Streamlined sales flow for Security

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this is we the sales Engineers podcast show 308 welcome to we the SE podcast the show for sales Engineers by sales Engineers with your host Ramsey maaba what's up it's unish welcome back to another episode I feel like I'm uh saying this every week it's a tough Market in case you were wondering it's uh it's a tough market for entrepreneurs for companies for sellers sellers are struggling to make quota employees are worried about their jobs and there's a lot of people looking for jobs whether they currently have some a job and they're worried and they want somewhere more secure for example a lot of people from VMware were look they were worried about being let go so they're looking for a job um and some were let go unfortunately and now they're still looking for a job and some are just out of a job and they need to find something so my guest today his name is Chris Bowmont he's a head hunter a recruiter and we decided to talk about what are some of the things that people can do early on to make sure that they can get a job as fast as possible and the Genesis of the discussion was us talking about like hey how sales how finding a job is is very much like sales it's a sales process so we dig into that and we discussed it in a little bit more details I would suggest that if you're looking for a job or even if you're not to connect with Chris uh so that he can find you if he's looking for someone of your skills and talent there's a bunch of Head Hunters I'm very close friends with the John Hodson if you're in emia um so you might want to connect with them as well there's a bunch of people that you should connect with and if you're interested in knowing who let me know uh but let's jump into the show and talk to Chris about head hunting Mr bont hello repeat everything we've been talking about for the last on three how you doing welcome to the show I'm happy to have you here um let's start off with a brief introduction to the for the folks listening yeah of course um I have been in recruitment now for almost a decade spanning different Tech markets or Industries um a lot of stuff in media but predominantly my Focus has always been around customer facing teams um in a from a commercial and Technical standpoint bit of a mix of both so from pre-sale um includes Solutions both pre and post sales through through on boarding and integration support and then customer success and technical account management so the people that affect value for the customer um directly or indirectly alongside the sales team or adjacent to them how does one get into recruiting like say I find it similar to sales engineering that no one talks about recruiting in school but then ex I've met a bunch of recruiters and I have no idea how they got into it by accident okay honest sounds sounds like a sales engineer right yeah it's one of those things elaborate please yeah so I I I've got sales background so I left education um I worked in banking sales uh real estate insurance I two things um and recruitment seemed to be a good combination of all of the skills like face to face relationship building calling um networking all of the the soft skills that you get from sales jobs and then I just essentially got into it started very trainy like and I'm still here so initially it was very industry specific so I spent a lot of time working in the broadcasting media space again mostly technology spent some time in LA um and I just think the job itself you meet some really interesting people you get to help people change their lives ultimately um and also the travel the mixture of things that you get to do trade shows that type of thing I think it just keeps you engaged Ed because there's or there can be so much to it it can be a very um I don't want to use the word mundane but I've said it now and we're being recorded So mundane uh but I think if you if you want it to be um it can also be very varied and and interesting and engaging you get to speak to a lot of different people but um yeah by accident so how did like how did the accident start like was there a job posting that you applied to or did someone come after you and through a friend okay yeah so one of my brother's best friends worked at my previous company um and I just sent him a message one day this is when I was in banking and uh and just said is there anything going can I uh can I come and speak to the powers that be and and yeah that was it so yeah just just through chance and network it's that classic it's not what you know so what made you message him good question I think at the time I mean this is almost 10 years ago now yeah so no no I mean I kind of kind of remember I think banking changed significantly from the time that I started in it um and for the right reasons quite frankly um the the financial conduct Authority got involved with how banking sales were well how you how we approached them um and ultimately that changed the the job quite significantly um and took a lot of the sales element out of it so and that's what I enjoyed at the time I enjoyed the relationship side of it I enjoyed quite frankly the the money that came with it and yeah but it just kind of it changed the the role significantly to something that became more more advisory but like overly to the point couldn't really do your job anymore you weren't allowed to recommend anything to customers so you have a suite of products you know what's best for them or at least you can identify that and talk to them about it but you weren't allowed to anymore so you basically present a catalog and they pick it got to the point we were showing we had to show videos rather than explain so that and the the bank would track whether you'd shown them the video or not the whole video so you couldn't skip through it or you had to show it from start to finish and if you didn't you couldn't um move forward so yeah it just became very transactional okay and you started