevalent is that still in the marketplace right now given
the the nature of the job market?
And are there any real segments of the industry that are getting
a bit more of a boom than the other ones?
And it in how do those two things factor together?
(35:13):
Is there still a lot of false leads because we're going to
hire internal? And if not, is there a
particular industry if someone'slooking for work that they
should be targeting? Yeah, I mean, that's an
infuriating process, so I'm sorry they had to go through
that. I can't say it doesn't happen,
right? I mean, I'm pretty black and
white. I've always joked like I'm from
(35:34):
the Northeast, I'm from Boston. I'm going to tell you where it's
at, right? So if I have a job, I can
promise you it's open. The ones that we see on
LinkedIn, it depends where they come from, right?
So it's hard for me to sort of speak specifically to that.
Does it happen 1000%? Should it 1000% not Right?
That should never happen. I mean, and it's unfortunate in
(35:55):
this market that people are, in my opinion, being taken for
granted. I mean, you're having these
candidates run through loops. I just heard the other day there
was ACEO who went through eight months of interviews, 8 months.
And the guy looked at the board and said, so you went through
your IPO without me. And they said, Yep, I'm like,
(36:17):
OK, so if you've talked to your CFO, your COO in the board, the
CRO, who else is there? And you're talking about
somebody to run your company through an IPO.
So now you can imagine if I'm hiring a sales Rep, I'm talking
to everyone under the sun, right?
So back to your question, is it there internal?
Sometimes there are, sometimes maybe they have an earmark,
(36:39):
sometimes they say, well, let mecheck the market, Let me see if
there's anyone else better than the person I have in mind.
There's so much that happens behind the scenes and
recruiting, it's hard to give you a specific answer to that
specific question. So and there's probably 1000
different answers to the same question, right?
So did they have someone maybe do they want to find someone
better? Maybe did that person maybe give
(37:01):
notice and then they convince them to stay?
Maybe right there's there's again 1000 different answers of
what can be going on there. I've questioned that's maybe a
little of a touchy subject, but when I got laid off, you know, a
couple years ago was like, OK, well I can go try to get another
job. But I'm feeling that my age is a
(37:24):
factor now. And with age comes salary
expectations and things like that from my 25 plus years of
experience, right? But it's like I've really
feeling like I can get another job.
But in a year I might be on the chopping block again, because
you start looking at the salaries.
It's like, well, this guy's got to go, right?
So I mean, how, how real is that?
(37:46):
Because I know I've talked to other people that have gone
into, you know, young startup companies and stuff.
They're like, that person just seems too old, right?
So it's something legally it's alittle touchy area, but we know
that it happens. And if you are senior in your
career, are there any bits of advice that you give to a person
like that? I mean, obviously they're going
to see you at some point and they know if you are, they're
(38:08):
going to see your history, but any any advice around that?
Yeah, it's a tough one, Matt. Like you said, it's a legal
question and it's so far illegal.
It's not even funny. But we can't touch that, right?
So you know, the advice that I have is there's a lid for every
pot. So for every job, there's a
person, for every person there'sa job.
And I've been saying that for forever and a day of all these
(38:28):
little cliche sayings, right. So, you know, is the Series A
start up with a bunch of 25 and 30 year olds at your spot?
Maybe not right? And they they'll come up with
every reason you're too expensive, you've got too much
experience, you're over experienced for what I need.
You'll never hear it's because you're too old because they
can't, right. But there are plenty of
(38:49):
companies now. There may be some of the, let's
call them more seasoned companies.
Maybe they're larger, maybe theyhave more jobs, more folks at
that same level. Maybe they need someone more
experienced. And I would argue, you know, we
all stayed in our careers. I've had fewer than 10 jobs in
my number of years, and I'm now seeing, you know, 5 jobs in six
(39:13):
years. Yeah.
So if I'm the hiring company, I want someone with the staying
power, I want someone that's going to stick around, who has
the knowledge, who has the wherewithal, who has all of
that. At the end of the day, the hire
managers going to make the ultimate decision.
But the advice I would give is you've just got to find the
right spot, right? Like don't fight the uphill
battle. Even if you might be a perfect
(39:33):
spot, you may not enjoy there either, right?
Culturally or whatever it's going to be, but there's always
jobs up there. There's room for everybody a
little bit more challenging in this market.
Yeah, there's a, you're pointingout a few kind of like bad
behaviors that can happen out there in in the hiring market
right now. And you made a posting a couple
(39:55):
of days ago where you were talking about a comment and no,
no, no, I'm not going to call anybody out it just it, you
know, I responded immediately assoon as I saw it.
Yes, I've seen one million times, right.
It was the whole thing about when someone goes and and does a
great job in Year 1. They smash their OTE, they
overcome, and then year 2 comes around and their reward for that
(40:18):
is they double up the person's quota, shrink their territory,
but keep their OTE at the same amount, which is basically like
showing them the door without showing them the door.
What other kinds of bad practices have you seen out
there where it's like you have to look at the person going, you
know, you're just, you're shoving people out the door, but
that's strategy. Great.
