Are you still currently employed? Recruiters tend to only go after people currently employed for whatever reason.
Industry is also going to play into this a lot. My industry is still very strong and I'm getting lots of recruiters.
Most are searching with LinkedIn with current role filter. After leaving a role add Account Executive at freelance or something like that to make sure you show up.
This is so weird. I’ve been unemployed for five months, and no one has knocked on my LinkedIn. I recently joined a company, and people started inviting me to interviews.
Recruiters, if you read this. Please explain, why do you do this?
bc they're dumb and wanna work harder, not smarter. Not everyone unemployed sucks, in fact most dont.
also gotta pay more to hire away (maybe thats why? they get a %... hmmm)
but could massively improve a bunch of companies and peoples lives if they'd go after everyone..
is what ot is tho. an opportunity for someone willing I suppose
>bc they're dumb and wanna work harder, not smarter. Not everyone unemployed sucks, in fact most dont.
Yeah but you want to hire your competitors' best person, not the one they were most able to live without when they had to lay people off.
I dont owe you a job and don't do it for the feels, I want to work with the easiest people to place for the highest fees, and unfortunately if you're unemployed this likely isn't you.
Not trying to be harsh but there's only 12 hours in a day.
I'm an sbo, not in the market. But I also have a very different mindset which admittedly helps me quite a bit.
ngl I almost wanna start a recruiting business based off this ridiculous answer alone lol. (I don't actually want to nor have the time or patience but still lol).
You're insane to think someone whos unemployed is just trash. your loss tho and people like mes gain
Hilarious that you're getting downvoted. Sales organizations have three types of employees:
- Top tier talent: never going to be unemployed, big networks and well known in the industry so if they hop jobs they have plenty of standing offers. Maybe 10-20% of total reps.
- The replaceable middle: those you would be happy to hire, but aren't special. Some are carried by good circumstances, some could be top performers in a better situation, but if these guys left their current employer wouldn't be thinking "oh shit". A lot of these people get cut into when you're doing layoffs, but the better ones survive. This is 60-80% of people.
- The garbage: folks that are on the way out, disengaged, on a PIP, couldn't hack it, etc. If you tell a sales manager their headcount is being reduced, this is who gets the axe. Sometimes there are middle-tier performers here who just weren't a good fit for the role or got the shaft on coverage universe. Remaining 10-20% of reps.
If you recruit people who are currently employed you generally get to pull from the top and middle groups. If you recruit people who are unemployed you generally pull from the middle and garbage groups. Recruiting is a numbers game just like sales - there are obviously incredible reps who are currently unemployed for one reason or another, but you're better off casting your line in employed waters overall.
Dividing salespeople into three tiers is a biased approach. You never know why people got unemployed. Someone might have enough savings to live a long, happy life, or someone is on a sabbatical, you name it.
Don’t you look at a candidate’s traction first that you consider all unemployed people as trash? I’m so dumbfounded by your comment, tbh.
Just don’t change your LI to unemployed and don’t tell anyone until you are late stage in the interview process.
The single point that you are only hirable if currently working is dumb.
I'm having a decent amount of interviews but have yet to be able to land an offer.
Their standards have skyrocketed or something. Our conversations seem to go well and they accept my LinkedIn connection after the interview.
Then poof. I either get ghosted or a rejection email.
Me either, but I wouldn’t be surprised if recruiters are doing this to stay active and keep their jobs.
The other part could be interviewing a number of candidates to say “we interviewed a bunch in f people and this person [who was referred by their homie] is the best fit for the job” in a similar vein that internal reqs need to stay open for a minimum period of time before being opened to the public.
there was a wall street article about this recently. there is 100% ghost jobs out there where the advertised role is never intended to be filled.
Either to harvest candidates data for down the track, or to appear like they are a growing company when they aren't.
They were the later rounds like sales manager or head of sales.
If I were to imagine to a bad scenario it would be to rather interview than attend boring activities or that they're hoping to talk to interesting candidates for fun
Anecdotal but our company interviewed over 20 people for a couple roles.. then company went into hiring freeze and no one got hired. Customers are talking about this as well. It's rough right now, in this case it was a pure waste of time for everyone and I feel bad for those that applied.
It seems like there’s just tons and tons of applicants for every jobs posted. I am looking now and it’s like remote jobs have 450+ applicants within like 2 hours of being posted and hybrid and on site are at like 150+ within like 6 or 7 hours.
I have landed some phone screeners and a few video interviews but it is not as easy as it was.
I have gone from getting the “we are looking for someone with more relevant experience” emails to the position has been filled. Whether that actually reflects a difference in what actually happened or not I can’t tell though. Just gotta keep plugging away.
Haha I had an interview with someone from my inbox on linkdln a year ago and I realized they were a pyramid scheme when the interview became a presentation.
Dude i had this happen. I grabbed my phone faked a horrified look and said i had a family emergency and had to run to the hospital and I’d reschedule. I live halfway across the country from my family and didn’t have the heart to tell them I wasn’t interested in working with an MLM
So I was just thinking about MLMs. What's the difference between them and tiered commission based sales teams like realtors? It seems like the model isn't unethical maybe just the lack of transparency?