so that you started recruiting around 10 years ago right yeah 201 early 2015 I think it was so just up to 10 years so like recruiting is kind of like everybody knows what it is but not really like there's a lot of work that goes behind the scenes you know same as any other job but most people think that they know oh recruiting is a head hunter you find people and you get them hired MH what was your presupposition or assumption about recruiting and was it different from what it actually was and how so um I think my initial uh conception or perception of recruitment was similar to what it was in the beginning so I knew it would be a lot less like high pressure or um transactional in the sense or in comparison to banking or what I've done before right it'd be more like real estate so more relationship driven um but I think and it was like that for a while and then I it changed quite significantly and it has changed significantly over the last nine years so I think it depends on what you recruit in the market that you choose um in terms of industry and the people as to what recruitment is there are very transactional types of recruitment contract recruitment um temporary that kind of thing is is fairly transactional because it has to be naturally to be able to be successful but then some of the requisitions that I worked even from the beginning were more like mid-level to senior level sales so it took a little while it wasn't a short process it was a you know there's a kind of Fairly significant vetting stage for people to be able well firstly to understand the position and the company that you're recruiting for but also to understand the people that you're recruiting and I think that was the biggest um not shock but I suppose I didn't expect as much of the involvement in how immersed you need to be in the business that you're hiring for and quite rightly so I think you can't really do it effectively for the most part until you or unless you understand the story unless you understand why that company is hiring who that they are and ultimately then what that looks like in terms of who's going to join next what is that if I were to like say recruiting at a basic level you get a series of requirements from a company and you go out and find someone why why is it that you need to know the story and why they're hiring and just not provide them a list of people that can come and the job that's fair I think because you can you're at the risk of matchmaking if you're just looking for list a list of requirements one versus the other um AI will be able to do that soon probably can already um but when you're looking at the cultural side of a business and and someone's character and how that personality fit works with the business culture and the longevity of that that's what's important and that's where what you won't get from just looking at a brief or a job spec um and then trying to match a CV to that so I think and also it makes the job more fun it makes that provides more value to you and it makes it more engaging for you as a as a recruiter you're um you're immersed in it a bit more well I uh so I was I was saying that it's if you think about it from a sales engineer perspective it's like saying when don't you just get a list of requirements from your customer and just provide them a product five minute demo yeah exactly yeah 100% And I think you're right you uncover so much more know getting that context from the story of founder or the story of the business and whoever it is that you're working with within the the business I actually have an example or a story about a recruiter not doing that okay it's not me is it no no it's someone in Canada there it's not a bad recruiter like or anything I like the guy we're friends now but what happened was uh they posted the job on LinkedIn yeah I applied to it never heard from them five minutes later the company the the main company posted the same job on LinkedIn and I applied to it and I heard back within five minutes mainly because I didn't have any of the requirements that they had listed but I worked for the customer that they trying to break into ah okay right that's interesting yeah so having that having that information would have been good now I know they targeted people within the company and got them to come and have a conversation but they just skipped me because I didn't have the requirements yeah it's it's fun honestly that's yeah I guess that's something um well part of what I've been talking to people about quite a lot recently over the past 12 months is you obviously there's a lot of people looking for work and I think when people are applying for positions the the longer it goes on the more widespread or the more they open the net and their focus um and I think doing that you then start to l the value of your experience versus what um not even versus anything but you just lessen the value of your experience and it becomes more difficult rather than Easier by by spreading spreading a that it becomes harder yeah I guess that's a debate because at that point what what are their options they're spreading the net because they're running out of options of course so they have to find other ways to like yeah I I've done that where I've applied to industries that are not my Industries they're adjacent like let's say I'm in networking and I apply to like data center it but this the reason I thought of that is because what you said about applying for that job and you didn't have the requirements but you had you knew the customer and that's one of the things I tell people it's it's there's some things under under those layers of the the surface stuff where if you know the customers that the company are working with but you're not necessarily steeped in experience from a technology standpoint that sometimes is as valuable and more valuable you got it yeah I I got it well they offered the job to the other person that the recruiter brought in and he said no fine he was my friend he was