My first year in recruitment!

The Missing Puzzle Piece

Having now completed my first year in recruitment, it has been really interesting to overlay what I have previously experienced as a candidate to what I can now see and understand on the other side of the fence.

Recruitment is like a jigsaw puzzle, an almost complete one. As a business you need one more piece to fit the gap and complete the puzzle. Right?

Almost.

Picture it this way. Your business is a complex puzzle and for the purpose of this example, yes, you need one more piece to fit the gap left; your next hire.

Only the candidate market is an entire box of pieces and thousands of them are the perfect shape to fit the gap. How do you know which candidate is the right piece?

Your puzzle, your business has an image, a vision and just because a missing puzzle piece fits the gap, it doesn’t mean it completes the puzzle.

Before I worked in recruitment and even now, I receive calls from recruiters trying to pitch me ‘sales’ roles because I have worked in sales before, I have ‘sales’ or ‘business development’ on my profile or CV. The same can be said for Account Leadership roles, where any role that involves client management was thrown my way! And now, speaking to candidates, the number of stories I hear of them being sold roles that simply aren’t suited to their experience and expertise is mad.

Take ‘Customer Success’, an extremely fast growing and comparatively new concept to the tech world. A CSM in the SaaS world is as good as any other in the SaaS world right? The piece fits, job done! WRONG!

What about the market your business operates in, MarTech, EdTech, FinTech, PropTech, AI and so on. What about the number of clients the CSM will manage? The value of those clients individually and the total value of the portfolio(ARR / MRR)? Average contract terms? Are the commercially responsible or just relationship focussed? The typical issues a client will face? Retention targets? Account growth targets? Decision makers? Interaction methods?

Then we’ve got sales roles, BDM’s, Account Executives. A SaaS salesperson is as good as any other SaaS Salesperson if they have the performance stats to prove it right? The piece fits. WRONG AGAIN.

What about target market sector? What about business size? What about the primary decision makers and seniority level? Average order values? Sales cycles? Bonus or commission structure? Engagement methods? Demo’s, presentations and pitches? Are they involved in onboarding? Is it a straight hunter role or do they have warmed leads from marketing? Do they have an SDR feeding into them?

All these things are critical to completing the puzzle, the image of your business.

So that’s just the role, what about the company? What’s the team size and dynamic like? What progression opportunities exist, when and what does that look like? What is the business vision or growth plans? What supporting functions exist? What is the management style like? Is it quite a social company?

And that’s all before we get to benefits. Sure 26 days holiday is great, but what is the person isn’t a big holiday taker? Friday drinks? Great, the candidate is tee-total. Great social environment? Fine, but the candidate isn’t a super social person. Childcare vouchers and extended maternity/paternity leave? Awesome, but they have no intention to have children any time soon.

All this and we haven’t even talked about salary, notice/availability or whether the candidate really clicks with what your business does!

I could go on, but honestly, this is the most I’ve written in one go since my GCSE coursework days and let’s be honest, you’ve read enough.

I’ll simply summarise with saying that your business is a wonderful image that is constantly looking for the next missing piece. Partnering with an agency that understands not only what shape the missing piece should be, but what the complete image of your business looks like, cannot be understated.