Whenever I’m talking to companies about their recruitment challenges, one area that comes up time and time again is recruiting enterprise salespeople, particularly in the tech sector.
My guest this week is someone who can give us a hiring manager’s perspective from one of the most competitive locations in the world for this type of talent.
Angie Jongejan is a Director of Sales for SurveyMonkey in San Mateo, California. It was great to hear her share some insights into SurveyMonkey’s approach to recruiting and retention in their highly competitive talent market.
In the interview, we discuss:
- SurveyMonkey’s three main recruiting challenges
- The importance of providing a fantastic candidate experience
- Ensuring alignment between the recruitment team and hiring managers
- Sourcing jams
- The role of surveys and acting on feedback
Angie also shares her thoughts on what is next for SurveyMonkey.
Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts
Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from SurveyMonkey for HR. Do you want to learn how to build meaningful connections between people and data? Join me and thousands of leaders and experts across hr, marketing, customer success, market research and education for the online event of the year. On September 18th and 19th, SurveyMonkey’s second annual Curiosity Conference will feature 20 sessions and endless opportunities to learn new tricks for using feedback to make data driven decisions, take action and deliver impact. Register now at www.surveymonkey.com future. That’s www.surveymonkey.com Future.
Matt Alder [00:01:08]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 204 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Whenever I’m talking to companies about their recruiting challenges, one area that comes up time and time again is recruiting enterprise salespeople, particularly in the tech sector. My guest this week is someone who can give us a hiring manager’s perspective from one of the most competitive locations in the world for this type of talent. Angie Jongejan is a director of sales for SurveyMonkey in San Mateo, California. In our interview, she shares some insights into SurveyMonkey’s approach to recruiting and retention in this highly competitive market. Hi Angie and welcome to the podcast.
Angie Jongejan [00:01:55]:
Thank you so much, hi Matt.
Matt Alder [00:01:56]:
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show.
Matt Alder [00:01:59]:
Could you just introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Angie Jongejan [00:02:02]:
Sure thing. My name is Angie Jongejan and I am a director of sales here at SurveyMonkey. I lead a team of account executives and sales managers and we tackle the mid market segment within SurveyMonkey.
Matt Alder [00:02:16]:
Now I would imagine that your team is always growing or you’re always sort of looking for, you know, looking, looking for new people to join. What kind of, you know, how does that pan out and what kind of recruiting challenges do you face in your role?
Angie Jongejan [00:02:32]:
Great question. Yes, we have been growing a bunch over the last year since I’ve been at SurveyMonkey and even before that and have experienced a lot of challenges along that along that way. I think the main challenges I’ll call out are there are three main challenges I would call out. So the first challenge is hiring diverse talent. So we have 13 account executives on my team and I only have two female, two females right now. And obviously when I say diverse, I’m talking about a lot more than just gender. But that, that has been a specific challenge for, for me and for our team. Another challenge has been we are based in the Bay Area in San Mateo and we are in a very competitive market, so it’s tough to find talent and it’s tough to compete within this area for good talent. So that requires lots of different tactics. And it does also mean that we have folks that also leave. We try and keep them as long as we can, but folks do leave, given the opportunity in this area. And then the last challenge I’ll call out is it generally takes longer than we’d like to bring on new folks. And so we are always looking for ways to speed up the process.
Matt Alder [00:03:56]:
Could you talk us through some of the ways that you’ve overcome those challenges?
Angie Jongejan [00:04:01]:
Sure. I can speak to a couple ways. And, you know, I think there’s a lot more I could learn as well in terms of hiring diverse talent. A couple of the different things we’ve tried so far are we’ve. We’ve done targeted outreach to diverse talent from folks within our leadership team. So I’ve sent emails, my VP has sent emails to prospects in order to try and kind of show the diversity we have on our leadership team and on our team in general and to potentially get interest going. That’s one. Another is we’ve attended a recruiting event in the area for sales folks, and then we’ve also done a sourcing jam with folks on the team with a focus on kind of thinking through this desire for more diverse talent. So those are three ways we tried to increase the pool of folks, but I think there’s a lot more we could be doing there in terms of the competitive landscape here. We have a really wonderful culture at SurveyMonkey. So there’s two pieces to trying to get people really excited about SurveyMonkey and get them to choose SurveyMonkey. I think one is providing a really, really fantastic experience for candidates. So sure that we’re thoughtful about the communication we have with those candidates, the ways that we are highlighting the culture here at SurveyMonkey and how sales and our sales team might look different here at SurveyMonkey. Again, we are providing a really fantastic experience and really kind of also acknowledging the need for us to sell them on why they should choose SurveyMonkey.