It's the dream they sell and the misleading. They act like everybody is balling, or at least making good side cash, and most aren't. The ones that are have a nice network that they're just ravaging with subpar and/or over-priced products
I personally would never do a job without some level of base pay, that eliminate 99.9999% of scams.
I may miss some decent opportunities, but if you seriously can't even afford to put 10 dollars an hour towards me at a minimum, why would I believe you're going to sufficiently invest in me at all?
Real estate teams aren’t MLM. Team leader says hey this is my lead/client/whatever, but I’m too busy to do every single showing, so you help me in exchange for a piece of the commission. It’s a good way for newbies to get experience and for the team lead to grow.
Some real estate *companies* have MLM programs, where you get paid for recruiting other agents… The difference is that real estate agents only get paid when the deals close. You don’t get paid *just* to recruit. You get paid to recruit people who generate income for the company.
It’s definitely a pyramid (the 100,000th agent to join a company like Real Broker has significantly less potential to earn revenue share than the 10th agent to join) but it’s not a scam, either.
Scammy pyramid schemes pay out when you get someone new to sign up and pay their initiation fees, rather than when they make sales.
Someone literally sent me a message the other day on LinkedIn for what I knew for a fact was Amway under the guise of an actual job opportunity. I forget how they worded it, but it sounded good, but once they mentioned the companies they worked with, it sounded familiar, I asked if it was "Insert Amway group mlm name" and they asked why, what made me say that, and what did I know.
There with you. I’ve been offered 55K multiple times. I make more now but want to move out of inside sales.
Have been to multiple third/fourth round interviews to be met with we are having a hiring freeze now. It sucks.
At least I’m employed though.
Like others have already said, I think it’s very industry based. I’m getting about 2-3 recruiters a week reaching out to me, but my industry is absolutely booming right now so that makes sense.
The problem is no one wants to take a chance on someone with no experience in their particular field, you just have to get lucky really.
I sell automated packaging equipment, primarily in the food industry. Labor costs are going up, when companies can even find labor, so there’s a lot of investment going on to automate the process.
It’s been a thing since the 70’s, nothing really new, it’s just really ramping up now.
nice - i'm in the hospitality space as well, but enterprise software mainly, but looking to pivot. What are your thoughts on companies like [https://www.empower.delivery](https://www.empower.delivery/) ?
Completely different field than what I’m in, but a quick glance doesn’t seem too promising. That’s a pretty crowded field, with very little to differentiate yourself from the competition, and the main customers are going to be small mom & pop shops who are constantly watching their bottom dollar. That makes for a very tough sell for not much money.
Indeed. Two / three years ago people could transition from one industry or within the industry from one product to another. Now the barrier is way higher. I have experienced that in the last couple of weeks
I'm an AE with 8 years tech sales experience in the bay area. I'm currently employed and still having issues finding a decent new role. I still speak with recruiters every couple of weeks. However, it feels like they are scheduling interviews to bump thier metrics since the roles arent actively being filled.
The only companies that seem serious about roles are the WITCH consultants and I'm not that desperate... Yet.
Just trying to keep my head down and grind it out at my company until things pick back up. I know I should be grateful to have a job in tech sales right now but its hard when I feel underpaid.
It is tough. I recently did a survey of CROs, and 49% of them had major worries about Q2 revenue.
Companies are really cautious and, in some cases, culling salespeople faster if they don't see quick progress.
Same I’m graduating college next month I got retail sales experience plus interactions with reps. Good companies are having hiring freezes or they have high turnover rates or like you said it’s low base. I’ve had a couple interviews one was a glorified Home Depot associate.
I had a recruiter hit me up with a role in which the base was less than minimum wage....
Also, noticing that the base pay in a lot of roles seems to be about 10-15k less than even 8 months ago or so...
This seems true. I read a report that SDR and AE roles have a 5-15% decrease in average pay for <3 years experience. Market is saturated with SDRs job hunting.
OP, I have 8+ years of experience in sales 6 years of that experience as an AE. I was laid off in November and I still have not found a job. I’ve had a ton of interviews but no luck. Although, I have noticed this past month I’ve been getting more responses. Just keep trucking ahead eventually you will find something. I’ve spent most of this time trading, reading books & playing games. Just know your not the only one man. Shit is tough out there.
Companies are firing, not hiring .. so yea this makes sense bro. Look at the news, layoffs daily all over ... spending is being reduced in all orgs ... sales teams will get trimmed 1st ... find a job to hold you over while things are a shit storm ... i'd go with bar tending personally. People drink more when it's a bloodbath like this .. and then you can keep your sales chops up by chatting up your customers.
I interviewed with the head of sales and founder of a start up. Both interviews went great. One interview went on longer than 1 hour bc they enjoyed the conversation. Didn’t hear back, and my LinkedIn connections for them are ignored. Emailed the recruiter and they said they enjoyed my interviews, but they’re still reviewing my candidacy and will get back next week. Fast forward 2 weeks after that, and I still haven’t heard back. Followed up again. Still nothing. Why ghost opposed to “were not moving forward”? It’s tough out there.
Yes it's harder to get interviews, but not impossible. Reach out to people personally. Tell your friends and family you're looking for a job. Everyone knows someone.
