After becoming unsatisfied with the talent their recruitment firm presented to them, the hiring team at Visual Comfort reached out to our recruiters. There was a “disconnect” between the kind of candidates Visual Comfort wanted to hire and what their recruitment firm brought them. We’d worked with them previously, and they knew that, beyond understanding their industry, we understood the core of their company. Their culture, their values, and the personality “DNA” that made for a successful addition to their team. 

For this specific role, they promoted the previous Director of Sales without adequate internal talent to backfill the position. They knew they’d need to look outside their organization but hoped we could support their search by doing a talent pool deep-dive.

Visual Comfort’s salespeople are known for their incredibly high passion, intensity, and drive. In addition to having the right level of experience, they look for those traits (among others) when hiring, especially for their sales team. 

The Director of Sales would be responsible for managing ~15 salespeople and 12 showrooms with two regional showroom managers. That meant finding a more senior salesperson who’d led a sales team focused on demand creation. And because they wanted candidates with experience selling directly to the trade on this side of the business, we focused less on candidates who’d sold through distribution channels. 

Overall, we presented Visual Comfort’s hiring team with six applicable candidates. Four made it through to second interviews, and only two got through to the final interviews. 

From the very first call, it was clear that this candidate was a force to be reckoned with. While she brought significant experience, much of it didn’t align with Visual Comfort’s initial expectations. While she sold a high-end product that was both commercial and residential, she didn’t sell direct to the trade. She had plenty of experience leading teams, but she was over their initial budget for the role. 

Because she didn’t check every box, we were initially hesitant to present her to the Visual Comfort hiring team. But at leadership’s insistence, we introduced her to them. They loved her immediately. Despite the discrepancies in her experience versus their original desires, she fit the exact profile of someone they wanted for this type of role. 

In the words of our recruiters, she was very clearly “Visual Comfort blood.” So the hiring team bumped their budget, threw out their “checklist,” and asked her to come aboard the team. 

While they hired the candidate described above, they didn’t throw away the second candidate that made it through to finals. By the end of this search the hiring team decided to bring them both on, changing how they broke up their sales territories and assigning each person to one. 

After making these placements, Visual Comfort officially moved on from their other search partner and returned to using us exclusively for their searches, bringing seven additional placements to us less than six months after both candidates started. We continue to support their team’s expansion, finding candidates who, beyond having the right experience, are a right fit for their unique company culture. 

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