By Recruitment

The Best Software Sales Recruiters

Software companies continue to hire a crazy number of salespeople, and the number of software sales recruiters has been growing in tandem.

The growth in the past year alone has been mind-boggling. For example, Apple has grown its salesforce 346% in the past year.

According to data gathered from LinkedIn in September 2022, here’s the number of salespeople on staff at some of the top tech companies …

Company
Number of Salespeople
1-Year Growth
138,188
183%
68,570
346%
31,551
10%
15,857
15%

So it’s no wonder there are recruiters who specialize in software sales.

But how do you know which software sales recruiters are the best?

Especially when generalist recruiting firms claim to specialize in software sales, but they’ve really just put up a landing page on their website to take advantage of the trend.

In this post, we’ll introduce four software sales recruiting firms that really do specialize in software sales.

In our experience, these firms have the best software sales recruiters:

  1. TheLions
  2. Rainmakers
  3. Betts
  4. 80Twenty

1. TheLions

TheLions claims to be the “#1 USA talent agency for technology sales.” They specialize in working with VC-backed tech startups. The Lions has connected 1,000s of salespeople to over 180 startups.

TheLions is one of the few recruiting firms that focuses solely on recruiting for sales roles at tech companies.

These are some of the software companies that TheLions has recruited for: GitHub, Dropbox, MuleSoft, Clearbit, Lattice, RapidAPI, SurveyMonkey, Udemy, Vercel, Optimizely, Segment, Samsara, Amplitude, Box, and more.

2. Rainmakers

Rainmakers is a little different than traditional recruiting firms. They offer a recruiting platform exclusively for salespeople. The salesperson creates their unique sales profile (hiring requirements, compensation, etc.) on the platform, then tech companies “bid” on the candidate profiles.

The Rainmakers website makes it look like they only offer the platform and no traditional recruiting services, but if you go to the Rainmakers LinkedIn, there are “Talent Managers” (a.k.a., recruiters) on staff. If you’re applying for software sales jobs, you can reach out to these recruiters and they’ll help you to find a job, even if that means they’ll just assist you with using the Rainmakers platform.

Like TheLions, Rainmakers focuses exclusively on recruiting for tech sales.

These are some of the software companies that Rainmakers has recruited for: Freshworks, Envoy, Dialpad, Guru, Kandji, Modern Health, NextRoll, Nylas, Sendoso, and more.

3. Betts Recruiting

Betts is probably our favorite software sales recruiting firm. ❤️

In addition to their top-tier recruiting services, they also publish an annual compensation guide with data for tech sales compensation. It’s required reading if you’re applying for software sales jobs and trying to figure out what level of compensation you should be targeting.

Like Rainmakers, Betts also offers a recruiting platform, Betts Connect. Betts says, “The platform offers access to our pre-vetted, active candidate pools. We have hundreds of the top tech companies on the platform with companies making upwards of 50 hires per year through Connect.”

And if that’s not enough, Betts still operates a traditional recruiting model with dedicated software sales recruiters. Betts says, “We combined the best of both a recruiting agency and a recruiting platform to ensure our clients hit their hiring goals.” If you go to the Betts LinkedIn, there are “Recruiters” on staff.

These are some of the software companies that Betts has recruited for: Checkr, Workato, Skydio, Justworks, Omada, Argyle, RapidAPI, Cisco, Grammarly, Rippling, TripActions, and more.

4. 80Twenty

80Twenty picked their name because they claim to deliver “the top 20% talent that drives 80% of the results.”

Even though 80Twenty isn’t exclusively focused on tech sales (they recruit for marketing and creative roles and they recruit in some non-tech industries), we’ve still included them in this list because 80Twenty is one of the highest-rated recruiting firms on Yelp (5 stars with 185 reviews) and Google (5 stars with 133 reviews).

Also, on the “Industries We Serve” page on the 80Twenty website, 6 out of the 12 industries listed are tech-related: Startups, Technology Companies, SaaS & Software, FinTech, IA / VR, Blockchain.

These are the software companies that 80Twenty has recruited for: Facebook, Square, Pinterest, Airbnb, PayPal, NerdWallet, and more.

Which recruiting firm is right for you?

TheLions and Rainmakers are the two recruiting firms on the list that focus exclusively on tech sales, although their target geography is mostly limited to San Francisco.

Betts and 80Twenty are larger recruiting firms. They recruit for roles other than sales and for industries other than tech (but both firms have tech sales as one of their main specialties).

In terms of geography, Betts and 80Twenty are national recruiting firms. Betts has offices in San Francisco, New York, Austin, Chicago, and Los Angeles. 80Twenty recruits in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, San Jose, and Orange County.

Also, the team at Break Into Tech Sales has relationships with a few really stellar individual software sales recruiters. If you’d like an introduction to these recruiters, please send us a message here.

How to work with software sales recruiters to find a job

If you’re looking for a job in software sales, it’s a good idea to work with recruiters.

Click here to learn how to reach out to software sales recruiters on LinkedIn.

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