AgWorldis an agriculture technology organisationbased in Australia, who recently opened an office in the US. They offer farm management app-basedsolutions for growers across the globe.AgWorldwas established in 2008 however are experiencing great levels of growth in the US and at the time wewere working with them for this role they had a team of 50+ globally in 2019.
The Challenge
AgWorldwere looking for a Senior Sales Executive to pick up their US business as part of the expansion of the company. This individual would take over allsales activity in the US, taking this on from an overworked team memberwhose role was diversifying.
They had used a number of other recruiters unsuccessfully, in fact when wefirst approached them they responded that they were ‘sick of recruiters’ andwouldn’t use any in the future. They felt they had wasted a lot of money withrecruitment agencies that promised a lot but weren’t delivering. After manyconversations they said they would try us out, but this really was their last trywith recruitment companies.
We clearly had our work cut out, our client had a tough brief and lowexpectations of our service. We really needed to blow them away so Phil andthe team took on the challenge.
Our Actions
We started by completing the assignment brief with theAgWorldteam and drilled into what the ideal candidate looked like. It resulted in quite adifficult candidate profile, someone who has experience both in agricultureand in software. This combined experience is quite tough to find as the twoindustries don’t tend to come hand in hand and particularly in the US.
Found 123 potential individuals worth speaking to and networking with,from this we interviewed 40 potential candidates that fit the profile andidentified seven to go through to interview process with theAgWorldteam. The client interviewed all seven in a three-stage interview process, and atone point were trying to find roles for five of the seven within the business. Each one fitted the ideal candidate profile and we’re delighted to report thatthe client evensaid ‘they were blown away by the quality of the shortlist’.
While they couldn’t find roles in the business for all five candidates, they didend up offering and hiring two individuals who were stand out candidates. They had more direct experience and they were offered and accepted theroles of Senior Sales Executives covering different regions of the US.