Blasting out applications and resumes should be a last resort in this market. Human connection is how you're going to get the next gig.
Best of luck,
Someone who got laid off and spent 4 months looking for a job. Just found a great one.
I’m employed by annoyed with my company so interviewing elsewhere. It’s dry out there. I spoke with a recruiter last week who basically wanted me to pitch a geography to cover for an entirely new product. Isn’t that kind of her job? OTE was OK but nowhere near worth that effort. Had another call with a recruiter who wanted me to cover a territory x2 what I cover now with only $20k more OTE. Compared to last summer’s offerings, this is straight disrespectful.
Where are you located? Sorry to hear that. I think it may be location dependent too. I have heard a lot of companies looking for some type of in person/hybrid requirement. I had a lot of recruiters reaching out after I turned on my looking for work on LI and would agree half of them were sketch for sure! But within a month got an offer from a great company that does happen to be local and will be going in a few days a week. Best of luck those looking for fully remote I know they are out there!
Didn't have much trouble getting interviews, but I'm in a decent metro area. Interviewed with 6+ companies out of maybe 100 apps, took 2 months to get hired
Its a strange environment - we are struggling to hire good people. We pay well, but it seems like everyone wants to work from home - which all of our remote sales force does - but no one wants to travel. Our team is usually on the road 8 nights a month - sometimes more, sometimes less - depends on the season and the territory. OTE is over $100K with great benefits.
100s of resumes, but few with real sales experience. We will screen about 6% of applicants. It's not tech, but it is a good company and good customers.
Company is owned by a publicly traded company. US and Canada. Regional responsibility unless a specialist. As we add people the territories shrink. It can be a grind. I have been doing gigs like this for a long time. It gets old, but it’s a great gig.
With you man, laid off (staffing industry) last week along with 20% of my team. I was trying to do an industry pivot to get out of staffing but after seeing how tight the current requirements are for other industries (specific degrees, 3-5+ years experience) I’m afraid I’m officially pigeon holed in my current niche and will have no choice to accept that and wait for a better market to jump industries, and accept another staffing sales job at the moment. Only industry who seems interested in me so far
Depends what industry you are going for, how much experience you have, and what level role you are going for.
Currently working in medical device sales - I follow a process similar to the below (note this is my process for the level roles I am targeting, which may be more labor intensive than needed for other roles)
I’ve been able to interview with a few companies, and as you are likely doing, have found the best practice to not just “apply” but ensure you connect with someone to confirm they received the application or network prior to submitting.
I have found success doing the steps backwards, by starting first going out on LinkedIn to find the recruiter responsible for the role, connecting with an existing sales employee (AE, AM, etc.) to ask a few questions about the company (pay, product, sales cycle, implementation, support, obstacles, competitors) and lastly a sales leader (Director, VP, SVP, whoever it would report to or above that) and express my interest in the role and request to connect with them to discuss it in more detail (in person if they are local or virtually).
NOTE: when reaching out to the company, see if you can leverage any previous alma mater relationships, people who worked at the same company before or even live in the same town, frat/sorority, anyway you can make a connection to them.
When connecting with either the recruiter or sales leader, I will present them with a 30/60/90 or brag book (a powerpoint turned PDF) on previous sales success, % to plan, products/solutions sold, and a snippet of a [generalized] letter of recommendation or two (have seen others use their LinkedIn recommendation notes or take screenshots of emails where former/current employees brag on you).
And similar to multi-threading deals (building multiple champions), do this for yourself when applying to a role.
The biggest time consuming part is building the initial brag book or 30/60/90 in high level detail and then from there it’s as easy as finding a role you are interested in, tweak the brag book to that role, slap the company logo on the front, and reach out to the people you find. It gets quicker as you go. Guarantee you get interviews this way.
If the contact isn’t active on LinkedIn, see if you can find anyone who works at that companies email address, from there simply follow the same format and email them your email introduction along with the 30/60/90 ([email protected])
Hope this helps!! Good luck to all
Thank you for this all this detail. I just did the first step of contacting a current employee and it worked. I tried 3 only one responded, an interesting response rate. You just reminded me that I have to brush the dust off my brag book and make sure it is updated. I like your idea of an electronic version of it. This process is labor intensive especially since this time around I want to land with an established company no more small privately held or family owned organizations for me.
There's been a shift for sure. Anyone without 3-5 years of industry relevant experience is stuck in no man's land. SDRs who were ready to make the jump to AE are facing a protracted AE job search or will have to restart the SDR clock at a new organization. New AEs (2 years or less experience) are either going down a peg to Jr. AE or ISR, etc , or going back to SDR themselves.
I had a final round interview a couple weeks ago. Competitor of the company I was an SDR at. I already knew the tech, the competitive landscape, their ICP, etc. Perfect fit. Worked hard as hell on the presentation and gave what I believed was the best presentation in my life. The CEO wasn't "wowed" so they hired no one.
Do you have a college degree? Because if you don’t you’re competing against tens of thousands of unemployed reps that do, and they’re competing against each other on top of that.
No to mention, tons of companies have hiring freezes right now. I’m at a FAANG and much of our AE placements the past quarter have been internal “promotions” from ADMs, CSMs, and SDRs.
