Recruiting top Salesforce talent is the key to success – Marc Benioff himself admits that the first important hire he made was his HR manager, as he says in his Salesforce playbook ‘acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth’.
However, since its inception, Salesforce has been plagued with difficulties in finding the very best talent for critical roles. This is down to the fact that even now, 20 years on, it is still one of the most innovative and fast-paced tech companies.
For the most technical roles, there is a continuing trend of new jobs being created faster than there is the talent to fill them; Benioff describes the demand for top IT talent as ‘ferocious’.
I’ve been recruiting Salesforce talent for over ten years now, and I can tell you that the demand for highly-skilled roles such as Technical Leads and Service Cloud Directors is increasing.
Why is this? Firstly, it’s partly due to the level of experience that brilliant Salesforce candidates need to be able to do the job in question; we recently had Mitesh Mistry as a guest of our RODcast – he’s one of only a few hundred Certified Technical Architects in the world. Imagine the problem involved in recruiting for a position when there are less than a few hundred suitable candidates in the entire world!
And secondly, it’s to do with the fact that Salesforce is growing at an incredible rate – it is currently no.39 on Fortune’s 100 fastest-growing companies in the world list.
This perfect storm has meant that when a company – be that a client-side company or a Salesforce consultancy – needs a high-performer, locating them can be a difficult task.
Well, it can be a difficult task when you don’t know where to look.
Thankfully for our clients, we now offer an executive retained search service to help fill the most in-demand Salesforce roles, and I help businesses find the candidates they needed when they didn’t know where to begin looking. A lot of the clients I have worked with have been good enough to share their experiences of why Resource On Demand has become the go-to executive search consultant for their Salesforce roles – each placement that we make strengthens our knowledge of the Salesforce ecosystem, and this is something that we’re really proud of.
So – what are the five main reasons my clients give as to why ROD’s retained executive search was able to help them where other recruiters struggled? We’ve put together this list so that you can get a feel for the full extent of the value of this service.
1. The Talent Shortage
Firstly, let’s talk about the skills shortage. And not just within Salesforce, across the tech sector, there is a shortage of technology professionals with in-demand skills, notably data analysis and project management.
The Wall Street Jornal reported that even when CIOs do find the right people, 90% are worried about retaining them.
Now look at how this translates into Salesforce roles – the skills shortage here becomes more pronounced every year. In standard Salesforce Developer roles there is a talent shortage at a ratio of 4:1; for higher-paid positions such as Technical Architects, this figure jumps to 10:1.
Knowing where to look to find these passive candidates is the first reason to work with a retained executive search recruiter for vital Salesforce roles, next let’s look at their process and the level of service they provide.
2. Understanding the Process
It’s a fact of recruiting that locating the perfect candidate often takes longer. Sadly, this is a fact that lots of businesses don’t appreciate. We understand that having vacancies – especially in senior roles – in any business can be an unsettling time, but this does not mean that you must go with the first candidate who seems suitable for the role.
As head of our executive search service, the relationships I build with every potential candidate are built on trust and confidentiality. This allows me to understand their potential career trajectory and find them positions accordingly – it isn’t just about finding the right person for the role there and then, both the long-term needs of the candidate and the business needs to be considered.
3. Knowledge of the Ecosystem
Speaking of candidate and business needs – another benefit of using RODs retained executive search service is our extensive knowledge of the Salesforce ecosystem, both here in the UK and globally.
Being the first-ever dedicated Salesforce recruiter in Europe, we were there at the beginning of many of the sector’s big player’s careers. Over the ten years we’ve been in business, we’ve placed some candidates at every step of their career, providing us with a second-to-none awareness of movements within the Salesforce ecosystem.
4. The Importance of Recruiting the Right Leaders in Senior Positions
Contingency recruiting works fine for many roles; we know this because a large proportion of the recruiting we do is on a contingency basis. This method of recruiting allows us to place candidates in the more fast-paced Salesforce, digital automation and HCM roles such as Salesforce Administrators and Campaign Specialists.
However, we have adapted our service to accommodate the recruiting of more demanding senior-level roles. There is more to be gained (and therefore lost) in hiring for pivotal positions such as a Chief Technology Officer or a Chief Information Officer.
5. Return on Investment
Lastly, let me finish by mentioning perhaps the most important matter – your return on investment.
Executive search demands a higher fee, due to –
- The longer, more detailed search.
- There is more OOH involved – because our process is seamless and discreet, a lot of time is taken outside of regular business working hours to cultivate the search.
- The proportionally higher fee is representative of the higher salary of the executive role.
We would encourage our clients to measure their ROI for executive search projects, as this is the simplest way to understand that it makes financial sense.
For example, in our experience, our clients who submit a 30%+ fee for a senior role, in general, will return millions for your organisation’s bottom line – it’s a logical step to make.
Finally
If you want to know more about our new retained executive search service for senior and in-demand Salesforce roles, get in touch with me today.
About Resource On Demand
Resource On Demand is Europe’s first specialist Salesforce Recruitment Company, now also focusing on growth Cloud markets.
We assist innovative and disruptive organisations to grow their technology teams. Supporting companies to fill Cloud roles that span across Digital Marketing, Marketing Automation, Human Capital Management and the growing Salesforce.com suite of skills.
The team at Resource On Demand have access to an extensive database of key talent, registering over 8000 Cloud professionals each year.
To find out how we can support you call us on 01322 272 532