RAISING THE BAR: ROI PARITY
We approach our work through the same ROI lens as our clients.
Examples of how we’ve “moved the needle” include:
- Significantly reduced mis-hires
- Supported leaders in achieving their 4DX objectives
- Increased ARR
- Improved NPS
- Risk-based information security program implementations
- Assisted cloud migrations & repatriations
- Shrunk project development times
- Mitigated a DEI crisis
- Opened up new sales territories
- Enabled digital transformations
- Maximised product launches
- Boosted market share
Top employees today are no longer just assets; they’re investors seeking a return on investment, much like employers evaluate ROI for every hire they make.
Hiring the best starts by defining the real work involved, not skills or experiences, but the challenges and critical deliverables expected of a top performer.
We collaborate with stakeholders to define the desired ROI across all dimensions of the role, then create a powerful alignment by finding candidates whose career goals promise an equally strong ROI from joining our clients.
Case Studies
CDO - Big Data SaaS
A seven month search we completed in 3 weeks!
This profitable, bootstrapped 4 year old Big Data agency supplied property and demographic data to global construction & property companies.
They had gone through eleven no win/no fee recruitment agencies in 6 months – we talk about why this often happens here
It was a labour-intensive but lucrative business – an ‘if it ain’t broke why fix it” scenario. All their data was generated and wrangled manually by a huge team of Data Engineers, leaving them somewhat hamstrung, as they were turning potentially lucrative higher volume business away, and growth had stalled.
Leadership had recognised that they would capture a much larger share of the SME market if they could automate their product and offer it via web self-service portals. Lower value but higher volume sales.
For this to happen they had to change their business model from agency into SaaS.
To enable this had to go cloud native and make a leap from on-prem servers to AWS.
A compete business model change – a huge undertaking, fraught with danger.
They had sat on the fence, incurring $200k/month costs for over a year.
They asked us to find them them a data leader who could pull everything together – people management for the large data team, alongside solid AWS knowledge from a commercial perspective, as they’d be working closely with the CEO in a pre-sales capacity.
They’d already hired and dismissed someone before we were engaged, and were posting a job description that every month without fail, generated 100 candidates with the wrong type of experience.
We found our person within three weeks.
Using Design-Thinking based on JTBD Theory, we built a candidate persona, then an opportunity narrative that was essentially one paragraph with four lines of text.
Recognising people like to help, if you ask them, we kept it humble, “Help needed! we need someone to show us how to maximise our new SaaS platform…”
The CEO hired the first candidate we shortlisted! and they’re still there 2 years later.
He told us after the first interview “I wanted to offer them the job halfway through the interview but didn’t want to lose my dignity!”.
VP Sales, North America - SaaS
This global cloud monitoring platform had been searching for a VP for four months, reposting the same job description with no adjustments on LinkedIn every month and receiving the same pool of 100 applicants each time. They had also engaged four contingency recruitment agencies on a no win/no fee basis, but none had delivered the level of candidate required – we talk about why this often happens here.
Our review showed why: the recruiters had merely copy-pasted the client’s functional job specification, offering candidates a flat, robotic description that read like instructions for an automaton rather than a compelling opportunity. The document failed to attract seasoned professionals with the gravitas to drive million-dollar deals and lead high-performing teams.
To turn this around, we collaborated with all stakeholders to define a precise buyer persona and restructured the role description into a compelling opportunity narrative that clearly communicated the role’s ROI and appeal to top talent.
Our research team then identified a strong set of target companies -including competitors and complementary firms – and fed this into our hiring platform.
By week four, we had a longlist of ten excellent qualified candidates, and by week six, our client’s new VP had signed their contract.
Head of Infrastructure - Big Data SaaS
This highly profitable, bootstrapped Big Data agency, was burning through £200,000 a month due to their on-prem setup.
To oversee their migration to AWS, we filled a crucial Head of Infrastructure role, positioned to collaborate closely with the Chief Data Officer we were also recruiting.
