#137: Kathleen Steffey on the nuances of recruiting Sales, Marketing and Ops talent

Kathleen Steffey is a talent finder and the CEO and Founder of Naviga Recruiting & Executive Search that helps business leaders achieve revenue growth by recruiting Sales and Marketing professionals.

Having been a part of the recruiting industry for over 19 years, Kathleen has her unique insight into the corporate talent acquisition world, agency recruiting and what it takes to manage and lead a team of marketers and recruiters in the digital landscape.

In this episode of The Shape of Work,  our conversation with Kathleen covers a variety of fascinating insights on the nuances of recruiting Sales, marketing and Ops talent.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Mistakes companies make while recruiting Sales and Marketing folks
• Sales and marketing hiring trends as opposed to technical hiring
• Reasons for the Great Resignation
• Naviga’s unique recruiting process: from developing a talent pipeline to getting them hired
• Hiring CRM and tech stack for recruiting
• Why LinkedIn Recruiter is predominantly a single source of truth for recruiters
• Exec hiring cadence: hiring timeline, communication, pitfalls to avoid, and repeating challenges & trends

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

Recent trends in Marketing and Sales Executive Recruitment:

Kathleen says, "if employers handled the pandemic well and retained their employees, most sales and marketing reps are loyal to that. Those sales and marketing people don’t want to leave because they sort of went on a boat ride through a storm with an employer that showed loyalty and essentially saved them".

The second component apart from loyalty is the fact that people did very well during the pandemic. Most of the B2B and technology thrived in it. All they had to do was move to remote working if they weren’t already remote. People are doing well, and it’s harder to recruit someone when they are making much money in sales. In contrast, you always have a percentage and group of people that are ready to leave. So even if the market is tight, there will always be candidates you can lure and recruit. Many things have remained the same in the recruiting world.

Many people don’t want to go to the office now; hybrid workplaces have to be the best practice. Employers need to be aware that they are not stepping up with other employers if they are not offering that.

How to Build Recruitment CRM and Tech Stack?

It takes time to build the CRM, and it is only as relevant as live and accurate. The data is changing so much, so it’s tough to keep up with the CRM system.

Kathleen mentions, as we recruit somebody, they go into our system. We remain in front of our systems updates, newsletters, and automated processes to stay relevant. Scrubbing the CRM system happens almost every day. It is always on the To-Do list.

LinkedIn Recruiter Remains the Single Source of Truth

LinkedIn recruiters have a hold on relevant, immediate data, and it’s effective. Kathleen’s team has tried alternatives; However, because LinkedIn users are in the system and updating data in real-time, it is tough to compete with other research or data tools.

LinkedIn remains the predominant tool for recruiters. Data is available to everyone. How to use it effectively depends upon the strategy and sophistication of the recruitment firms.

Podcast host: Abhash Kumar
Produced by: Priya Bhatt

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