Our client for this search was a structural steel fastener manufacturer headquartered in Canada. They have a growing base of operations in the US, including most of their manufacturing. To support that continued growth, they needed to hire someone with deep, technical, industry-specific knowledge and a strong ability to sell their products.

In short, they needed a sales engineer.

Finding the right mix of skills for a technical salesperson can be difficult, especially with the niche nature of the structural steel fastener industry. Adding further nuance, they’d recently welcomed a new manager to their team who was relatively new to the steel industry. We were happy to provide our recruiting and industry expertise to the hiring team as we dove into their search for a technical sales representative well-versed in the industry.

Like most searches, they had several requirements that added a unique level of complexity to the search. They weren’t interested in relocating any candidates, so we had to work within their specific geographic area. They also hoped to find someone knowledgeable but teachable, narrowing down the range of experience we needed to look at.

In all, we went back to the market five times seeking additional qualified candidates for this search. We sent them 32 candidates total, several of whom applied through our website or LinkedIn page. 15 piqued their interest enough to engage in further conversation. Then, the exciting final number: while they originally intended to hire only one sales engineer, they liked two candidates enough to bring them both on.

The first candidate was a woman who’d recently been promoted at her then-current company. That promotion had her hesitant to change jobs so soon, especially having worked their half a decade—the entirety of her professional career. In fact, we’d probably say she had zero intention of leaving at all, much less for a sales role.

While other recruiters might have overlooked her because her work history lacked sales-specific roles, we saw her niche experience in the fasteners industry and engineering background as a strong baseline. During our first conversation it quickly became clear she was an effective communicator, incredibly smart, and eager to learn. Plus, her personality and natural charisma were perfect for working in technical sales.

With her impressive mechanical engineering background, she clearly had the technical knowledge to be successful. We just needed to sell her on what a more customer-facing role could look like: the chance to use her interpersonal skills while in tandem with her deep product understanding. This included “casting vision” of what her future career could look like, and her answers left her much more open to our client’s opportunity.

Having never left a job before, we provided her with extra coaching on changing jobs once she finally signed on. She went into it knowing exactly what to expect, including—and especially—how to handle counteroffers.

While the first candidate was more off-the-radar, the second candidate was more of a “classic” fit for the opportunity. He’d worked in his sales role for about a decade and generally felt content with it. But we’ve seen a lot of placements across this industry, especially for his specific role. Through our conversations we realized two things: he had far more responsibility than most people with his job title, and he wasn’t being adequately compensated for his additional work.

We shared that with him, and he was surprised to hear it. He realized that while he enjoyed his work, his life could be better at a company that valued him more. He felt profound relief in the greater balance between his work and home life, plus a more desirable set of responsibilities in accepting the sales engineer role.

This search had a few starts and stops due to factors outside the hiring team’s control, but even then it only took two months from the start of the search to the new team member’s first days. And while we weren’t their team’s first experience working with a recruiting firm, they made it clear we were the best.

Previous firms left them emptyhanded or with unqualified candidates, but they said (in their own words) that we were “instrumental” in finding the right people. Case and point, this wasn’t our first search together resulting in multiple hires. In fact, they hired three candidates during our first search with them because they couldn’t imagine letting any of them get away. It was encouraging to hear them say they’d never received more high-quality candidates from any other source.

So far, both sales engineers have continued living up to the lofty expectations our client had for them. And their hiring team knows when they need additional talent acquisition support, they have our recruiters in their corner to uncover exceptional people.

Experience a faster, smarter, smoother search.

CONTACT US ▶