As we built out the buyer persona, we uncovered several challenges.
With the company’s data stored on bare-metal Linux servers, this role required an unusual combination of skills: a hands-on Lead Platform Engineer background, AWS and cloud services expertise, and advanced Linux knowledge. Moreover, the candidate needed the confidence to lead the migration independently and the vision to eventually build a team around this infrastructure.
The challenge? Most hands-on Lead Cloud Platform Engineers had started their careers in cloud—not Linux—and seasoned Linux professionals had typically moved away from hands-on roles. Finding someone who was senior, deeply technical, and still hands-on with Linux experience seemed almost impossible.
This search didn’t take our usual three weeks, but we still delivered within eight, recruiting a stellar candidate from Red Hat.
Head of Data Science - FinOps
This FinOps scale-up specialises in maximising the business value of cloud expenditures. As they scaled their engineering, data science, and go-to-market teams, they relied on an “embedded talent consultancy” to handle the hiring.
Six months in, their provider was delivering on high-volume roles but struggled with leadership positions. We examine why this happens here.
They had interviewed a steady stream of candidates, but most fell short or accepted other offers – competition was intense for the skills and expertise needed. In our research, we analysed the broader market, including advertised positions, and found over 700 senior data science roles open across the UK. Nearly all had identical descriptions – what we now term “Sisyphean” job postings: narrowly focused on the present demands of the role, with little to inspire high performers about future possibilities.
With job openings outnumbering qualified candidates by about 10 to 1, we knew a distinctive approach was essential.
Working closely with hiring stakeholders, we created a curated list of 50 potential candidates. To capture attention, we produced a three-minute video on mobile, featuring the hiring manager and three team members discussing both challenges and ambitious goals for the role – a true call to action for the right person.
We sent this video, titled “A Personal Message from the CTO at [FinOps Company],” along with a password for exclusive access on our website. This approach was one of the many tailored strategies we use to build high-performance teams.
Three months later, we had a top-tier Head of Data Science in place.
Head of Engineering - Martech SaaS
This Series A company (£10M in funding) was gearing up for a Series B round of £22M to scale from 90 to 200 employees.
Led by three founders – CEO, CTO, and Head of Engineering – the company faced a pivotal moment. Their Head of Engineering, having worked 12-hour days for nearly eight years, had built a team of over 60 people and architected the platform but was now burned out.
As the company scaled, they had accrued both technical and people debt, which included some very serious negative Glassdoor feedback regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). They’d unintentionally cultivated a homogenous, predominantly white, middle-class, male environment.
To secure Series B funding and grow to 200 employees, the Head of Engineering would need to transition to a Chief Architect role, stepping away from people management. The company needed a new engineering leader with the time and focus to drive DEI and team development.
Our remit was to confidentially find a Head of Engineering replacement with a unique blend of skills.
The new leader would need strong technical expertise to maintain credibility with the senior engineering team and an equally strong commitment to people management and career development as the team grew.
Additionally, this new leader would need to “step down” temporarily, operating as a co-pilot for six months to allow for a smooth transition.
The search was sensitive: morale among tech leads was already strained due to rapid growth, early missteps, and the resulting people debt and churn.
Within eight weeks, we successfully delivered, finding a leader ready to take on the challenge of fostering a high-performance, inclusive engineering culture.
Chief Information Security Officer
This high-profile insurance company delivers specialty risk solutions globally across diverse industries.
They needed a leader with over 15 years of experience in operations within the CISO office – a role requiring exceptional expertise and vision. However, their previous talent acquisition approach, which focused on high-volume, low-impact recruitment, fell short. Designed for individual contributors rather than leadership roles, it listed responsibilities and required experience but failed to convey the scope, scale, and impact the new CISO could achieve. For high performers at this level, the question “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM) was left unanswered.
