Are you looking for talent to take your ICT company to the next level? If so, you're likely facing challenges. With an aging workforce, a growing number of part-time employees, and an increasing number of job openings in the ICT sector, the competition for top talent is fiercer than ever. Innovative ICT companies are emerging rapidly, expanding both locally and internationally, and growing fast. SaaS, cloud, ERP, and AI solutions are spreading globally at an unstoppable pace. Under such extreme circumstances, it’s no surprise that finding new talent in this sector is becoming increasingly difficult. ICT recruiting has become a highly specialized field.
However, it gets even more complex when you’re specifically looking for new talent. The broad term "ICT recruiting" doesn’t always fit. If you're looking to hire a developer, programmer, IT manager, or another technical expert, you’re filling a typical ICT vacancy. But if your ICT company needs a sales professional or executive with deep knowledge of the sector, you’ll need to fish in a different talent pool. Not only does your new hire need to understand SaaS solutions or IT infrastructure, but they also need extensive expertise in sales or leadership.
This distinction is essential because it dictates how you approach recruitment and which recruitment agency can best assist you. In this article, we explain how to successfully recruit sales professionals and executives with IT expertise in three steps. We’ll also answer three frequently asked questions to help you effectively find the right addition to your team!
As mentioned in the introduction, it’s crucial to distinguish between ICT recruiting and sales or executive recruiting.
For IT professionals like programmers or software developers, a specialized ICT recruiting agency can help. However, if you’re looking to hire a sales expert or executive with knowledge of the ICT industry, a different recruitment approach is required. For that, you need an IT recruiting agency with IT recruiters. What does this mean? Partner with an agency that specializes in filling these types of positions. You need senior recruiters with specialized knowledge in both sales and the ICT sector. The right combination is a focus on sales and executive recruitment, plus a track record of placing candidates in ICT companies. This is why “ICT” should be in parentheses when discussing recruitment in this context.
Naturally, you want your new sales expert or executive to have a solid understanding of your ICT product or service and to be well-connected in the ICT sector. But that’s not enough. Before starting your search, clearly define what type of candidate you’re looking for. Perhaps you need an IT business development manager who excels at acquiring new clients, building strong relationships, and selling your (software) solution. Or maybe you’re looking for a business unit manager or ICT country manager with experience leading IT teams at a scale-up. In this case, hiring someone from a corporate market leader might not be ideal, as they may not have experience with the dynamic nature of a fast-growing scale-up.
Additionally, your new hire should check several other boxes: a bachelor’s or master’s level of education, fluency in Dutch and English, an entrepreneurial mindset, a performance-driven attitude, and a certain level of seniority. Determine which qualifications are non-negotiable and which are nice-to-haves. Experienced sales recruiters, like SaaS sales recruiters or executive headhunters (or headhunter recruiters), can assist you in this process.
Every job description includes "must-have" criteria, and it’s easy to verify if candidates meet these. But the real recruitment work begins afterward. That’s when you want to assess if a candidate who looks great on paper is also a good cultural fit for your company. This requires deep understanding of people and significant experience. Senior recruiters are well-equipped for this task. They evaluate whether a candidate’s background aligns with both the job requirements and your company culture.
At SalesSupply, for example, we only work with highly experienced recruiters, each with over 20 years of experience in sales, management, and recruitment. They conduct multiple interviews with candidates who initially meet all the criteria. During these conversations, our senior recruiters quickly get to the heart of things. Having worked in sales, management, and executive roles themselves, they speak the same language as the candidates, building trust in the process.
Does the candidate understand the client's product or service? Are they performance-driven enough to take your company to the next level? Do they align with the team's vision, communication style, and values? Only when our recruiters can confidently answer "yes" to these questions do they recommend the candidate to our client. At that point, they also know how to sell the vacancy to the candidate—a critical skill, because recruitment is now a form of sales. (Want to learn more? Read the article written by our director, Leon Spek, for Marketingfacts, in Dutch: "How Does HR Become Friends with Sales?")