But you know. It's interesting because they
(40:39):
don't think it's shoving people out the door.
They think they're saving their pockets, right?
And so you hear comments like, well, the sales Rep can't make
more than the CFO, the CEO, the CRO.
Well, hey guys, if they're bringing you $3,000,000 worth of
business, do you care how much you pay them?
Really. So they do.
I've talked to some really phenomenal reps in the last,
(41:00):
especially like 3 months. This is happening over and over
and over, and they all tell me the same story.
My OTE stays the same. My quota is going up year after
year after year, and I just don't have the ability to make
money anymore. They're asking me to bring in
more for less. So we talk about how to hire A
(41:22):
players. Everyone wants the A players,
everyone wants to bring them in.But once you have them, to your
point, don't send them out the back door, right?
So that practice seems to be a big one right now.
And I do think there's a lot of eyes on finances.
There's a lot of eyes on ROI. There's a lot of eyes even from
(41:43):
so talk about software sales. When the three of us all worked
in marketing applications, it was a big hot topic.
Now the big hot topic is data and security.
There aren't as many marketing applications anymore.
I mean, they're out there, but they're not doing a ton of
hiring like they were, right? When you've got something with
(42:04):
an ROI, you've got something that's a need to have and you've
got a really good rap. Don't let him go that easy.
Don't push him out the door thateasy.
I mean, one of these guys had been there for 10 years.
He's like, how much more can I do, right?
And he's like, and I hit it every year, but I'm making the
same money and working twice as hard with less accounts.
(42:27):
Well, the argument could be madenow sitting up the being the guy
who had to sit on the other sideof the chair one of those
quotas. So let me switch hats on you
now. I got white 1 and I'm throwing
the Black Hat on now. So but ten years increasing his
quota, but he still made it every single time.
So how does how does a recruiterinfluence an organization in
(42:50):
their policies with respect to stuff like quota and
incentivizing that kind of performance in a way that keeps
the the ball moving down the field but doesn't disincentivize
the top? Well, into your point, right?
You've worked on the other side.So if I'm going to hit 1.2, can
I make it 1.4? Probably.
(43:12):
But if you're at 1.2 and all of a sudden it's two and the next
year it's three, those are the people I'm talking to.
Right. So it's a far cry, right?
So yes, can you push someone to do more?
Sure, but if they're doing more,than give them the value for
doing more, especially when a lot of reps aren't making their
(43:33):
quota right now and it's not necessarily their fault, right?
When half the organization or 3/4 of the organization isn't.
There's always been an 8020 rule.
It's leaned in more in the otherdirection right now.
Lots of reps making seventy, 8090% of their number.
That might not be bad. And again, let's circle way
back. If you're stack ranked two out
of 50, you're hitting for the fences, right?
(43:55):
You're doing something right. Maybe the quotas overstated, so
I know we took that off track, but no.
No, no one. Thing that I've noticed over the
25 plus years that I've been in software sales was when we got
into it, it seemed like it was agood living.
I mean, you worked hard, sure, but you made a lot compared to
everything else going on. And I noticed, you know, as I
(44:19):
kept going forward in my career,it seemed like it got harder and
harder to make that money. You're blowing out your numbers
got less and less. You know, it.
Of course, it varied from place to place.
But towards the end, I was like,I'm working not twice as hard,
but I'm working really hard and I'm making less money now,
especially with the cost, everything going up where it
(44:42):
just felt like it wasn't the same.
It didn't have the same status that it once had in terms of if
you're a good seller and gettingnew customers, they rewarded you
and it now seems like that's notthe case.
Have you seen something similar to that?
I don't know. I think it's still out there,
Matt. I think, you know, again, you
got to pick the right pony. You got to find the right
company, the right application, the right Tam, the right ICP,
(45:06):
the right da, da, da, da, da, right.
I still think there's a lot of money to be made out there.
I still know reps making tons ofmoney.
Is it hard? Yeah, If I'm going to date all
three of us, we used to make a lot of money because we would
have on Prem and you have a hugeimplementation and services fees
and you'd make a ton of money because they had to have it,
(45:27):
right. And then we went to what was
first hosted cloud, then SAS. I mean they're all the same
thing, right? But all those fees went away.
So how did I start to make money?
And then in comes the SMB and the mid market and now I can do
volume. And then those companies wanted
to get to enterprise, but they couldn't quite scale.
Well, now they're starting to scale and they're able to scale.
(45:49):
So the deal sizes have come backbecause we went through a real
lull when things first started to turn down that track.
The SAS applications were 7080 or 100 grand, right?
And it took a lot of time to figure out and get used to the
security behind it and all the stuff that you guys know far
better, better than I do, right?But now we're past that turn, so
(46:10):
now we're at the AI turn. So what can we do with AI?
How far can we get with these applications?
How much value can we add with these applications?
So again, to circle way back, I think the money's still out
there. I still know plenty of people
doing 7 figure deals, ACV, nevermind TCV, right?
And they aren't huge companies. They don't have to be the
oracles and sales forces to get to those deal sizes.