telling me everything that was happening oh really yeah so Inside Man and yeah and then they a month later they offered me the job because they couldn't find any I was like the last choice but hey I got it I'm happy there you go best of last yeah U so from the from the employer side like what's the most common mistake you have to kind of nudge them away from while they're looking for their SE because this is an SE focused uh yeah I think expectations of some of the things that we just talked about so the three things you talked about um you know the level of expertise in certain areas or the level of exposure to certain customers or client Network versus where they're hiring you know geographically what they're looking for Budget wise and what they're going to pay there's a few things that you have to I suppose realign with them or at least and whether you do that verbally and it depends on your relationship with the customer um or the client that's hiring whether you can talk to them about that and they trust your opinion which takes a little while or whether you have to work with them to show them this is what you're this is what you're asking for and this is ultimately what you're going to have to do to get that um so I think that's one of the big original or initial Mis misalignment in terms of expectation versus reality um and guiding them through that process either by or with evidence-based um work you just reminded me of like real estate some like sales people like Realtors where they get a brand new married couple and they have a list of all these requirements and then a budget of like yeah $5,000 champagne taste be money yeah so then all right let's go see that house that you're like looking for how much do you think it's worth like oh 15 times what we're able to pay all maybe we should adjust our expectations I always thought of like customer like job descriptions are more like a wish list 100% exactly what they are I think it's it's a checklist isn't it really and you know if you have all of those things like you said then you're shuing but the chances are and that's why there's value in using People Like Us recruiters generally or Head Hunters generally because they don't always exist not in the way that the client expect and sometimes there's again from the discovery that you do with them as as as as with pre-sales you find out that what's on the page isn't necessarily what they really need um so I think yeah aligning expectations is probably the thing I spend most of my time doing um and the type of profile probably a bit more clearcut now although I appreciate they still you know certainly within Solutions engineering different companies have different perceptions of what they are or what they do um yeah and then it's talking to them through that not sure if it's a mistake the first the first thing that comes to my mind is I mean it's a fairly recent thing but it's the whole remote versus hybrid versus in office um it's that whole debate and it's people that the perfect opportunity comes along and it's within commutable distance but the the flexibility seems to have there shifted so much in the last couple of years um both ways both candidate side or jobseeker side and client side I'd say the rigidity now of both companies and and candidates to have their their camp and stay in it has changed drastically I don't know if that's a mistake but that's certainly something that's changed culturally both sides of the conversation that has become something new to navigate that has never really been that significant before I think mistake wise probably similar to what I said before with the clients and again over the last couple of years what we've seen with salary for example salaries have spiked incredibly um and this is the same in the UK as it is in the US where uh 2022 in isolation really I mean either side there's some time that is included in this but to get the talent that companies wanted one of the things one of the main things they did was provide blank checks almost um and that's really increased the the ranges of salaries that people are on were on and are looking for moving forward and I don't think that's sustainable has been sustainable and that's what a lot of people I'm speaking to now are that are looking passively or actively are having to irony person yeah the big tech companies that did a lot of that hiring of people and paying them lots of money were then one of the first ones to let them go that's true that's true confidence I suppose but M misplaced so actually like if you were to give advice to people looking for a job yeah what advice would you give them uh so to touch upon kind of what I suppose what I was talking about earlier on I think and I totally appreciate what you're saying and what you said earlier on Ramsey where you were we were talking about casting a wider net and how naturally that feels like by law of averages it should be more successful but I think being able to Define your value or what you bring to a problem as as sees right a lot of what you do on a day-to-day basis within the job but treat it treat it like a sales process almost so you know figure out the the areas that you're looking to focus on so I would always say pick two or three to start with and you mentioned them earlier on to be fair industry in terms of technology so what you've worked with whether it's I know AI is Broad but AI machine learning uh Health Tech whatever your commercial EXP experience is that's something you can focus on as long as you want to stay in that in that field the customer base that you've worked with whether that is relevant to another type of technology or business or industry vertical another thing as well you know and this is in an ideal world but interests and and passions right so I appreciate that's not always easy and sometimes people's interests don't align with a uh a a position a commercial Escapade but um yeah I think having those Focus points and then using a kind of sales