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Picture the following scenario: it’s time to make a new hire and HR is relying on the hiring manager to help them ...
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We’ve all been there. We find sales job seekers who check all of the boxes and who prove to be the best candidate for the role we’re looking to fill. They have the right skills and work experience. Great attitude and energy. They fit-in. And then we lose him/her to another organization. When this happens, do you ask yourself what went wrong? Was it:
- Your office culture or the hiring manager?
- An unrealistic compensation range or a failure to identify your business need?
- Did the interview process not move quickly enough or did you neglect to follow-up to ensure they understand what the process looks like?
Any of these missteps can lead to losing the best sales candidates.
Plus, if you work for mid-size and smaller organizations, you also have to compete for landing the best talent with large corporations like Amazon and Google who have large recruiting teams on a constant look-out for that same talent.
We get it. Over the years we have seen organizations fail to land the best sales candidates many times. It’s a lot to manage and there’s no silver bullet. However, we’ve learned how to prevent your frustration and implement steps to land the best technology hires.
To help you land the best technology candidates, we put together key actions you can take to succeed.
We’ll review . . .
- How do we define Top Talent? And what are they looking for in a new job?
The qualities, personality traits and desires of the top talent- What they look for in a career
- The importance of corporate culture
- How they will support your organization
- Challenges most recruiters face
Typical challenges/reasons why organizations struggle to attract top talent. - Steps to overcome the challenges
The steps it takes to land Top Sales Talent:- How to identify the “best” job seeker
- How to make your organization attractive to the “best” job seeker
- How to go above and beyond to make the “best” job seeker believe they can’t not take the job
- Trends that impress the “best” job seeker
How Do We Define Top Sales Talent
Seeking to understand what makes sales people tick helps you identify the top sales talent. With sales professionals, you want to remember what the best candidates are fueled by:
- Compensation, motivation, and competitiveness. Top sales talent wants to work hard and have the ability to make a lot of money. They want to be the best, close a lot of deals, and be paid well in the process. It really isn’t that complicated.
- Hard work. They got where they are because they’re hardworking. They may have played a sport, or paid their way through school, they got up early, they always pushed.
- Their ability to adapt to new situations. Whether it’s changing products or changing sales cycles, the best sales candidates know how to adapt and embrace it.
With the top sales talent, you can focus on discussing goals and quotas as well. If they aren’t hitting their numbers, ask why, because people always have reasons why. Be skeptical if the failure to hit quotas is a recurring theme.
Challenges to Landing the Top Sales Talent
The challenges of landing the top sales talent vary, but they focus primarily on:
- Compensation. The plan needs to be well defined and they need to understand what is required to hit their On Target Earnings (OTE) number. Top salespeople are typically doing well in their current role and are walking away from deep pipelines. Does your company have a plan to offset that?
- Even marginal sales people are great at selling themselves. Make sure they can back up their talk with tangible results and a track record of success.
- Salespeople are aggressive and want to dictate the recruiting process. You need to define your process and stick to it to get the information and candidate you want.
Overcoming the Challenges to Landing the Top Sales Talent
While the challenges may feel like a lot to take on, we’ll take a deeper dive here into the ways to overcome them.
Ask the Right Questions
You have to ask more questions, and engage in more dialogue, talking it through during the interviews and turning it around on them. Maybe this is not the exact fit for your sales experience? What makes more sense for your next step?
Take Time to Understand Work History
If their last role involved big changes in their position or product, what were the results? Taking the time to understand their prior successes and their ability to adapt to them, will help your expectations.
Focus on Future Earnings
They may be focused on the dollars. While they may not be able to make big dollars year one, they can in year two. Show them how they can progress with opportunities and excel down the road.
Be Upfront & Transparent
Don’t overpromise. Instead, be realistic regarding where the company is at in terms of its own growth, and where appropriate delineate how their skills may be more helpful to the company in the future, which leads to…
Get the Candidates Excited About Their Career Path
Talk to them about their career path. What are their next steps? Provide a clear path to where they could go and how they can get there with your organization.