(46:32):
They're out there. It's it's it's finding the right
one for sure. So in today's market, and we're
going to have to start bringing this home here pretty soon as
much as I'm enjoying every minute of this.
What advice would you give to somebody, software company right
now that needs to recruit? What advice would you give them
so that they streamline the process to find the best client
(46:55):
as quickly as possible? Yeah, candidate.
Yeah. So I'm going to turn the tables.
You guys have interviewed before, so and you've both hired
before. So when you're hiring, what are
you looking for? So my very first thing, before I
even take on a search, do you know what you're looking for?
Because if you don't, I can't start, right?
(47:17):
And it doesn't mean that you can't switch or you can't ebb
and flow, but you should have a pretty good idea what you want,
what that person has done, wherethey've come from.
And then I'm probably going to squeeze the brakes on you like
you have to have that, right? So if I find a superstar who can
blow through walls, do they haveto have a Rolodex?
(47:39):
Do they have to know your industry?
I'd rather have someone with thegreat drive and determination
than the Rolodex and industry experience.
So it's these ebbs and flows. Where can you give, where can
you push where? What's your ideal pie in the sky
person and where can you flex onthat?
So that's step one. Step 2 is when you start to see
(47:59):
that person. Don't put them through 25
interviews, don't make it 4 months, right?
People still want to be excited.And I've always said no matter
what the market, it's a buying session and a selling session.
So yes, you need to buy. Yes you need to make sure this
person's for you 1000%. You also need to tell them why
(48:20):
they want to come work for you because worst case scenario, you
say that's not the person for meand they go running around
online telling all their friends, I can't believe I
didn't get this job. I really wanted to work there.
It's free marketing, right? So move the process along, give
them feedback. Please don't ghost.
Please just be honest with people, right?
(48:41):
People want honest answers. They don't mind that they got
turned down as long as you tell them and you give them some good
reason why so they can understand, right?
So again, no matter what the market is, these processes right
now have gotten out of control. You know, a good recruiting
process shouldn't really be morethan three, 4-5 weeks at the
(49:04):
most, right? So you see a resume, you
schedule an interview, you get back to them within 24 hours and
next steps or reason why you're not moving forward.
If you do that two or three times, you get to a negotiation
process, you make an offer, it'saccepted.
You have two more weeks to get someone out in in the door after
(49:26):
their two weeks notice. It should be 5 or 6 weeks.
And guys, it's September 24th. We're heading up to the end of
the year. Yeah.
Right was a long answer to your short question.
No, no, it's totally fine. You know, Robin, it's, it's
always interesting to get your perspective and I always
(49:47):
appreciate it because it really provides clarity.
And you know, I, I've sat on both sides of the chair where
I've been personally looking fora job and I've been looking for
the right person. And every time you've been able
to go and provide me with additional perspective that
helps make either side of that equation a much easier and much
more. No, no, no, trust me, thank you
(50:07):
because it, you've really helpedme a number of times.
If someone else is out there right now and they're either on
the hiring side or they're on I need a job side and they, they
wanted to reach out to you to, to explore partnering with you
on either side of the equation. What's the best way for them to
reach out to you? It's probably through my
LinkedIn page, right? I mean, my e-mail and phone
(50:30):
number should be on there. So by all means reach out
through that. Robin at forefrontsearch.com.
I would say Robin with AY, it's RBYN at forefrontsearch.com and
mobile and everything should be on there as well, so.
Fantastic. Well, we'll make sure we put it
in the description so that anybody who's looking and by the
way, I can't recommend Robin enough to help you on either
(50:52):
side of the equation from that perspective.
No, no, no, you've that's that'spraise that you have definitely
earned from vast engagements. So and I wholeheartedly endorse
it. And anybody looking, please
reach out and and look out for Robin.
But unfortunately, we are going to have to bring this episode to
a close. As much as I'm having good time
(51:13):
chatting with my two friends here, Matt, it was wonderful
talking with you today. Anything you'd like to go and
share before we go and bring theepisode to a close?
Just that it's just been a really fascinating conversation.
I think these are things top of everyone's mind, whether you are
currently looking or even at a job, you know these things you
hear about. And so I really appreciate the
(51:34):
candor and just the frank discussion around some of the
things that are going on there. So thanks.
Thanks again, Rob. Thanks again for having me guys,
really great to see you both. Thank you for coming in.
And one of the key things I'm taking away from this is that
idea of before you even start writing up that job description,
really get clarity in your own mind as the hirer.
What is it you want? What is it you really need in
(51:56):
order to be successful with the person you're bringing on?
I think that's incredibly solid advice, but unfortunately, this
does bring us to the close of our episode.
We want to thank Robin for coming in and spending time with
us today and sharing her experience and her perspective.
I learned a lot and I'm sure youguys did too.
We also want to thank you for coming in and spending time with
us and listening to our podcast.Please come back again next week
(52:19):
or go to our website where you can go and buy a copy of our
book all about the methodology, the move methodology, which has
made Matt and I so successful inthe past.
But until then, ladies and gentlemen, until we see you next
week, please like, follow and subscribe and we'll see you
again next week. Take care.
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