Jason M. LemkinCEO, SaaStr · Co-Founder of SaaStr AI, SaaStr Fund, Adobe Sign

From Missed Opportunities to Dream Team: The Sales Recruitment Journey

31 Jul 2023 · 1 min

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A short, first-person anecdote by Jason M. Lemkin about recruiting his VP of Sales. He recounts identifying an ideal candidate (the first head of sales at LinkedIn), failing to recruit him initially and instead hiring someone from Salesforce who didn’t work out, then—14 months and one day later—being contacted by the original candidate about the open head-of-sales role. The story emphasizes persistence, the value of reference-driven sourcing, and missed earlier opportunities.

Chapters

My first, my second VP of sales, who I loved. I met him recruiting my first sales rep. He's the first head of sales at LinkedIn and I loved him and I tried to somehow recruit him from LinkedIn. I couldn't get him. So I hired this other guy from Salesforce. That didn't work out. A year, 14 months later, I needed this guy. And 14 months plus one day he text me, any chance you're looking for a head of sales? Oh my fucking God. Thank you. It was the greatest thing in the world. But I had met him, I sought him out like a heat seeking missile because I did these reference calls on my first sales rep and he was the first reference call I did who was like, jason, whatever you do, don't hire this guy. And I'm like, this is great. And I drove out to meet him and I built this relationship and I should have done 40 of them.