We applied our design-thinking approach, leveraging our buyer persona framework to target the ideal candidates. Collaborating closely with senior stakeholders, we crafted a compelling opportunity narrative that framed the role through the candidate’s perspective. The result was a job description that resonated with top-tier talent by emphasizing not only the challenges but also the significant opportunities for growth and impact.
Within three weeks, we shortlisted five outstanding candidates who offered a strong ROI for the company and found the role equally rewarding for themselves. By week six, the company had hired their new CISO, who has now been driving success in the role for nearly 18 months.
VP Product - FinTech SaaS
When we joined the project, this real-time digital asset monitoring company with a global footprint had spent three months re-advertising a job description that undersold the opportunity. Their talent team had also spent the same amount of time contacting potential candidates but had failed to get the attention of the calibre of leader they needed.
This common problem stems from using one-dimensional tactical job descriptions (and TA outreach messages that echo the job description) which is inappropriate for strategic roles – high performers think in three dimensions. We talk about why this happens here.
We worked with the hiring team to create a buyer persona that told us who and where our target prospects were and identified c100 potential candidates that we shared with leadership for their opinions – which were favourable.
We then built an opportunity narrative that described the role in all 3 dimensions the past: why the role was open – the present: outlining the WIIFM – scope, scale, reward – and the future: impact and recognition that it offered.
We shared our hiring platform with company hiring stakeholders so they could review our progress and set about making contact.
By day 12, after 2 tranches of messages, we had received almost 90% replies. Around 30% were open to conversations – almost 30 prospects – an excellent number. From these 30 conversations – that were all recorded on our hiring platform – a shortlist of 5 was compiled.
The search was delivered and the offer closed week 5. They joined 3 months later and are coming into their second successful year.
Head of Automated Test - Martech SaaS
Just 63 prospective candidates on LinkedIn!
Our Series B SaaS client, was making a critical shift from manual to automated testing, investing in the cutting-edge TestCafe platform.
This required a Head of Automated Testing to lead the transition, a role that seemed straightforward at first.
However, finding a leader with hands-on TestCafe experience proved one of our toughest searches. Our research team found only 63 TestCafe specialists in the UK on LinkedIn at the level our client needed.
Every outreach needed to make an impact.
With the automation go-live date fast approaching, their CTO was feeling the pressure.
When we took on the search, we found that the client’s talent acquisition team had already engaged the market but failed to connect with these specialists. Their job ads had drawn over 200 applications, yet none were suitable.
The job description and messaging had emphasised the founders’ vision – commercial benefits, workplace culture, and even listing their investors, all of which fell flat with this highly focused, problem-solving audience – they were preaching to the wrong choir – we talk about why this happens here.
Our buyer persona revealed why: Test Leaders are motivated by the technical challenges in front of them, not by company accolades or funding status. Heads of Test are rarely eager to switch jobs, particularly if their current role provides complex, engaging problems—and most were in roles that did just that.
We crafted an outreach campaign centred around an opportunity narrative that outlined the unique, challenges the role presented in its first year. Rather than emphasising the company’s product or financials, we focused on the problems they would solve and the impact they would make.
This narrative struck a chord with nine exceptional prospects, ultimately resulting in a superstar hire who continues to thrive and be challenged 18 months later.
VP Strategic Channels - SaaS
After five months of searching, our client was puzzled as to why they hadn’t attracted the calibre of candidate they needed. To us, the reason was obvious: their job description and resulting outreach messages stripped the description of any real autonomy.
The key focus of the partner team is to acquire and expand partnerships across multiple channels. With the support of multiple stakeholders, you’ll oversee the sales strategy, team leadership, sales process & infrastructure, customer relationships and strategic opportunities, business planning, and performance analysis and reporting.
We explained that VPs at this level don’t “oversee” – they are used to setting the direction, and the best wont move on without it. This level of leadership requires creative control, a quality absent in the initial description. We redefined the tone, clarifying two key points: why the role was open and what tangible outcomes were expected, from concrete targets to benchmarks for success.