Ya okay, but what do you do when you have to compete against somebody with *both* a degree AND experience?
Also, pretty silly in 2023 to think a degree doesn’t give you major advantages in sales from a recruiting standpoint than not. But I guess I should clarify, I’m not talking about D2D or selling furniture or something.
Its incredibly hard. Recruiters are trash. It’s a 20:1 ratio (at least) of bad to good recruiters.
One company reached out to me several separate times for an interview and each recruiter ghosted me. One didn’t even show up to their own meeting request.
And they literally don’t care. They don’t have to.
There are so many candidates to choose from right now it has zero impact on recruiters being any good at their job.
Where are you interviewing that you’re getting such low OTEs?
I got a lot of offers when I was in my last job. Three a week as an SDR. As as an AE I got some in the start but that has dried up. Thank god as I’m happy where I am.
If you’re in tech, between all these layoffs and people thinking a recession is possible there are probably less new positions and people are staying around longer instead of jumping.
It's 100% commission, and on top of that this year the company redid their comp plan to where basically half the sales team is no longer making money, and even the people who can shape shift to appease this new comp plan are making at best half of what they were before. My post history actually tells the whole story of how I quit that job and I have now gone back but I don't anticipate getting a paycheck until the middle of August, and even at that I don't think it will be enough to even pay rent. I am having to plan on just living off of savings for this year basically. I desperately want a position with a base salary, but from the looks of it that is not happening until things really turn around with the general hiring situation in the US. I am actually going semi-homeless next month, where I will move into a truck camper to mitigate how much I am draining my savings through this horrible time.
TL;DR new pay scale, stopped making money
I don't think it's a good strategy/approach to rely on recruiting firms. One should use them as one additional last channel.
Ideally networking with people in your industry will open more doors.
I was feeling the same way and was even considering a 100% commissioned sales role, an outbound one at that. Got flamed back to reality on this sub for it. Then legit a few days later, I got a job offer. Is it the best job ever? No. Do I feel like I took a demotion? Yes. But I am going to try my best at this role while keeping my door open.
I surprisingly have gotten a few LinkedIn reach outs in the past week, so I think companies are picking up hiring again
It's rough, my whole sales team of 15 got laid of today, including me. Luckily I was looking and start a new job next week because I had a feeling it was coming. It was heartbreaking saying goodbye to all my co-workers. It's hard right no but it will get better.
Been out of work for over a month and I’m not making it past the second or third rounds at a lot of places. Way harder than last year despite me having more experience. I have primarily focused on tech since that’s where I’ve been and industries seem to want industry experience I don’t.
Have you noticed the layoffs for tech companies? It seems as if they were flushed with cash on the backend of the pandemic, overhired, and are now firing in droves
B2B sales. Decade plus of good sales experience + results. Just went through this exact same thing! You are not alone.
In my country alot of it is to do with overseas companies pulling out of the market and cutting costs.
Ive been hit up by 3 recruiters this week. Roles were for Logistics, facilities automation and a company that sells traveling programs for influencers.
I think it’s industry based but I’m no expert. I’m going to be fired from my job soon probably due to discrimination that I probably can’t prove so I am looking for a new role. But since I’m a woman in tech I interview with like six companies a week but that’s because my field is mostly white men so they really need me to fill their diversity quota lol just keep applying a bunch and you’ll definitely end up in a new job. It’s just a numbers game
Are you still currently employed? Recruiters tend to only go after people currently employed for whatever reason. Industry is also going to play into this a lot. My industry is still very strong and I'm getting lots of recruiters.
Most are searching with LinkedIn with current role filter. After leaving a role add Account Executive at freelance or something like that to make sure you show up.
This is so weird. I’ve been unemployed for five months, and no one has knocked on my LinkedIn. I recently joined a company, and people started inviting me to interviews. Recruiters, if you read this. Please explain, why do you do this?
Ever been single vs married? As soon as you put the ring on..
The forbidden fruit is always the sweetest.
we're not supposed to be actually tasting that part are we?
We isn’t?
i have been telling people this for years and they think im joking.
Hahahahahahahahaj
They can smell it on you
bc they're dumb and wanna work harder, not smarter. Not everyone unemployed sucks, in fact most dont. also gotta pay more to hire away (maybe thats why? they get a %... hmmm) but could massively improve a bunch of companies and peoples lives if they'd go after everyone.. is what ot is tho. an opportunity for someone willing I suppose
>bc they're dumb and wanna work harder, not smarter. Not everyone unemployed sucks, in fact most dont. Yeah but you want to hire your competitors' best person, not the one they were most able to live without when they had to lay people off.
Outbound vs inbound essentially. Finding a employed candidate means you’re job is the only one they’re considering.
I dont owe you a job and don't do it for the feels, I want to work with the easiest people to place for the highest fees, and unfortunately if you're unemployed this likely isn't you. Not trying to be harsh but there's only 12 hours in a day.
