Setup guide: recruiters and staffing

Who you are reaching

Two different people, so make two audiences under Prospects and never mix them. Hiring managers post about team problems. Candidates post about career moves. One audience for both finds neither.

Audience 1: hiring managers (your clients)

• Their Job Titles: VP of Sales, Head of Sales, Sales Director, Chief Revenue Officer, VP of Engineering, Head of Engineering, Founder, CEO. Swap in the functions you place for.
• Words to Watch For: hiring, time to hire, open role, growing the team, backfill, headcount, quota, ramp.
• People to Skip: Recruiter, Talent Acquisition, Staffing, Sourcer, HR Business Partner.
• Target Country: the country you place in.

Audience 2: candidates

• Their Job Titles: the titles you place. For sales recruiting: Account Executive, Sales Development Representative, Enterprise Account Executive, Sales Manager.
• Words to Watch For: open to work, new role, next chapter, laid off, career move, interviewing.
• People to Skip: Recruiter, Talent Acquisition, Career Coach.

Train Allen

Bio: one sentence on what you place and for whom, one on your style. Rules that help recruiters: "never pitch a role in a comment", "never say I have the perfect candidate", "no congratulations-only comments". Comment goal: start a conversation. Length: short.

Sample comments

On a VP of Sales posting about a rep who quit after ninety days:

• Add insight: "The ninety-day mark is where most of the mis-hires show, and it is almost never skill. It is the gap between what the interview described and what the Tuesday afternoon actually looks like. Curious whether the role changed between offer and start."
• Ask a question: "Was the ramp plan written down anywhere, or carried in someone's head? I ask because the ones that walk at day ninety usually had a different picture of month one than their manager did."
• Share an example: "Saw this twice last quarter at two different companies. Both times the rep had been sold on a 60/40 inbound mix that turned out to be 20/80. The fix was not a better interview, it was an honest job description."

Autopilot

Five a day, weekdays. Tick both audiences. For your first two weeks, read the morning email and remove anything that sounds like a pitch; Allen learns from every removal.

Watchlist

Every hiring manager at your top twenty target accounts, plus every placed candidate who is now a manager. Upload your LinkedIn connections CSV and prune to those.

The first DM

When a hiring manager replies, do not pitch. "Thanks for the reply on the ramp post. The written plan point came up with two other VPs this month. If it is ever useful, I can share the one-page version we use with clients; no strings." Allen drafts something like this for you in Pipeline; edit it to sound like you and send it the same day.