Let’s first clear up a common misconception: if your ICT company is looking for a manager or conducting a C-level executive search, you are not seeking ICT professionals or other highly qualified technical personnel. The talent you are targeting has specific leadership experience. They have knowledge of the ICT sector as a whole, as well as the particular subfield your company operates in—whether that’s SaaS, AI, fintech, or cloud.
It may be necessary for the candidate to have managed a team of IT sales experts or IT specialists. In such cases, it’s crucial to evaluate where they have gained this experience. An executive who has been successful at a multinational corporation may not always be the right fit for a start-up and could potentially disrupt its structure and culture.
Additionally, you’ll want your new manager or executive to be a valuable conversation partner within the management team. It might also be important for this person to regularly interact with the owner. A clear vision is therefore essential. The ideal candidate will have a solid understanding of the current market, be aware of trends and anticipate them, know where the industry is heading, and be able to empathize with the target audience. Moreover, your new hire should have a broad skill set, as effective leadership requires knowledge of processes, marketing, HR, and logistics.
In short, you are not looking for just another IT professional, but an “executive with the full package.” Such a search typically falls outside the scope of a 'regular' ICT recruiting agency. While they excel at filling positions for developers, programmers, product owners, system administrators, and other technical experts, what you need is a senior executive recruiter with deep knowledge of the ICT sector. This recruiter will not only find the right candidate but will also get them interested in your vacancy. This is crucial because top candidates are likely already in a good job. Your recruiter needs to be able to convince them to take the leap and switch roles. This is best handled by 'IT executive recruiters' or an 'IT-headhunters'—the senior recruitment experts who strategically position 'IT' in parentheses!
Suppose you're looking for a new sales executive, sales director, account manager, or sales consultant. This results-driven professional must communicate seamlessly with customers and all levels of your organization. They should have a proven track record of driving new business, converting warm leads into strong prospects, understanding the ICT sector like no one else, and having a strong network within the industry. If you are selling a complex service, it’s also important that the candidate masters the art of consultative selling. Only someone with these competencies can truly contribute to your growth strategy.
Such talent is found through IT sales recruitment. And this is a specialized field. Experienced mid-level and senior sales professionals with ICT knowledge are rarely waiting on the sidelines for a great job opportunity to come along—they likely already have one they’re quite satisfied with. Therefore, you need to convince them to consider a career move. In other words, you have to pitch and sell the vacancy—and the company—very quickly, as these mildly interested candidates may slip away. To do this, you need experienced recruiters with strong sales skills who also speak the candidate’s language (meaning, recruiters who know both sales and ICT). Only then can you secure the right candidate!
Fintech companies are rapidly growing both nationally and internationally, with big ambitions. As growth happens, vacancies appear. The problem is that you're operating in a highly specialized segment within an already tight job market. Finding a sales or executive talent with fintech expertise is not easy. For the average recruitment agency, fintech sales recruiting is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. The question is: who can help you find the talent you’re seeking?
Of course, a large recruitment agency with a well-known logo might seem tempting. But in reality, you often don’t know which recruiter will handle your project. Chances are, it might be someone operating at a junior level. No matter how talented that person is, it’s usually not ideal to let such a complex recruitment process be their first major challenge. Additionally, the seasoned sales expert you’re looking for probably won’t listen to a junior recruiter for long. The junior simply lacks the experience—and therefore the persuasive power—to encourage such a professional to make a job change.
To achieve success, it’s smarter to work with experienced sales recruiters who have deep knowledge of the fintech sector. They speak the language of your candidates and can communicate on a level that reflects the complex nature of your field. Moreover, they often act not only as recruiters but also as consultants—guiding both you and the candidate through the entire process. This is highly beneficial when you want to achieve your goals quickly and efficiently.
Recruiting in the ICT sector is anything but simple. But with the right recruiters, almost anything is possible. Do you want to find the right sales professional or executive for your ICT company within three weeks? SalesSupply can get the job done. Guaranteed! Our experienced recruiters are ready to use their seniority, extensive sales skills, deep knowledge of the IT sector, and wide network to fill your vacancy efficiently.
Would you like to discuss how we can assist you? Or are you ready to start working with us directly?
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