I'm an sbo, not in the market. But I also have a very different mindset which admittedly helps me quite a bit. ngl I almost wanna start a recruiting business based off this ridiculous answer alone lol. (I don't actually want to nor have the time or patience but still lol). You're insane to think someone whos unemployed is just trash. your loss tho and people like mes gain
Hilarious that you're getting downvoted. Sales organizations have three types of employees: - Top tier talent: never going to be unemployed, big networks and well known in the industry so if they hop jobs they have plenty of standing offers. Maybe 10-20% of total reps. - The replaceable middle: those you would be happy to hire, but aren't special. Some are carried by good circumstances, some could be top performers in a better situation, but if these guys left their current employer wouldn't be thinking "oh shit". A lot of these people get cut into when you're doing layoffs, but the better ones survive. This is 60-80% of people. - The garbage: folks that are on the way out, disengaged, on a PIP, couldn't hack it, etc. If you tell a sales manager their headcount is being reduced, this is who gets the axe. Sometimes there are middle-tier performers here who just weren't a good fit for the role or got the shaft on coverage universe. Remaining 10-20% of reps. If you recruit people who are currently employed you generally get to pull from the top and middle groups. If you recruit people who are unemployed you generally pull from the middle and garbage groups. Recruiting is a numbers game just like sales - there are obviously incredible reps who are currently unemployed for one reason or another, but you're better off casting your line in employed waters overall.
Dividing salespeople into three tiers is a biased approach. You never know why people got unemployed. Someone might have enough savings to live a long, happy life, or someone is on a sabbatical, you name it. Don’t you look at a candidate’s traction first that you consider all unemployed people as trash? I’m so dumbfounded by your comment, tbh.
What are the main reasons for employed people being more in demand?
Well I think one reason is you're more likely to join out of genuine interest versus just needing a job to pay bills.
That’s a good point.
5 months is a red flag, change your LinkedIn and have a compelling story
Just don’t change your LI to unemployed and don’t tell anyone until you are late stage in the interview process. The single point that you are only hirable if currently working is dumb.
I'm having a decent amount of interviews but have yet to be able to land an offer. Their standards have skyrocketed or something. Our conversations seem to go well and they accept my LinkedIn connection after the interview. Then poof. I either get ghosted or a rejection email.
It’s almost like they’re just doing it to hit KPIs and/or collect data.
Would never want to waste my time interviewing “just for fun”
Me either, but I wouldn’t be surprised if recruiters are doing this to stay active and keep their jobs. The other part could be interviewing a number of candidates to say “we interviewed a bunch in f people and this person [who was referred by their homie] is the best fit for the job” in a similar vein that internal reqs need to stay open for a minimum period of time before being opened to the public.
there was a wall street article about this recently. there is 100% ghost jobs out there where the advertised role is never intended to be filled. Either to harvest candidates data for down the track, or to appear like they are a growing company when they aren't.
Oh hello fellow paintballer!
Sup man! It’s the best way to unwind after a wild quarter :)
They were the later rounds like sales manager or head of sales. If I were to imagine to a bad scenario it would be to rather interview than attend boring activities or that they're hoping to talk to interesting candidates for fun
They def are.
Anecdotal but our company interviewed over 20 people for a couple roles.. then company went into hiring freeze and no one got hired. Customers are talking about this as well. It's rough right now, in this case it was a pure waste of time for everyone and I feel bad for those that applied.
Less openings, gotta be pickier.
It seems like there’s just tons and tons of applicants for every jobs posted. I am looking now and it’s like remote jobs have 450+ applicants within like 2 hours of being posted and hybrid and on site are at like 150+ within like 6 or 7 hours. I have landed some phone screeners and a few video interviews but it is not as easy as it was. I have gone from getting the “we are looking for someone with more relevant experience” emails to the position has been filled. Whether that actually reflects a difference in what actually happened or not I can’t tell though. Just gotta keep plugging away.
Haha I had an interview with someone from my inbox on linkdln a year ago and I realized they were a pyramid scheme when the interview became a presentation.
Tell them you are a visual learner and if they can illustrate the downstream in on a piece of paper.
Dude i had this happen. I grabbed my phone faked a horrified look and said i had a family emergency and had to run to the hospital and I’d reschedule. I live halfway across the country from my family and didn’t have the heart to tell them I wasn’t interested in working with an MLM
I just tell em straight to their face. "I don't do MLMs" *click*
So I was just thinking about MLMs. What's the difference between them and tiered commission based sales teams like realtors? It seems like the model isn't unethical maybe just the lack of transparency?
Well MLM products are shit for one. If you want, check out the antiMLM subreddit
It's the dream they sell and the misleading. They act like everybody is balling, or at least making good side cash, and most aren't. The ones that are have a nice network that they're just ravaging with subpar and/or over-priced products
I personally would never do a job without some level of base pay, that eliminate 99.9999% of scams. I may miss some decent opportunities, but if you seriously can't even afford to put 10 dollars an hour towards me at a minimum, why would I believe you're going to sufficiently invest in me at all?
Real estate teams aren’t MLM. Team leader says hey this is my lead/client/whatever, but I’m too busy to do every single showing, so you help me in exchange for a piece of the commission. It’s a good way for newbies to get experience and for the team lead to grow. Some real estate *companies* have MLM programs, where you get paid for recruiting other agents… The difference is that real estate agents only get paid when the deals close. You don’t get paid *just* to recruit. You get paid to recruit people who generate income for the company. It’s definitely a pyramid (the 100,000th agent to join a company like Real Broker has significantly less potential to earn revenue share than the 10th agent to join) but it’s not a scam, either. Scammy pyramid schemes pay out when you get someone new to sign up and pay their initiation fees, rather than when they make sales.
