Case Study

Accelerating Sales Talent Acquisition in a Competitive Market

Key Results

Core Challenges: Attracting Skilled Talent to Meet Regional Hiring Needs

	Competing for Skills: The TA team faced competition from tech companies in AI, machine learning and cloud computing. To stand out, Toshiba needed a strategic partner to help highlight its strong brand reputation, trusted customer relationships and commitment to innovation.
	Localizing Hiring Strategies: The client’s national TA approach missed opportunities to adjust for local market conditions and candidate motivations (i.e., reflecting the local cost of living and marketing a role’s unique qualities in each community). To overcome this, the client needed a strategic partner to help emphasize how candidates could grow their careers in local communities with the support of a large, national company.
	Vetting Candidates Efficiently: The client lost valuable time sifting through candidate profiles manually. This opened pathways for refining qualification targets and advanced screening processes to filter out unsuitable applicants.

Path to Success: Tailored Strategies to Elevate TA

	In-Depth Market Research: We relied on our vast industry and client expertise to identify which factors attract top sales professionals and how to market the unique aspects of each role in different markets. By using advanced data analysis tools and sophisticated talent trend reporting, we tailored job requisitions and created AI-driven recruitment workflows that identified and resolved any obstacles before they occurred.
	Targeted Marketing Strategies: We designed marketing campaigns aligned with local candidate motivations to attract the right sales talent in each market. In rural areas, we emphasized the positive impact candidates could have on pillars of their local communities like hospitals and schools, while showcasing entrepreneurial growth potential in urban areas.
	A Rigorous Candidate Vetting Process: We partnered with Toshiba’s leadership to set requirements across locations, created unique selling points for each office and aligned qualifications with hiring managers’ needs during intake calls. Our screening process minimized recalibration, filtered out unsuitable candidates, ensured that only the most qualified talent was presented and reduced time-to-offer.
	Data-Driven Compensation Enhancement: We tapped into our proprietary data integration solution, Sevayo® Insights, to analyze compensation targets by merging the client's internal data with external market benchmarks. This approach let us provide comprehensive and tailored analysis and recommendations. Working with the client, we optimized compensation disclosures across job boards while ensuring compliance with salary transparency laws. This approach balanced presenting enough detail on commission models to draw in sales talent without revealing too much to competitors to potentially mirror for their own compensation strategies.

Results: Accelerated Sales Hiring and Talent Quality

• 40% Reduction in Time-to-Accept: Cut the acceptance time from 63 days to 38 days, surpassing the 60-day target significantly

• 25% Increase in Sourced Leads: Improved sourcing efforts, which led to a larger and more diverse candidate pool

• 8% Reduction in Requisition Aging: Decreased the volume of aged requisitions from 32% to 24%

• 3.7:1 Submission-to-Offer Acceptance Ratio: Exceeded the 5:1 target ratio for qualified candidate submissions (i.e., those who passed our rigorous vetting process) to accepted offers

Driving these results had an exponential business impact. By reducing the time-to-accept ratio and improving candidate quality, we helped Toshiba activate sales talent into new and existing markets faster. This hastened team performance and directly impacted the company's bottom line. The outcome is a supportive, dynamic environment where sales professionals can thrive and build satisfying careers.