If you were thinking of going to that new, expensive restaurant in town and knew of someone who had just been there, would you ask for their review or rely solely on the content in their web page? The chef calls it his finest culinary project to date!... The professional food photography looks amaaazing!... You’d probably ask that acquaintance for their take, right? Why not apply that same logic to reference checks?

One of the greatest challenges we hear from hiring managers is “How can I be sure I’m hiring the right person for the job?”. The desire to make the right decision, as well as trepidation about making a bad hire, can lead to a prolonged hiring process (multiple weigh-ins, aptitude tests, role plays, etc.). These delays often mean losing a top contender for the job.

A critical component of building diverse and inclusive organizations is around recruiting and hiring, and it often presents one of the greatest challenges. “How can we build a more diverse candidate pool?” “How can we diminish drop off through the hiring process?” and, ultimately, “How can we improve our retention statistics?” The implications are significant, not only relevant to fulfilling a corporate commitment, but fundamentally impacting long-term employer brand.

Melissa Hatter has been building and leading Customer Success and Account Management Teams for the past 20+ years. Based in NYC, she currently leads the Enterprise Customer Success Team at Stripe. Before Stripe, she held leadership roles in account management, customer success, and operations at large companies such as NBC and small and medium-tech start-ups. Prior role include Head of Customer Success at Leaf, VP of Customer Success at Emissary, and Head of Customer Success and COO at Frankly Media (now Engine Media).

Our conversation with Rebecca touches on: data that bring together the different departments and the ‘why’ behind the numbers, the challenge of story-telling in the feature-led world of SaaS, and how to assess marketing leadership talent in the interview process. Read on for our conversation!

Our team at CFW has spent 47- years working with sales leaders across industries. In a world where everything is uncertain, one thing has remained constant: sales organizations change rapidly, and that change is accelerated by sales technology. In our most recent conversation with Jonathan Hume, a Business Development Advisor who has spent the last 15+ years in sales leadership, we discuss what it takes to set up the structure, launch, grow, and support a successful sales organization.

Employer branding is the buzz phrase often heard among business chatter these days. You’ve been told that you should manage yours, but what exactly is employer branding? Why should you care about it? And what can you do to manage and optimize your employer brand? Once you gain an understanding of the basics of employer brand, you will grasp just how crucial it is to your company and what you can do to get started.

For many businesses, Q1 is synonymous with hiring. Budgets are big, and companies are eager to beat last year’s revenue; this means bringing in more clients, which means bringing in more employees. However, once you’ve gone through the hiring process and secured your new employees, your job is far from over. The first 3 months (and sometimes longer!) are crucial to the success or failure of a new hire. We recently outlined the structure and benefits of a good training program, and now we’d like to provide a few easy pointers on how to effectively manage a new employee. We asked Dave Rowe, US Head of Sales at Institutional Investor, for his advice, and below are a few tips for successfully onboarding so that you don’t find yourself back at square one of the hiring process mid-way through Q2!