For more guidance, you may be interested in the following. . .
- Sales Careers: What’s Happening Now and What’s The Outlook Looking Forward
- You Need to Start Hiring, You Also Need to Know What That Means
Final Thoughts
When it comes to landing the top sales talent, we see where recruiters can be effective at identifying the right talent, but can fail to vet them properly or adequately entice them to move forward in the process.
This is where you can ask more questions about their work history, results and what they think the best fit for them might be.
Be upfront about where your company is today and where they can get to with the right sales talent.
And define future earnings and career path.
Hirewell is Your Partner to Help You Make The Best Hires for Your Organization
We’re here to provide you with the guidance you need to land the top sales talent.
Want guides to other specialties? View our guides to landing the top Technology, Marketing and Human Resources hires, too.
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Over the last year, hiring teams have started seeing a wave of new job titles pop up across tech, sales, and operations.
Some are legitimate new roles.
Others are existing jobs with a slightly different name.
And many of them have one thing in common: AI is suddenly part of the job description.
From Go-to-Market Engineers to AI Specialists, companies are experimenting with new roles as they figure out how automation and AI fit into their teams.
But most of these positions aren’t entirely new. They’re evolutions of existing roles.
The Rise of Go-to-Market Engineers
One role that is gaining traction is the Go-to-Market Engineer.
Depending on who you ask, it is either:
- A new role focused on automation and AI-driven growth
- A modern version of Revenue Operations (RevOps)
In practice, it is a bit of both.
As Matt Tokarz recently pointed out after closing a search for an Outbound & Go-to-Market Specialist, the role looked very different from traditional RevOps. The focus was not reporting or CRM hygiene. It was building prompts, leveraging tools like Clay and Smartlead, and enabling SDRs and AEs with backend insights to accelerate pipeline growth.
Instead of traditional RevOps work like reporting and CRM management, the focus was on:
- Building AI prompts
- Creating campaign messaging
- Automating outreach workflows
- Using tools like Clay, Smartlead, and Trigify
The goal was not simply managing sales data. It was accelerating pipeline generation through automation.
AI Isn’t Creating New Functions. It’s Changing Existing Ones
One trend is becoming clear. Companies are not replacing entire departments with AI.
Instead, they are changing how existing roles operate.
Sales teams still need pipeline.
Marketing teams still need content.
Engineering teams still need to build software.
The difference is that employers now expect candidates to use AI tools as part of their workflow.
As Zac Colip noted during the discussion, we are currently in a transitional phase where companies are labeling roles with “AI” as they experiment with how the technology fits into teams.
But that may not last forever.
Why Many “AI Job Titles” May Disappear
Right now, AI still feels new enough that companies highlight it in job titles.
But eventually, AI will likely become a baseline expectation, not a specialty.
Think about it like cloud technology or data analytics.
At first, companies hired “cloud specialists.” Now most engineers are expected to understand cloud infrastructure.
The same shift will likely happen with AI.
Instead of hiring “AI-enabled marketers” or “AI engineers,” companies will simply expect employees to know how to work with AI tools.
The Talent Pool Is Still Small
One challenge with these emerging roles is simple: there aren’t many candidates with real experience yet.
Many of these positions didn’t exist two years ago.
In one recent search, we started looking for a candidate locally in Chicago. Eventually we expanded nationwide because the pool of people with relevant experience was extremely limited.
This is a common issue with emerging roles:
- Companies want experienced candidates
- But the roles themselves are still new
That gap will likely persist for the next few years.
Hybrid Roles Are Becoming More Common
Another noticeable shift is that roles are becoming more hybrid.
Instead of hiring for narrow responsibilities, companies are combining multiple functions into one position.
As Matt Mulcahy highlighted, one example is the rise of Forward Deployed Engineers, a model popularized by Palantir.
These engineers:
- Work directly with clients
- Gather product requirements
- Write user stories
- Build the software themselves
What used to involve several roles, including product managers, engineers, and solution architects, can now sometimes be handled by one person. AI development tools are part of what makes this possible.