methodology almost to to kind of prospect find businesses in those areas um network with the people in those within those businesses that whether they have open positions or not I think a lot of companies are optimistic or opportunistic exactly yeah 100% yeah so F figure out exactly who it is that you want to approach and and I think much like SE work and much like you've just described there Ry why oh what solution or what what problem you solve for them with your experience with your background and that's again like you say that's how you create the the customer profile or at least that's how you approach them right yeah well it help you building like your resume at that point you you can improve it you can figure out like what the cut what the competitors so we talked about like casting a wi night like I'm in networking I want to apply to it mhm I'm going to be weak in these areas like I don't know SQL or whatever I know networking but I'm good at these areas which is like sales or whatever so when I'm talking to them I'm highlighting these I'm low lighting those so yeah okay and then you said prospecting yeah this is something sales Engineers hate doing in general most people hate doing how do you recommend people Prospect yeah tough question so without any other tools or platforms to be able to like create lists or reports um things I always found useful when I was starting was industry trade shows and not going to them necessarily I mean that's great if you do but every trade show and exhibition has an exhibitor list so and usually those trade shows or exhibitions have an industry Focus right so one of the things that I would do would be go onto the website of the exhibition or the trade show that you're um you're interested in or that you know that compan companies that um operate in the industry you're interested in go to look at the floor plan um check out all of the different company names and then ultimately look at those companies on LinkedIn supposed would be the easiest thing thing to do the first place to go and connect with some of the senior people the people within the teams that you would look to work within so if it's Solutions engineering or sales engineering the managers of those teams the seniors on those teams um and connect with those people and then open a conversation with them not necessarily about a job particularly but again kind of something else that um talk about storytelling which I know is big in SE World um if you've got a compelling story for that person that will resonate with them and what they do what Their company does or their their value proposition then start a conversation about that has it done that yeah I've also been on like marketing training courses uh specifically to LinkedIn not run by LinkedIn that have said that it also sometimes is better just to connect and not include a message but have in the same breath in your so not necessarily your job title in your like as it were your CV job experience but in your headline under your name have the a headline that catches their attention or that has and what I mean by catches their attention is gives no doubt as to what it is that you do so like mine is recruiting pre-sales Solutions so as soon as someone clicks on your profile and after a connection request and sees what you do they shouldn't have to read a message to figure out what is your connecting with them for I think it depends I think I think do it but I also think you have to make sure you pick the right partners and I think that just means have they have some relevance to your world right so whether it's industry specific usually recruitment companies or recruiters will have a focus of some kind right so whether it's what we do and that's dis specific or whether that's industry specific again I'll use AI as an example um or financial Tech sometimes companies will have a particular vertical Focus but they'll recruit all sorts of people um and sometimes they'll have disciplined specific teams like we do um and then they can be a little bit more agnostic when it comes to Industry so as long as you're picking relevant people and it's like when you sell your house right I mean you you get a few opinions when you get valuation stage you get two or three different um Realtors around or state agents they're called in the UK um and not only do you go with one you feel most comfortable with in terms of the value that they're bringing um numbers in the in the housing uh example but also the relationship you build with them right I think there needs to be a level of trust between the person that is working to help you find a job um and you know I suppose the associated output for me like I always say connect with recruiters even even if you don't reach out and say like hey help you get a job at least now they have better visibility into you like if they do a search yeah you're easier to find versus a fifth connection uh from somewhere uh so like I never thought like hey let me jump on the call with them and waste their time ask them for a whole bunch of stuff and then get a job somewhere else yeah that's you never want like even as a sales engineer you don't want to customer to come and call you and jump on a call with you because it's happened with us and then go to the same company just different area different country buy that stuff and ship it over right it's a it's a it's annoying but yeah no I see I see what you mean I think it's um again that's why it's so important to my focus is what it is my network is mostly pretty much entirely the the world that I work with in all the people that I work with so whether it's an you know I can add immediate value to somebody's job search or whether I can't ultimately at some point I might be able to and vice versa so I think there is such thing as waste of time of course there is but I think it's just making sure that the people that you're connecting with are or at least spending time with are relevant and and yeah there's a conversation