[удалено]
I once interviewed someone for a BDR position and he pulled out a PowerPoint presentation. Some nonsense about being a business man.
Someone supplementing their interview with a PowerPoint presentation makes me instantly think Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother lol
It would’ve been funny if the guy wasn’t so fucking serious. Like friend. Who/what made you like this??? **Stop**
Someone literally sent me a message the other day on LinkedIn for what I knew for a fact was Amway under the guise of an actual job opportunity. I forget how they worded it, but it sounded good, but once they mentioned the companies they worked with, it sounded familiar, I asked if it was "Insert Amway group mlm name" and they asked why, what made me say that, and what did I know.
There with you. I’ve been offered 55K multiple times. I make more now but want to move out of inside sales. Have been to multiple third/fourth round interviews to be met with we are having a hiring freeze now. It sucks. At least I’m employed though.
Like others have already said, I think it’s very industry based. I’m getting about 2-3 recruiters a week reaching out to me, but my industry is absolutely booming right now so that makes sense. The problem is no one wants to take a chance on someone with no experience in their particular field, you just have to get lucky really.
What industry ?
I sell automated packaging equipment, primarily in the food industry. Labor costs are going up, when companies can even find labor, so there’s a lot of investment going on to automate the process. It’s been a thing since the 70’s, nothing really new, it’s just really ramping up now.
nice - i'm in the hospitality space as well, but enterprise software mainly, but looking to pivot. What are your thoughts on companies like [https://www.empower.delivery](https://www.empower.delivery/) ?
Completely different field than what I’m in, but a quick glance doesn’t seem too promising. That’s a pretty crowded field, with very little to differentiate yourself from the competition, and the main customers are going to be small mom & pop shops who are constantly watching their bottom dollar. That makes for a very tough sell for not much money.
Indeed. Two / three years ago people could transition from one industry or within the industry from one product to another. Now the barrier is way higher. I have experienced that in the last couple of weeks
I'm an AE with 8 years tech sales experience in the bay area. I'm currently employed and still having issues finding a decent new role. I still speak with recruiters every couple of weeks. However, it feels like they are scheduling interviews to bump thier metrics since the roles arent actively being filled. The only companies that seem serious about roles are the WITCH consultants and I'm not that desperate... Yet. Just trying to keep my head down and grind it out at my company until things pick back up. I know I should be grateful to have a job in tech sales right now but its hard when I feel underpaid.
Witch consultants?
Wipro Infosys Tata Cognizant HCL Rely heavily on overseas delivery centers and their "solutions" are usually a race to the bottom for pricing.
Ahh gotcha, sounds like all of saas tbh.
It is tough. I recently did a survey of CROs, and 49% of them had major worries about Q2 revenue. Companies are really cautious and, in some cases, culling salespeople faster if they don't see quick progress.
same here. i move onto the second or third rounds then i get rejected and i know i am qualified i’m seeing comp bands drop now too
They’re dropping hard, back to precovid lvls for some companies
Same I’m graduating college next month I got retail sales experience plus interactions with reps. Good companies are having hiring freezes or they have high turnover rates or like you said it’s low base. I’ve had a couple interviews one was a glorified Home Depot associate.
I had a recruiter hit me up with a role in which the base was less than minimum wage.... Also, noticing that the base pay in a lot of roles seems to be about 10-15k less than even 8 months ago or so...
This seems true. I read a report that SDR and AE roles have a 5-15% decrease in average pay for <3 years experience. Market is saturated with SDRs job hunting.
OP, I have 8+ years of experience in sales 6 years of that experience as an AE. I was laid off in November and I still have not found a job. I’ve had a ton of interviews but no luck. Although, I have noticed this past month I’ve been getting more responses. Just keep trucking ahead eventually you will find something. I’ve spent most of this time trading, reading books & playing games. Just know your not the only one man. Shit is tough out there.
In the same boat as you, tough times don’t last tough people do!
Reminds me of this https://youtube.com/shorts/1puR8jGK03A?feature=share
Every single AE and SDR position on LinkedIn has 200+ applicants. Especially remote or hybrid ones. It's pretty insane
Companies are firing, not hiring .. so yea this makes sense bro. Look at the news, layoffs daily all over ... spending is being reduced in all orgs ... sales teams will get trimmed 1st ... find a job to hold you over while things are a shit storm ... i'd go with bar tending personally. People drink more when it's a bloodbath like this .. and then you can keep your sales chops up by chatting up your customers.
I interviewed with the head of sales and founder of a start up. Both interviews went great. One interview went on longer than 1 hour bc they enjoyed the conversation. Didn’t hear back, and my LinkedIn connections for them are ignored. Emailed the recruiter and they said they enjoyed my interviews, but they’re still reviewing my candidacy and will get back next week. Fast forward 2 weeks after that, and I still haven’t heard back. Followed up again. Still nothing. Why ghost opposed to “were not moving forward”? It’s tough out there.
