HireDNA

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I run the sales team for a technology company in the BI space focused on retail and restaurants.

What challenge were you trying to address with HireDNA?

Initially, we needed help with candidate screening for sales roles. Subsequently, we also engaged them to do some recruiting for us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

HireDNA does a lot of pre-screening and competency testing for different roles within sales organizations and account management. They incorporated that into an executive candidate search. They provide pre-screened candidates for us. We may be engaging them for online training in the near future.

What is the team composition?

We worked with their CEO.

How did you come to work with HireDNA?

We found them through one of our venture investors. We chose them for recruiting after not being excited by the success rate of other recruiters.

How much have you invested with them?

For pre-screening, we spent less than $10,000. For recruiting and screening, we spent more than $10,000. All together it was around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2019, and we have an ongoing contract for pre-screening. Our recruiting contract is complete.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The success metrics are based on sales results. It’s very early on, but the recruits seem to be good choices. Internal feedback about HireDNA has been positive as well.

How did HireDNA perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re one of the most professional organizations I’ve dealt with. We communicate via email and the occasional Zoom conference.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The overall professionalism of the organization stands out. They’re incredibly thorough.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing that comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking for an objective, data-driven, pre-screening organization, they do a great job. It’s a valuable tool that takes some of the emotion out of the hiring process. From a recruitment standpoint, they incorporate their data analytics into the recruiting process which provides a higher level of pre-screening.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a custom software development company based in Maryland that does work throughout the United States. 

What challenge were you trying to address with HireDNA?

We were looking to expand our sales resources. After trying to do this through internal employees, we decided to bring in subject matter experts to handle the recruiting.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were responsible for finding the right type of candidate for our team. Once they found a potential candidate, they did screen testing through a behavioral survey. That was able to narrow our list down to include only the candidates with the highest chance of success. Based on our preferences, they put together personas that aligned with the screen tests. We put together the personas together, thinking about our onboarding process, core KPIs, and activities it takes to be successful here. 

When a candidate matched up correctly, they directed them to me. In those conversations, they gave me lists of strengths and weaknesses as well as any potential problems I may have managing them.    

What is the team composition?

I worked directly with Anwar (Founder).

How did you come to work with HireDNA?

He was recommended to me by a trusted friend in my industry. I hired them based on that referral.  

How much have you invested with them?

We spent under $20,000 on the project. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from around December 2018–February 2019. It took us about three months after we started the project to hire the right candidate for the job.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They did a great job presenting the value of our firm to candidates. We hired someone that is hitting sales quotas and is still with our firm two years later. We’re happy with that. 

How did HireDNA perform from a project management standpoint?

They were organized and put together, communicating through emails, phone calls, and weekly meetings. We were coordinating candidates via spreadsheets, but they’ve created an application that automates that process since then. I appreciated their ability to keep me organized.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

The behavioral surveys were unique and demonstrated a strong understanding of our requirements. Their grasp of the technical sales industry was extremely useful. They were great at listening to our needs and setting up strategies that aligned with our goals. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Overall, I was very satisfied. I’m happy I hired them for this work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ask plenty of questions to make sure candidates fit into your overall strategy. Clarity on plans is important as well.  

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of sales and marketing for Environmental Systems Corporation. Our organization provides a software as a service to a variety of industries that help them monitor and report their air emissions to the EPA.

What challenge were you trying to address with HireDNA?

Our goal was to hire business development managers that fit our market and job requirements.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They took our job scope and reviewed it with us to help them determine how they would go out and source these very specific candidates. We supplied them with job descriptions as well as scorecards on how we were going to measure the candidates we interviewed.

From there, they performed a sales assessment for our team members based on the criteria of our business. Once candidates were sourced who met a threshold of qualifications for me to review, HireDNA would send them to me after they had been properly vetted to be interviewed over the phone.

What is the team composition?

There are typically 1–2 different people from their company working with us at any given time.

How did you come to work with HireDNA?

I have been using sourcing and recruiting organizations for about 30 years to find sales and business development people. I came across them on the internet and was impressed by the processes that they claimed to have in place, so I reached out to give them a try.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their services has been around $250,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first worked together in November 2015 and are still finding candidates through them today.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Close to 85%-90% of the candidates that we receive from HireDNA are individuals we could have hired and were at least a pretty good fit for our company. Over the years that we’ve been working with them, they’ve only gotten better and better at finding good matches, and in fact, the last three candidates we got from them were all successfully brought on board.

