The Client

Recognized as a market leader, The Client provides cloud-based financial planning and analysis software solutions. The organization’s 500+ employees are strategically located around the globe to optimally support their customers.

The Situation

Having recently received an influx of funding that resulted in rapid growth, The Client was faced with a pressing need to double its regional sales team. After extending only one job offer in six months, the organization turned to Acara to help address its talent needs and augment its internal talent acquisition strategy.

The Challenge

Acara was tasked with identifying high-level software sales candidates to fill The Client’s regional sales manager positions. To successfully engage candidates, Acara’s team of expert sourcers and recruiters would be required to:

• Identify candidates with strong customer relationship-building experience and ability. The Client’s long sales cycle, and lack of a free customer trial, required that their sales managers possess strong software sales acumen with experience in closing complex deals.
• Demonstrate to candidates that joining The Client’s team would provide added career value. The entire population of The Client’s ideal target candidates were gainfully employed and generously paid in their current organization and not actively searching for a new position.
• Serve as a brand ambassador for The Client and generate interest among passive candidates to engage in exploratory conversations with the customer.
• Coach candidates through the multi-stage interview process. This included an initial conversation, panel interview, and sales presentation selling The Client on why he or she was the best fit for the position.

The Solution

To be successful, the Acara team would need to work collaboratively with The Client’s senior leaders and hiring managers to identify unique differentiators to share with candidates to build excitement. To accomplish this, the Acara team immersed ourselves in The Client’s brand and sales process.

Acara began this recruitment initiative by gaining a comprehensive understanding of The Client’s ideal candidate profile, corporate culture, and value proposition. Before sourcing or recruiting any candidates, our team orchestrated several meetings with The Client’s senior leaders and hiring managers. This enabled the Acara recruiting team to become brand ambassadors to sell The Client, not just a job description. With the candidate profile and Client differentiators in hand, our team began the recruitment process. Acara allocated one recruiter and three sourcers that were dedicated to The Client.

“The Acara team takes the extra time and effort required to do it right,
works quickly to adapt to evolving needs, responds to feedback effectively,
and has a terrific commitment to customer care. Having worked with
nearly everyone in the TorontoTech recruiting space, I would choose
Acara every time.”

The Conclusion

The Client’s willingness to invest time upfront enabled the Acara team to consistently present “slam-dunk candidates” to The Client who is “…grateful for all Acara is doing to help build our team.” The Client understood and committed to doing what it takes to win top talent in the market. This included providing same-day feedback on prospects and interviews, introducing candidates to other stakeholders and team members, being transparent regarding earning potential, sharing information on recent sales wins, and participating in numerous calls with candidates before and after an offer was presented. This collaboration and partnership were crucial to our success.

Before Acara began our recruitment initiative, The Client had extended only one offer of employment. Thanks to our rapid response times and commitment to excellence, our team produced the caliber of candidates needed to achieve the following results in just two months:

• 21 candidate profiles submitted
• 11 offers extended
• 8 hires
• 2:1 submit-to-offer ratio

To continue to meet their growth demands, The Client has outsourced the talent acquisition of their entire sales team to Acara and introduced our team to other departments within their organization to replicate our success and expand our services.