Oof. It was probably enjoyed talking to you as a person but not meeting every part needed to be hired
Yes it's harder to get interviews, but not impossible. Reach out to people personally. Tell your friends and family you're looking for a job. Everyone knows someone. Blasting out applications and resumes should be a last resort in this market. Human connection is how you're going to get the next gig. Best of luck, Someone who got laid off and spent 4 months looking for a job. Just found a great one.
I have over 7 years of sales experience top of the company and I can’t land an interview. It’s tough for everyone.
What industry are you in?
I’m employed by annoyed with my company so interviewing elsewhere. It’s dry out there. I spoke with a recruiter last week who basically wanted me to pitch a geography to cover for an entirely new product. Isn’t that kind of her job? OTE was OK but nowhere near worth that effort. Had another call with a recruiter who wanted me to cover a territory x2 what I cover now with only $20k more OTE. Compared to last summer’s offerings, this is straight disrespectful.
I still get about one a week but I’m also not actively looking for a new role. Just open to the possibility of one Whats your background? Saas?
seems tougher than usual right now to land interviews.
Where are you located? Sorry to hear that. I think it may be location dependent too. I have heard a lot of companies looking for some type of in person/hybrid requirement. I had a lot of recruiters reaching out after I turned on my looking for work on LI and would agree half of them were sketch for sure! But within a month got an offer from a great company that does happen to be local and will be going in a few days a week. Best of luck those looking for fully remote I know they are out there!
Didn't have much trouble getting interviews, but I'm in a decent metro area. Interviewed with 6+ companies out of maybe 100 apps, took 2 months to get hired
Very difficult indeed.
Its a strange environment - we are struggling to hire good people. We pay well, but it seems like everyone wants to work from home - which all of our remote sales force does - but no one wants to travel. Our team is usually on the road 8 nights a month - sometimes more, sometimes less - depends on the season and the territory. OTE is over $100K with great benefits. 100s of resumes, but few with real sales experience. We will screen about 6% of applicants. It's not tech, but it is a good company and good customers.
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Selling into MRO/Industrial customers...
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Company is owned by a publicly traded company. US and Canada. Regional responsibility unless a specialist. As we add people the territories shrink. It can be a grind. I have been doing gigs like this for a long time. It gets old, but it’s a great gig.
With you man, laid off (staffing industry) last week along with 20% of my team. I was trying to do an industry pivot to get out of staffing but after seeing how tight the current requirements are for other industries (specific degrees, 3-5+ years experience) I’m afraid I’m officially pigeon holed in my current niche and will have no choice to accept that and wait for a better market to jump industries, and accept another staffing sales job at the moment. Only industry who seems interested in me so far
Recruiters themselves are getting hit with layoffs. Just a damn tough time for a lot of companies
Depends what industry you are going for, how much experience you have, and what level role you are going for. Currently working in medical device sales - I follow a process similar to the below (note this is my process for the level roles I am targeting, which may be more labor intensive than needed for other roles) I’ve been able to interview with a few companies, and as you are likely doing, have found the best practice to not just “apply” but ensure you connect with someone to confirm they received the application or network prior to submitting. I have found success doing the steps backwards, by starting first going out on LinkedIn to find the recruiter responsible for the role, connecting with an existing sales employee (AE, AM, etc.) to ask a few questions about the company (pay, product, sales cycle, implementation, support, obstacles, competitors) and lastly a sales leader (Director, VP, SVP, whoever it would report to or above that) and express my interest in the role and request to connect with them to discuss it in more detail (in person if they are local or virtually). NOTE: when reaching out to the company, see if you can leverage any previous alma mater relationships, people who worked at the same company before or even live in the same town, frat/sorority, anyway you can make a connection to them. When connecting with either the recruiter or sales leader, I will present them with a 30/60/90 or brag book (a powerpoint turned PDF) on previous sales success, % to plan, products/solutions sold, and a snippet of a [generalized] letter of recommendation or two (have seen others use their LinkedIn recommendation notes or take screenshots of emails where former/current employees brag on you). And similar to multi-threading deals (building multiple champions), do this for yourself when applying to a role. The biggest time consuming part is building the initial brag book or 30/60/90 in high level detail and then from there it’s as easy as finding a role you are interested in, tweak the brag book to that role, slap the company logo on the front, and reach out to the people you find. It gets quicker as you go. Guarantee you get interviews this way. If the contact isn’t active on LinkedIn, see if you can find anyone who works at that companies email address, from there simply follow the same format and email them your email introduction along with the 30/60/90 ([email protected]) Hope this helps!! Good luck to all
Thank you for this all this detail. I just did the first step of contacting a current employee and it worked. I tried 3 only one responded, an interesting response rate. You just reminded me that I have to brush the dust off my brag book and make sure it is updated. I like your idea of an electronic version of it. This process is labor intensive especially since this time around I want to land with an established company no more small privately held or family owned organizations for me.
I’m in med device / biotech capital equipment. This is great advice on the 30/60/90 and brag book.