AI Adoption Is Happening at Different Speeds
Not every industry is moving at the same pace.
As Ashley DuBois pointed out, some sectors, such as transportation, are applying AI to specific workflows like load booking and operational automation.
At the same time, some companies are adding “AI” to job titles even when the core responsibilities remain largely traditional.
In many cases, it is still essentially an IT manager role with AI familiarity layered in.
This reflects a broader transition period where companies want to signal modernization and candidates want to signal relevance.
Automation Is Changing Operations Roles
In logistics, AI is increasingly handling scheduling, tracking, and coordination tasks.
According to Brittany Lasky, operational roles such as logistics coordinators may experience the greatest impact from automation.
However, freight brokers who manage negotiation and strategic RFPs remain in demand.
AI can optimize processes. It does not replace relationship management or strategic negotiation.
Across industries, a pattern is emerging.
Execution becomes automated. Strategy becomes more valuable.
Finance Roles Are Becoming More Analytical
Automation is also reshaping finance and accounting roles.
As Adam Slater noted, accounts receivable jobs that once focused on high-volume manual processing are evolving into more analytical positions centered on reporting and insights.
The work is not disappearing. The expectations are increasing.
Organizations are now hiring for:
- stronger technical skills
- analytical thinking
- systems understanding
Even roles traditionally considered administrative now require deeper technical capability.
Analyst Roles Are Expanding
AI is not eliminating analyst roles. It is expanding them.
Financial analysts are also expected to understand tooling, sourcing, and data transformation.
In many cases, two or three roles are being combined into one.
This raises a long-term question.
If entry-level roles become more complex or disappear entirely, how will organizations develop senior talent in the future?
Sales Development Is Becoming More Human
The traditional model of high-volume cold calling is changing.
According to Jack Smith and Emily Canna, teams are shifting toward:
- personalized LinkedIn videos
- voice memos
- highly tailored messaging
At the same time, companies are moving away from activity-based KPIs and focusing more on outcomes such as demos set and SQLs generated.
In a market saturated with automated outreach, authentic communication has become a competitive advantage.
Several clients have said it directly. They want a human in the seat.
Go-to-Market Teams Are Rebuilding the Fundamentals
Every six to twelve months, hiring trends in go-to-market teams shift.
As Jennifer Salerno noted, companies move through cycles.
One quarter it is BDRs.
Then RevOps.
Now it is go-to-market engineers.
Many companies experimented heavily with AI to accelerate pipeline generation.
What those experiments exposed were structural gaps, particularly in outbound strategy.
AI can support execution. It does not replace a well-built top-of-funnel engine.
Inbound momentum can hide weaknesses. Outbound forces clarity.
The companies gaining traction right now are not chasing trends. They are rebuilding the fundamentals of their go-to-market strategy.
What This Means for Hiring
For employers, the takeaway is straightforward. Job descriptions and expectations need to evolve alongside technology.
Across functions, we are seeing the same shift play out. AI is not eliminating entire roles. It is changing how those roles operate and increasing the baseline skill set required to perform them well.
Hiring managers should start thinking less about traditional titles and more about capabilities. That often means prioritizing candidates who can:
- Learn and adapt to new tools quickly
- Think in terms of systems, automation, and workflows
- Combine technical and business skills within a single role
In many cases, the perfect candidate with the exact title simply does not exist yet. The strongest hires are often people who have developed adjacent skills and shown the ability to adapt as the tools evolve.
The Bigger Trend
The broader trend is that AI is accelerating a shift that was already underway.
Roles are becoming more hybrid. Expectations are increasing across nearly every function. And repetitive tasks are being automated, leaving more strategic work behind.
Sales teams still need pipeline.
Operations teams still need coordination.
Finance teams still need reporting and analysis.
Engineering teams still need to build software.
What is changing is how the work gets done and what skills are required to do it well.
Right now we are in a transitional phase where companies are still labeling roles with “AI” as they experiment with new workflows and technologies.
Over time, that label may disappear.
AI will simply become part of how work gets done.
And the roles themselves, while evolving, will look more familiar than the titles might suggest.
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