to be had one that's that's got some substance but I I like what you said basically jump if you want to jump on call you can jump with a bunch and see who you feel most comfortable with and who's going to help you the most yeah and then stick with that person don't waste everybody's everybody else's time um I mean some yeah yeah so that that's my thought around that the the one thing that I noticed also you said like in terms of prospecting is you didn't say just apply to every single job out there right uh because that's what most people think about prospecting oh I found this uh job on LinkedIn I'm going to apply apply apply apply and that's me getting leads and yeah it's not no I think yeah not I wouldn't advise that and for all the reasons that I mean you probably know and mentioned but I think it it also just yeah oh well I think I mean off the back of what I said about the the Strategic approach of what you know what your way your experiences who you know that kind of stuff I think there's not going to be hundreds of or thousands of opportunities that fit into those cat IES but I also think that there's an emotional toll that it takes on you um as a job Seeker to go through that many applications and I know a lot of people I've spoken to a lot of people actually that will tell me they've applied for 500 jobs or 300 jobs or and I think there's an emotional impact that has on people an effect that has on people as job Seekers which then can have a knock on effect into the interview processes that they are a good fit for um and the way that they perform in those interviews but I also think as much as it might not seem like it takes a a long time I think that time can be better spent crafting that compelling story or that pitch uh that resonates with the companies within those categories that we that you craft that you craft out and that does take a while you know you'll spend hours U at times crafting different um approaches and having different conversations but I think the well the people I've spoken to that have done that whether it's been before I've spoken to them or after I've spoken to them um seem to have had a lot more success and and just have a lot more well they get a lot more out of the conversations that they have whether there's a job a job it at the end of the day or not um they seem to have a lot more U substance in those conversations and there's a lot more value that comes from those and one day those conversations might turn into something else but I mean there's no there's no harm in networking with relevant people right okay I think startup is an interesting one again it depends what number you are on the team so if you're the first person in the in the in the team whether the interview process is different or the person they're looking for is different or both but usually there's you have to have quite a varied background in terms of experience um and obviously that then can make the make the conversations more lengthy more in depth more interesting um and us usually led by Founders or senior people within startups um but you can also expect one of two things from startup interviews generally I think the process is can be fairly different so I think sometimes with startups that are have hired before and kind of and know what they're doing and have the process in place or have an idea of what the process they want to follow they are more more aligned or more like companies that have been doing it for years and companies that have been hiring people for years but sometimes the processes that can be quite um sporadic yeah or a mess that's that's I was trying to be politically correct but yeah a mess um and I think that's fine okay good to know but I think that also purely down to the fact that the people that that are interviewing are also running a business uh every day and they're in the trenches and and that kind of stuff so I would say startup interviews um can be run very well they usually if you're one of the first employees or one of the first founding members of the team um expect to do more than um the job description suggests uh and the conversations that you'll have can be well structured but can also be a mess so like like I've worked for bigger companies I've interviewed for different kinds of companies when I interview for an SE role or an SE manager role a lot of times Times They just they want you to be an SE and not mess up and be good with a salesperson and all that when you're interviewing as a first SE at a startup what do the founders care about more than anything else I'd say probably a couple of things I mean beyond the obvious fit and able ability to work with the technology and work with the customers I think that's where this what we're talking about about at the beginning of the conversation cultural fit and and the character of somebody there will usually be well as we've said there'll be there'll be a much larger workload for this person so I think somebody that has no um misconceptions of that and somebody that really buys into the mission buys into the value proposition and can provide a really succinct kind of concise answer to why they would want to work there or what um what motivation drives them to work for that business I genuinely think that's something that I've noticed quite a lot a lot more recently actually that has a lot more onus on it is a you know not just because growth opportunity I mean yeah that's that's that's there right but I think that's a huge a thing the motivation behind somebody wanting to join the business and and their motivations behind that but also their commitment their commitment to it is is huge um because obviously they'll come with some form of investment um into the business Equity stock that kind of um I also think the ability to challenge um what I mean by that is challenge the founders and not everyone wants that there's there's a fine line right but I think you know Founders that know the saying is hire people that are smarter