With these adjustments, we launched a targeted outreach, and phone calls, managing a slate of highly qualified candidates through the interview process.
We even introduced a few “curveballs” – candidates with partnership expertise from outside the industry.
Our client ultimately chose one of these unexpected candidates, whose innovative approach new ideas brought fresh strategies for their specific challenges.
Three years on, both the client and the candidate remain highly satisfied with the placement.
CPO - FinTech SaaS
The job description for this CPO role lacked the nuanced understanding of what truly motivates top Chief Product Officers, limiting the candidate pool to adequate rather than exceptional talent.
The document opened with four lengthy paragraphs about the company, followed by one-dimensional (the present) list of responsibilities for the CPO buried three-quarters of the way down the page. To finish, it included a paragraph about “bringing your whole self to work”- an ironic addition to a description that felt more like a job announcement than a job advertisement.
Top-performing CPOs – the kind who drive real results – spend only seconds scanning job descriptions. and messages For this audience, it was crucial to spotlight the substance of the role itself rather than the company as quickly as possible. As for the “whole self” message, we highlighted that experienced CPOs don’t need this encouragement—they’ve been doing it for years.
The result was a streamlined outreach campaign that positioned the role as an exciting career move, inviting the right CPO to take on a unique and stimulating challenge.
Within eight weeks, the role was successfully wrapped up.
Head of Artificial Intelligence
We worked with this series C SaaS company to find their Head of AI.
Their job description, and their TA outreach messages, we discovered later when analysing the history of the role, started like this:
What you’ll do:
- Lead the adoption and integration of state-of-the-art AI/ML technologies across the ….
- Deliver ….
- Initiate and drive strategic partnerships with industry leaders and academic institutions to enhance…..
- Own and develop the long-term vision for End-to-End …
- Design and integrate complex infrastructure and information flows across ….
The reality is that roles framed with words like “lead,” “own the vision,” “deliver,” “initiate,” and “design” mostly attract candidates who aspire to these responsibilities, rather than those who are already performing them.
For individuals already leading, owning visions, and delivering on initiatives, these terms don’t signal advancement – they describe an alternative, not an improvement. As a result, these words hold little appeal for those who are truly experienced.
Our client needed a reliable, seasoned leader to help them bring their ambitions to life. We shifted focus to outline the outcomes our client aimed to achieve, rather than listing actions for the candidate to perform. This higher-level, goal-focused description resonates with top-tier talent who might be hesitant to enter an interview process for a role that, at a glance, looks like the one they already have.
We averaged 8.5 calls and messages for this role – probably one of our most challenging searches.
The Head of AI was placed within 12 weeks.
Tech & Cyber Risk Director
We’re sure they wont mind us saying this now, but when we first partnered with this outstanding tech company their jobs read like proverbial “shit sandwiches” – two slices of warmth & humanity with a generous filling of indentured servant.
Our ambition to make a positive difference underpin everything that we do at hiring company and define and shape a supportive and inclusive working environment in which everyone is encouraged to be open and forward-thinking.
Job Information
- Functional title – Technology Risk Manager
- Department – Technology Information Security Risk Management
- Corporate level – Vice President
What You Will Be Doing
- Technology Risk dashboard reporting for BAU and change activities.
- Technology Program 2LoD oversight and challenge.
- Technology RCSA oversight and challenge.
- Technology risk and issue oversight and challenge.
- Risk GRC management (Technology Risk).
- Technology Stakeholder Management.
What We’re Looking For
- 2LoD Risk experience and background
- Excellent communication skills.
- Experience in cultivating and managing relationships across multiple stakeholders.
Professional Qualifications / Certifications
- CRISC, CISM etc. qualifications preferred.
Our Commitment To Employees
At hiring company we celebrate diversity and consider this to be one of our strongest assets. We are committed to fostering an environment in which everyone feels comfortable to be who they are, and inclusion is valued. All employees have access to our inclusive benefits,
