If there’s one thing every company with a sales team knows, it’s that happy salespeople are crucial for long-term success. This principle, combined with a desire to expand their market share, is what led Carnegie to hire another A&D Sales Rep in one of their densest markets: New York City.

Carnegie’s most “crème de la crème” sales rep is also their longest-tenured salesperson, serving customers around the company’s HQ in NYC. At the time they brought us into this search, their NYC sales rep was managing every single account in the sales region. Their goal with the new hire was twofold: they wanted their all-star salesperson to be able to focus more on her biggest accounts, and they wanted greater capacity to expand their reach in the regional market.

While our recruiters had intermittently checked in with them, this was our first search with Carnegie’s hiring team. They reached out, hoping we could find them someone in Manhattan or Brooklyn who met three criteria: 

1. They wanted someone qualified to sell with a proven track record of success.
2. The ideal candidate would be in the market space already, particularly from the textiles, wall coverings, or flooring worlds, to shorten the “learning curve.”
3. This new salesperson needed to be a team player, someone who could operate independently without being a “lone wolf.” 

In addition to these, not all their desires were something you’d find on a resume. Like many companies hiring someone in sales, high emotional intelligence (EI, also known as EQ) was a critical soft skill. They’d need to navigate a relationship with a long-term salesperson who’d never shared her sales region. That meant being assertive but not overly competitive and without bringing a large ego. 

Luckily, we do a ton recruiting in NYC’s A&D space, so we’re already connected with a significant number of candidates there and are constantly searching for more.

With such a large candidate pool in that area, it was no surprise that the candidate they ultimately chose to hire was already in our talent database. In fact, she’d been in our database for nearly four years when we reached out about this role. 

She checked all the boxes they wanted for this hire, but this was her first significant job change and her first switch in six years. The Carnegie hiring manager’s active role in this placement made an enormous difference in the candidate’s experience. She flew out to NYC to meet with the candidate, taking her out to dinner to walk her through all the important details of the role. They covered everything from compensation to the specific accounts she’d work on and beyond. 

This extra level of company engagement gave the candidate the confidence she needed that this switch was the right choice for her career. 

The chosen candidate had her first day at Carnegie 45 days after we got her on the phone. It wasn’t an easy choice for her to make, and it’s ultimately a family decision, like for many candidates we place. But transitioning to this type of role was a logical next step for her career, and so far, she’s been incredible successful in it. 

This placement also disproved a common misconception about working with a recruiting firm: that pushing for the highest salary to get the highest fee is the recruiter’s top priority. In reality, our role is to find the best candidate for the role, in whatever form that takes. While that sometimes pushes the established salary range, more often than not we find candidates whose experience and desire for a career shift align with the hiring budget.

In this case, Carnegie was able to bring her on the team comfortably within the hiring budget they’d set for the role, and the candidate received a salary offer that aligned with her needs and desires. We’re all about striking a balance between both parties that makes everyone happy.

We continue to have an ongoing relationship with the hiring team at Carnegie, acting as support when they need us. While their internal hiring team does an excellent job finding talent across the organization, if they’re struggling to find the right candidate, they know they can call us in to assist.

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