than you right but that are hiring people that they know will help them build the business will challenge them in the right way with Solutions not just with problems um that's another big thing thing I think the ability to the confidence to do that and the background to be able to do it right it's interesting you say that cuz I've like I've seen Founders who want that and I've seen Founders who hire like sees who've never had any SE experience just so that they become gophers and not challenge them just do what I say yeah the way I say it and you know I would never want to work for that kind of founder who just you're not good at pre honestly most Founders they think they're good at sales and pre-sales they might be good at one of them yeah they're not good at both no or they might be Technical and not not good at any right so yeah but there are also Founders that say that they want someone to challenge them and then when someone challenges them they realize they don't fine so I think where do we we where were we at we're prospecting yeah we're the selling is the interview process I guess selling fine um I think having an idea of I mean negotiations obviously a part of the sales process right yeah um so I think having an understanding of [Music] the full economic picture within an offer I think a lot of people's hang up is on base salary bonus which obviously is fundamental right you have to be able to earn enough money to live and and all that stuff but I think digging into questions with whoever it is you're interviewing with right and usually it's going to be the hiring manager that can answer this the um the most comprehensively but the Dynamics of the offer of the offer itself so not just the financial stuff but you know depending on the position that you're in what's the part and I know these these are all questions that people think about for sure but I think the question is do you ask the hard questions at the point you're talking to the hiring manager about an offer or accepting a position and I think asking the hard questions around progression and whether something what something is how to get there whether there's metrics or Milestones to reach those how formal they are how formal they can become if they're not um I think those are the types of things that people think about but don't necessarily challenge hiring managers on I also from a recruiter standpoint and again this is fairly common I would say is trans transparency if you're working with a third party I think communication and transparency is massively important along along the whole process to be honest and I think generally even if you're not working with a recruiter it's important because it's it's hard effectively communicating with people you don't really know that well is is very hard but I also think it it produces green and red flags throughout the process and will ultimately show you signs of whether good things have to come or there are potential things that might not be so good that you might be able to avoid before you get to that point um I think that's something to try and people people to try and Implement I've got information and content on that both in terms of offer negotiation but also generally asking questions around culture and that kind of thing because I think that's important yeah so can you share those can you share those with me I'll put I'll put them on theels for this episode yeah the one thing I so something that sees really need to do in general is although they're not negotiating they're starting the negotiation from the second they meet the customer and it's similar with jobs where yeah you're adding value or removing value from yourself at the first meeting now the hardest or the most annoying part for me is when I talk to a recruiter who can't answer not like uh like not like yourself like a company recruiter because that's the first interview generally speaking who can either push you through or block you based on how you answer how much money are you looking to make and yet they can't answer any questions about culture or about like money is important but it's not the end all be all there's so many other things that I need to know to tell you like how much money like is it a junior SE role is it like am I going to have to Mentor other people I'm going to have to take care of other people am I going to have to jump on other people's calls if they're not able to do it these are all questions that I need to know before I tell you what my salary expectation is um but you can't answer any of those questions so why are you asking me what my salary expectation is because yeah that's not that's not going to help um there was something else that I was that was on my mind that I just right now completely forgetting so we're we're going to move on uh it happens but on that on that piece about um internal Recruitment and I think this is probably as a result of having a lot of different types of roles to fill usually uh across different teams it's difficult for them to have the time or the freedom to unless they've been there for a long time and they understand the business really well and there are loads of really good internal recruiters out there that do um but I also think there's there's some that kind of fall victim to not just being spread too thin and not being able to understand or have the time to invest in understanding those parts of the business um unless they've been there for a long time so I think that you know that's probably as a result of that type of stuff that they they just stretched quite especially the last year or or almost 18 months that the Market's been crazy there's not been the people that have been hiring have had you know hundreds of applicants applying for the the jobs that they've got so I think it just comes down to time and and there's no excuse for them but I think it's just reality but that's why I prefer working with like third party recruiters because it's not black and white I can talk