Case Study: Hiring Sales Experts in Canada’s Smallest Markets
CLIENT: POSTMEDIA
The Result
How Sales Talent Agency helped Postmedia make 30 specialized sales hires across 8 new markets
The Challenge
Postmedia Network Inc. is a media conglomerate that is comprised of digital operations, publishing brands and some of the largest news outlets in Canada. Due to industry changes, Postmedia needed to expand its digital landscape beyond major Canadian cities and enter the smaller markets that surround it. As a result of the media industry not being highly sought after for digital-savvy salespeople to work in, the pool of talent available in these small markets were hard to find and attract to the opportunities available.
The Solution
Since 2018, Postmedia has engaged Sales Talent Agency (STA) on more than 30 recruitment projects. In order to truly identify its needs, STA’s recruitment team consulted with Postmedia to get a better understanding of the media industry as well as the goals that the company wanted to achieve.
Its ideal candidate, someone with full sales cycle experience and a strong understanding of digital media, was also in high demand in the software and technology industry. Attracting this kind of talent to Postmedia instead of a tech or SaaS company required a great deal of educating prospective clients on how media has changed, along with the career opportunities that come with it.
With a strong understanding of both the company and the industry challenges, STA responded by conducting a market analysis to discover as much as possible about each of the 8 new markets including compensation trends, talent pool analysis and location data. This allowed the STA recruitment team to quickly identify the right candidates and (for every recruitment project to date) present 5+ rockstar candidates per week to create a healthy candidate pipeline.
The Result
Since 2018, Postmedia interviewed over 70 candidates, made 30 successful hires and entered 8 new markets. All roles were filled within 45 days with a 95% offer acceptance rate, outperforming the industry average of 68%. Sales Talent Agency is now Postmedia’s preferred recruitment partner and to date they still work together on various recruitment projects.
“Christina and the team at Sales Talent Agency have been amazing to work with as we build out our new teams across Canada. It isn’t easy to find talented sales pros and STA has been able to find some fantastic people for us. We look forward to working with them in the months to come.”