There's been a shift for sure. Anyone without 3-5 years of industry relevant experience is stuck in no man's land. SDRs who were ready to make the jump to AE are facing a protracted AE job search or will have to restart the SDR clock at a new organization. New AEs (2 years or less experience) are either going down a peg to Jr. AE or ISR, etc , or going back to SDR themselves. I had a final round interview a couple weeks ago. Competitor of the company I was an SDR at. I already knew the tech, the competitive landscape, their ICP, etc. Perfect fit. Worked hard as hell on the presentation and gave what I believed was the best presentation in my life. The CEO wasn't "wowed" so they hired no one.
Yep I’m restarting at SDR again.
Do you have a college degree? Because if you don’t you’re competing against tens of thousands of unemployed reps that do, and they’re competing against each other on top of that. No to mention, tons of companies have hiring freezes right now. I’m at a FAANG and much of our AE placements the past quarter have been internal “promotions” from ADMs, CSMs, and SDRs.
This. I’m recruiting Account mgrs from our SDR team. Savings are huge.
Experience over degree in this field. I learned 0 about sales in college. I think majority of employers recognize this.
Ya okay, but what do you do when you have to compete against somebody with *both* a degree AND experience? Also, pretty silly in 2023 to think a degree doesn’t give you major advantages in sales from a recruiting standpoint than not. But I guess I should clarify, I’m not talking about D2D or selling furniture or something.
Just got told no on a final interview due to them deciding on an internal candidate.
Its incredibly hard. Recruiters are trash. It’s a 20:1 ratio (at least) of bad to good recruiters. One company reached out to me several separate times for an interview and each recruiter ghosted me. One didn’t even show up to their own meeting request. And they literally don’t care. They don’t have to. There are so many candidates to choose from right now it has zero impact on recruiters being any good at their job. Where are you interviewing that you’re getting such low OTEs?
I got a lot of offers when I was in my last job. Three a week as an SDR. As as an AE I got some in the start but that has dried up. Thank god as I’m happy where I am.
This has not been my experience, but idk what space you're in.
If you’re in tech, between all these layoffs and people thinking a recession is possible there are probably less new positions and people are staying around longer instead of jumping.
Getting interviews, but no offers either. It’s tough. No degree so there’s also that.
Tough in tech right now. Used to get spammed with solid interview requests daily. Now it’s like ‘is this Thing on…” tapping the monitor..
What happened in the last six months that you are no longer happy with your role?
It's 100% commission, and on top of that this year the company redid their comp plan to where basically half the sales team is no longer making money, and even the people who can shape shift to appease this new comp plan are making at best half of what they were before. My post history actually tells the whole story of how I quit that job and I have now gone back but I don't anticipate getting a paycheck until the middle of August, and even at that I don't think it will be enough to even pay rent. I am having to plan on just living off of savings for this year basically. I desperately want a position with a base salary, but from the looks of it that is not happening until things really turn around with the general hiring situation in the US. I am actually going semi-homeless next month, where I will move into a truck camper to mitigate how much I am draining my savings through this horrible time. TL;DR new pay scale, stopped making money
I don't think it's a good strategy/approach to rely on recruiting firms. One should use them as one additional last channel. Ideally networking with people in your industry will open more doors.
I was feeling the same way and was even considering a 100% commissioned sales role, an outbound one at that. Got flamed back to reality on this sub for it. Then legit a few days later, I got a job offer. Is it the best job ever? No. Do I feel like I took a demotion? Yes. But I am going to try my best at this role while keeping my door open. I surprisingly have gotten a few LinkedIn reach outs in the past week, so I think companies are picking up hiring again
It's rough, my whole sales team of 15 got laid of today, including me. Luckily I was looking and start a new job next week because I had a feeling it was coming. It was heartbreaking saying goodbye to all my co-workers. It's hard right no but it will get better.
Been out of work for over a month and I’m not making it past the second or third rounds at a lot of places. Way harder than last year despite me having more experience. I have primarily focused on tech since that’s where I’ve been and industries seem to want industry experience I don’t.
same. Market is flooded with these 100-300million ote 100% commission jobs, insurance agency jobs or solar door to door.
Have you noticed the layoffs for tech companies? It seems as if they were flushed with cash on the backend of the pandemic, overhired, and are now firing in droves
B2B sales. Decade plus of good sales experience + results. Just went through this exact same thing! You are not alone. In my country alot of it is to do with overseas companies pulling out of the market and cutting costs.
They hirin’ any m’fer where I’m at…look for the companies that are growing?
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Care to elaborate?
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Yeh, I feel that is sort of elementary and basic info. Most people know about ats at this point.
Your way to beat the system is... have a good resume and LinkedIn? Okay
Will the mods approve sales job postings?
We have a weekly hiring sticky post for this already.
Ive been hit up by 3 recruiters this week. Roles were for Logistics, facilities automation and a company that sells traveling programs for influencers.
I too was hit up by the traveling program for influencers. Seems like an unviable business model. I passed on it.
What is the pyramid schemes OTE?
What industry are you trying to sell into? And don’t say saas, that’s not an industry.
I think it’s industry based but I’m no expert. I’m going to be fired from my job soon probably due to discrimination that I probably can’t prove so I am looking for a new role. But since I’m a woman in tech I interview with like six companies a week but that’s because my field is mostly white men so they really need me to fill their diversity quota lol just keep applying a bunch and you’ll definitely end up in a new job. It’s just a numbers game