to you I can tell you this is my expectation and you can tell me Ramsey I think you deserve that much but these guys don't have that budget whereas you get ghosted by the internal recruiter or they just get a message an email saying like whatever will you help me set my expectations properly and then we go and talk to them we're both incentivized we're all incentivized by the same thing yeah you're like you're looking to have a provide a good hire so that you can keep having business with the with that company right so it's not really necessar about the milking every extra cent no but also we get the perspective from the different Industries and businesses right so yeah that's always interesting because because people tend to look at recruiters as oh you're TR trying to make like the most out of me whereas like all right if I make five extra dollars out of you if I risk making five extra dollars out of you and then lose the entire deal wasn't worth it yeah so that's why I like going through third party recruiters it's like having a Like A Champion Inn yeah an ally yeah all right and then the negotiation my thoughts are on negotiation like I know we're we're at the top of the hour I don't know if you have few more minutes got some more time yeah okay um when it comes to negotiation I have the feeling that if they really like you they'll offer you whatever they can to make sure you get hired yeah and then most people say like oh no don't take the first offer always negotiate what are your thoughts around those two thoughts so I think it goes back to kind of the communication piece I was talking about a second ago right if you've communicated your expectations or what you're looking for throughout the entire process not necessarily even just money but generally across the board um Ambitions and what you want to be able to do within that position within the company I think if the company can't do that and they're open with you about that that and they they make you an offer that isn't what you expecting but it comes with here's why and here's what we're willing to do to kind of show our commitment to you then I I don't really think it depends on whether you want to join the company how bad how badly you want it right um I think there is or there has been uh a bit of a cultural thing with hiring where sometimes companies will try and offer 5,000 less or a little bit less and see if they can get that person on for for a bit less I don't think it's hugely common but I've definitely seen it before um but I think generally speaking if you're happy with an offer then and again based on how competitive the market is I think it's you're happy with the offer and the company then I don't think there's a need to renegotiate I think if there's other things that you're looking for that aren't in the offer again that aren't necessarily numerical then good time to have a conversation about those and see if there's anything that can be formalized within an offer or within a um you know I don't know a six-month review or whatever but I don't there's times where it's good to renegotiate um there's times where I think it almost in vain um and that's another reason why working with the third party is really beneficial for that process not to plug myself but I just think you we want the best for both parties um and we're also I mean we obviously want the people to get the positions from a a selfish perspective quite frankly uh partly but overarchingly I think we want to get the best for both people and we but we're also the conjur to do that so we can that that communication piece I mentioned yes they're our client the business and yes the person we're working with to get that job is is also our client in some ways we can communicate quite honestly with both sides without the fear of anything really um so it's quite impartial in that in that respect I just did some quick math on that $5,000 go based out of Canada generally speaking when you're se's you're usually at the highest bracket tax bracket so that would be $100 per paycheck if you get 26 paychecks a year are you it's funny you do that that's what I that's I've done that before yeah I've done it with my clients like oh they offered me 5,000 $3,000 less than I want yeah it's like all right let's do some math $3,000 that's $89 a month uh a paycheck yeah do you want like do you want the job you're you're increasing your salary by 40K yeah is that what's going to make or break the deal for you uh but it's also like crappy you can tell by if the company's lowballing you yeah you can tell the culture you're going into yeah and that's a conversation that we we will have with our clients present an offer if we if we suspect that at all in any way which luckily it doesn't happen is often sometimes that's all they can afford or that's all that they have their HR brackets or whatever yeah they have to they have to treat their salary bandings the way that they do because to be able to it's like one it can't be one rule for one no definitely not because yeah you I I've done that and you know like the promise was not fulfilled no I hear that a lot yeah sorry it's a b it's a bad time of year we can't give it to you you earn you deserved it you earned it but we just can't do it for you anyway what are you going to do leave so yeah that's why it's good to try and formalize as much as you can I know sometimes it's difficult and sometimes people won't agree to it but I think like having something in an offer or a contract that states at at the six-month Mark we will review your pay or we will review your um your performance to you know look at yeah right it's not based on quota because they can mess up my quota all the the time they can just increase your quot yeah that's that's that's interesting but basically what if I understand you correctly M there isn't like in sales there's you provide a proposal and then there's negotiation it doesn't sound like it's that like that way in job it might be a little bit but