Beyond that, in all of that time, we have never had a miss-hire, which is an even more significant standard to hit. Everyone that we’ve brought on board has been a perfect fit for our organization, which has saved us a lot of time and money. Those new people have all effectively contributed to our revenue goals within three months, so the indirect of their results have been excellent as well.

How did HireDNA perform from a project management standpoint?

They are good about following up and finding out how a candidate did during an interview so that they can learn from the process, as well as at passing information back to the candidate if it didn’t work out for us so that they are at least getting some feedback as well.

I’ve also found them to be good at managing their time with me and making sure I was aware of what they were working on and how many people were in the pipeline at any given time. We typically handle communication via email, although we usually start projects with phone calls as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team really listens to what the client is asking for and what type of candidates they want. They ask a tremendous amount of questions about the business, it’s leadership, and the role so that they have a clear and concise message with which to bring in candidates. The end result of that is that I don’t receive nearly as many candidates who are not a waste of our time and resources.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything that they’ve performed for us as far as filling the jobs has been right on point. I would like if they could broaden the type of jobs that they can recruit for, but that’s not something I would criticize them for.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Pick up the phone and have a conversation with them. Too many things can be lost in translation over email, and especially when nailing down the finer points of hiring qualifications it is incredibly important for both sides to be completely understood.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a market research firm focused on multicultural consumers in the US. We help companies understand Hispanic, African American, and Asian consumers to create culturally relevant and culturally sensitive marketing campaigns. I'm a co-founder.

What challenge were you trying to address with HireDNA?

We first engaged a business development representative from them. The core of our marketing and sales efforts is content, and we wanted business development representatives with B2B experience.

What was the scope of their involvement?

As we expanded our sales team, we used them three times, and we recently hired a sales manager to manage our business development reps. Hiring is difficult, but they help us define roles, create job postings, and test potential candidates.

What is the team composition?

We typically have one point of contact. I'm not sure how big the rest of their team is.

How did you come to work with HireDNA?

Of the three or four companies we considered, HireDNA understood our company and our needs the best.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent about $114,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

The collaboration started in February 2013, and we still work with them on an ad hoc basis. We go to them whenever we have a sales recruitment need.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Our company has doubled our revenue every year since the start of our collaboration. A lot of that is driven by the sales team HireDNA helped us recruit. Candidates are very well aligned with our needs, and we're very pleased with the team members they've helped us hire.

How did HireDNA perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform very well. They help us get a sense of each role, and their process is great. After an initial call at the start of each assignment, most of our communication is through email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They find the best candidate for each role, and everyone they find suits the salary range we have available. That really differentiates them from other sales recruitment firms.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We've worked with them for a long time, and it would be great to have more preferential pricing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear idea about the roles you're hiring. We always have the most success when we have a clear idea of who we want.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a television news show. We do online campaigns and video production for our clients to help them gain national exposure.

What challenge were you trying to address with HireDNA?

We wanted to help our sales and advertising team grow their skills to show the value of our product to clients. We also hoped to hire new sales members.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They set up a comprehensive training program and set up a schedule of short modules for our team that helped reinforce that training. Our team took surveys so HireDNA could assess their skills and determine what would be best to work on and grow in. It was an in-depth, year-long outline that helped us improve our sales team. They also did a full sales playbook that helped us find ways to improve our process.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one main point of contact. He was our facilitator the whole time.

How did you come to work with HireDNA?

We considered several companies that do this sort of training. HireDNA had a comprehensive plan and were much more methodical in their approach. We liked their long-term tactic and decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent between $50,000-$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We hired them in December 2018. The engagement is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Not only has our sales team improved their sales, they've also become better at their jobs and in their careers. They have valuable tools and skills that can translate to various roles within the company and beyond.

How did HireDNA perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate mostly through phone or email. If we ever have a question, our point of contact responds right away. He's very open about interacting with our whole team. His training fits our unique needs, and he's very responsive to our feedback.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their personal touch and the comprehensive, customized nature of their work are impressive. They make sure that everything they do is personalized to our needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I love working with them, and there's nothing I can think of that they should change.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a general plan in place, but listen to their ideas. They're there to help you, and the more you communicate with them, the more benefit you will gain from the collaboration.