Sales vs recruiting as a career?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Long term, sales - preferably in a niche that creates a book of business. Starting off, recruiting at an agency is a fantastic way to learn business acumen and how the world works. More tolerable when expenses are low and you are commission only. Ceiling on recruiting is probably $200K for an individual contributor non-partner. Sales the sky is the limit. Recruited 2008-2016, selling tech since 2016.

The sky is the limit in recruiting, and recruiters can work for themselves pretty easily as there are really no overhead costs. That means you take the whole fee for yourself.

Recruiting doesn't scale beyond a certain point, especially if you are on your own. One can only handle so many reqs at a time. Even at the upper end, pulling 25% of $400K base salaries, you are only doing 1, maybe 2 placements a month - you are making $500K to $1M. Top enterprise sales reps can 2 or 3X that in a good year.

Today’s enterprise sales reps are not making that unless they got very lucky with equity at the right company when it was a startup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[img]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Long term, sales - preferably in a niche that creates a book of business. Starting off, recruiting at an agency is a fantastic way to learn business acumen and how the world works. More tolerable when expenses are low and you are commission only. Ceiling on recruiting is probably $200K for an individual contributor non-partner. Sales the sky is the limit. Recruited 2008-2016, selling tech since 2016.

The sky is the limit in recruiting, and recruiters can work for themselves pretty easily as there are really no overhead costs. That means you take the whole fee for yourself.

Recruiting doesn't scale beyond a certain point, especially if you are on your own. One can only handle so many reqs at a time. Even at the upper end, pulling 25% of $400K base salaries, you are only doing 1, maybe 2 placements a month - you are making $500K to $1M. Top enterprise sales reps can 2 or 3X that in a good year.

Today’s enterprise sales reps are not making that unless they got very lucky with equity at the right company when it was a startup.

If you blow out quota, you can definitely make that. Go ask a hyperscaler data center sales rep what his W2 was last year. Point is, sales scales because deal sizes are elastic - recruiting fees not so much.

[Anonymous]

Ive done both.

I started recruiting at an agency for 5 years. I was recruiting for a specific niche industry and making between $90-120k/yr.

Then there was a tech start up in that same industry that had a sales opening. I jumped and made $100k my first year, $120k my second, $135k my third, and $175k my 4th. I also have equity. Honestly, I got burnt out from the changing quotas and comp plans, having to work all the time to push deals through, getting ghosted, etc.

A non-commission based role opened at the same company and I jumped on it. Im much happier making $150k and having my nights and weekends free.

My equity will be worth about $150k likely. So not totally life changing but a good windfall. The most important thing for me is that I love the company and mission, truly respect and learn from my coworkers, and have a great work life balance.

I'll likely look for another start up once we're acquired

[Anonymous]

bump

[Anonymous]

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