100%
of hiring goal achieved, up from 50%
Case study: sales and go-to-market talent
How SecureVision helped NerdWallet scale go-to-market hiring
NerdWallet’s go-to-market hiring plan outgrew what its internal recruiting team was staffed to run. SecureVision embedded a recruiter inside that team as an Embedded Recruiting / RPO engagement, adding capacity across multiple in-office markets without lowering the bar.
Client
51%
reduction in time-to-fill
55
hires started
A hyper-growth sales organization, hiring at enterprise volume
- Company size
- 700+ employees
- Product
- Personal finance app and platform
- Hiring volume
- 100+ go-to-market hires per year
- Work model
- In-office, multi-city
- Internal recruiting team
- 5 recruiters
- SecureVision team
- 1 embedded recruiter
- Engagement type
- Embedded Recruiting / RPO
Internal recruiting could not keep pace with the hiring plan
NerdWallet’s internal team was staffed to run steady-state hiring, not to support 100+ go-to-market hires per year across multiple United States offices at once.
As volume increased, velocity slowed. A return-to-office policy narrowed an already competitive sales talent pool even further.
Leadership needed a partner who could add real hiring capacity: sourcing, screening, and closing candidates at enterprise scale, without lowering the bar.
78days
average time-to-fill before SecureVision engaged
50%
of annual hiring plan achieved at the point of engagement
We recruit sales talent like people who have carried a quota
SecureVision’s search practice is built on a simple premise: enterprise sales experience and startup sales experience are two different jobs. We screen for the one that predicts success in a company like NerdWallet.
Full-cycle over siloed
We prioritize candidates who have run the entire sales motion, prospecting through close. That is a different thing from a rep whose pipeline was handed to them by inbound and sales development teams at a legacy enterprise brand.
Matched on the numbers that matter
We calibrate every search against deal size, sales cycle length, average contract value, the company size a candidate has sold into, and buyer persona, rather than a generic SaaS-experience keyword match.
Screened for startup behavior fit
Proactive, low-ego, comfortable in ambiguity, and able to sit in an executive strategy call one day and a cold-call block the next. This is the profile that survives and compounds inside a growth-stage organization.
Embedded, not outsourced
Our recruiter worked inside NerdWallet’s own applicant tracking system and hiring manager workflows, as part of their internal recruiting team rather than as an outside vendor.
Roles supported
- Sales Development Representative
- Senior Account Executive
- Senior Sales Operations Analyst
- Strategic Sales Lead II
- Sales Trainer
- Project Manager, Sales Revenue
- Sales Manager / Senior Sales Manager
- Director of Sales Talent, Enablement, and Development
How the engagement ran
Monthly candidate coffee chats ran throughout the engagement, to cut post-offer fallout.
Weekly performance reporting tracked progress against the hiring plan.
More volume, faster, without losing quality
One embedded recruiter worked as part of NerdWallet’s internal recruiting team. Time-to-fill went from 78 days to 38, a 51% reduction in time-to-fill, and the year finished at 100% of hiring goal achieved, up from 50%.
Mike Ross, Senior Director, SMB Sales & Operations
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with SecureVision at NerdWallet. SecureVision has a refreshing recruiting style. They’re a collaborator first and hunter second, making sure that you are filling positions, not just interviewing candidates. With SecureVision working on my open headcount, I know that I can leverage my time to spend it working with my team on our most profitable tasks, and that my next colleague is only an interview away.”
Where to go next
NerdWallet’s was a go-to-market hiring problem, solved by putting a recruiter inside the company rather than beside it. If that is the shape of your problem, Embedded Recruiting explains how the engagement works, and sales recruiting covers how we approach go-to-market searches. You can also read all of our case studies.
FAQ
Can one embedded recruiter really support a hiring plan this size?
Here, yes. One embedded recruiter worked as part of NerdWallet’s internal recruiting team of 5 recruiters, against a plan of 100+ go-to-market hires per year, and supported 55 hires started. An embedded recruiter is not a contractor working alone: they work inside your systems and your hours, with the firm’s process, sourcing, and outreach technology behind them.
How do you screen sales candidates differently from a generalist recruiter?
We treat enterprise sales experience and startup sales experience as two different jobs, and screen for the one that fits your stage. Every search is calibrated against deal size, sales cycle length, average contract value, the company size a candidate has sold into, and buyer persona, rather than a generic SaaS-experience keyword match. We prioritize people who have run the entire sales motion, prospecting through close.
Do you hire individual contributors, or leadership as well?
Both. On this engagement the roles ran from sales development representatives and senior account executives through sales managers and a director of sales talent, enablement, and development, and included sales operations, sales training, and project management inside the revenue team.
We already have internal recruiters. Where does an embedded partner fit?
Alongside them, not instead of them. Growth-stage and larger organizations often run a combination of internal recruiting and embedded support, which is what happened here: one embedded recruiter inside a team of 5 recruiters. The embedded recruiter takes the volume the internal team is not staffed to absorb, and works in the same systems, so nothing is handed back and forth.
Does this work for in-office roles, or only remote hiring?
Both. NerdWallet hired in-office across multiple markets, which is the harder version of the problem, because a return-to-office requirement narrows the pool a search can draw from. We recruit for on-site and remote roles, our customer base is globally distributed, and we can work inside your local time zones.