you're negotiating from basically setting the expectation from day one this is what I'm looking for and if they say it keep saying yes and let's keep talking and by the end of it they don't get you what you asked for then why did you keep going yeah in an ideal world that's how it works but we we don't live in an Ideal World unfortunately Ramsey so it happens less often then I'd like bit more creative yeah that's the one difference I would say between a sales process and a job hunting process is in a sales process you're looking from all these different prospects that you're getting you're looking to land 10 20 30 whereas in a job process job Hing all you need is one yeah right so yeah yeah which which you which you could say is tougher is depend I mean you have a better better chance of Landing just one versus having to close 10 and or 20 or whatever it is that you need to do to hit quarter yeah yeah yeah um I is any other thoughts any questions you were hoping I was going to ask you that I didn't or is there any trail of thought that you want to continue with the sales process um I don't think so I think you yeah the question have been pretty good so in terms of the the strategy I think that's kind of what I've been speaking to people about all of the different disciplines that I work in but it seems to apply fairly well to to most of them it's been yeah we usually jump into the NATO fire on but we're eight minutes past our time together I still have time if you want to go through it but I want be respectful of your time go on I don't know what it is but let's go oh that's so fire these are the same four questions I ask almost every guest and I'd love to hear your thoughts starting with question number one is what do you love about recruiting for sales Engineers specifically um I think the community to be honest I think like it seems as though from the conversations I've had and the things I've been a part of that everyone for the most part wants to try and help each other out the best community in the world that's what I say okay you haven't even paid me to say that either excellent yeah I use the Canada Post so it might never get there yeah question number two what would you consider is your superpower oh that's a good question what one that I'd want or one that I've got let's do both let's start with what you want and what you got and then go to what you want okay what I've got um I think just the ability to connect with people on a well on a level where I kind of understand them and not just in a job search process but um yeah also as a as an individual and kind of their ambition and what drives them that's that's where I think I have superpower if I if I'm gonna say I have one I'd like to fly everyone probably says that no well my superpower yeah probably freezing time with three kids that's a that's a three kids either freezing time or teleporting have you seen click no no I chose not to watch I love Adam sander I chose not to watch that one okay yeah for some reviews but yeah I know I know what you're talking about like you can just pause and do stuff yeah there's a there's a British TV show really old called burnard's watch and it's about a a school kid that has a watch that stops time so that might be that might have better reviews but I doubt it honestly I just want to stop time and sleep for a little bit that would be nice uh question number three I've I've never actually asked that question but is there a book about job hunting that you would recommend not that I've read I think a book that I've read uh that I'm sure a lot a lot of people that are listening might have seen or probably read is um Simon sinx book start with why the yes it start with why that helped me a lot when I was kind of trying to understand my approach to recruitment it's somewhere is it okay some around the house somewhere probably the kids read um so the last question of The Not So Fire around Chris is there a habit you're working on to improve in your personal or professional life consistency in in both so I think personally like from habit perspective healthy habits so I I Journal quite a lot or i' like to journal more um and and write write creatively um but then I also think and fitness I'm quite into fitness and going to the gym consistently eating healthily consistently avoiding alcohol in in London is quite diff um I'm sure so I'm trying to improve all of them pretty much yeah simultaneously um no but probably more so like the holistic stuff so like looking after myself things like um the fitness part eating healthfully I just came off off of a three-day water fast which was very interesting you fasted off water or you just had water just had water okay fasting off water for 3 days is not recommended we're not we're not doctors here but yeah yeah yeah yeah medical advice but no that wasn't fun but yeah I think working on but then that because because I think that affects your professional life right everything in your personal life has a has a knock on effect effect in your professional life um and vice versa and vice versa where can they find you you know you can advise them to find you on LinkedIn okay fine I didn't know I didn't know you could do that here yeah find me on LinkedIn R you're connected so I'm sure you'll find us through there there's a lot of content on there that's pre-sales related recruitment related um yeah if anyone has any ideas and they want to share those and what what what I can do next and I'm all is but um yeah linkedin's where I am mostly and I just think from a job-seeking perspective stay well as I am stay consistent but also try and create and understand your your value your story and and that will help you to secure more valuable conversations whether that's a job at the end of it there will be you there will be one at some point but I think you'll have a lot of interesting conversations along the way 100% Chris that's the end of the show I really appreciate your time and uh I think we can sign up