Matt Alder [00:05:48]:
Following on from that, as you’ve been growing the team, what are the sort of the key lessons that you’ve learned as you’ve sort of been through that process and, you know, been trying to overcome these challenges?
Angie Jongejan [00:05:59]:
One major lesson that I’ve seen is the need to be aligned across kind of the recruiting team as well as the interview panel. So having really clear expectations for what we’re looking for in candidates what are the needs to have and nice to haves and making sure we’re really clear on who is evaluating candidates for what part of those expectations and then again, making sure kind of things are moving quickly. And from our perspective, we move things along as quickly as possible. And that takes strong alignment with all of those folks I just mentioned.
Matt Alder [00:06:41]:
I suppose this is a fairly obvious question to ask, to ask someone working at SurveyMonkey, but I’m really interested in, you know, what role do surveys and gathering feedback play in your sort of specific recruiting activity?
Angie Jongejan [00:06:55]:
Great question. So we send a survey out to all candidates that go through our process with the goal to gather that feedback and understand that experience from a candidate’s perspective and make sure that we’re iterating and improving on our process. That’s really critical in helping coach, you know, especially new folks to the interview process on the conversations they’re having with these candidates and making sure that, you know, it’s in line with where we want them focused and that, you know, wherever they’re, you know, there is an experience that was not positive that we’re relaying that feedback to the appropriate folks. So I think, you know, the, the use of those surveys is really critical and making sure we’re providing the best candidate experience we can.
Matt Alder [00:07:42]:
Fantastic stuff. And was there sort of anything that’s surprised you in the, in the feedback that’s, that’s come back?
Angie Jongejan [00:07:51]:
You know, I think that there’s been. Most of it has been overwhelmingly positive and has been really complimentary of the process and the communication and the speed. You know, I think in one, in one situation, I think someone was put off by a question that was asked and that was an important opportunity for us to go back to that interviewer and have a conversation around other questions that would be more, more appropriate for this situation.
Matt Alder [00:08:17]:
And do you kind of survey all the way through the process or is it just people who’ve come for an interview or is it people who apply? How do you. What’s the sort of cutoff point for surveying people?
Angie Jongejan [00:08:28]:
Great question. It’s everybody that’s gone through the process, I think specifically hiring manager interviews and beyond. So hiring manager on sites, acceptances all across that depending on where they end in that funnel, they will receive a survey.
Matt Alder [00:08:45]:
A bit earlier on, you sort of talked about the, the SurveyMonkey culture and how you were communicating, you know, how it was, how it was different and, you know, getting people to join and stay, stay, stay at the business. Tell us a bit more about the culture at SurveyMonkey. You know, how is it different? What, what do you guys, you know, what, what do you guys have to offer that’s unique?
Angie Jongejan [00:09:09]:
Great question. So I think one thing that’s really critical in setting the tone for culture in an organization is a couple main things. It’s having really clear mission and values that the company looks to uphold on a daily basis and holds folks accountable too. And I think that survey has done a really nice job of creating those values and weaving those values and the communication of those values throughout its communication within the organization. So whether it’s our troop town halls that happen on a bi weekly basis, whether it’s email communication that’s coming out or initiatives that are being started, it’s weaving those values throughout that communication that I think keeps the values top of mind and again sets an expectation for how we look to treat each other across the organization on a daily basis. It’s also part of our rewards and recognition program. And so I think that again is a daily recognition of how we are upholding those values and treating each other through the collaborative work that we do. So I think that’s one. I think it’s really critical that you see those values displayed from the leadership team down throughout the organization. So I would say that our leadership team does a really great job of living those values on a daily basis. And so I think that it’s felt throughout the organization. And so I would say those, you know, and then within the sales team that we have, you know, we are very focused on, on accountability, on teamwork and collaboration and making sure that not only are we driving towards our own goals, that we are helping those around us to also get to their goals. So making sure that there is best practice sharing and a focus on those around us and how we can help to mentor, teach and support those that, that need, that need, that support.
Matt Alder [00:11:08]:
You mentioned that you’d used sourcing jams to help with your sort of diversity challenge. Could you sort of talk us through what that actually involves?
Angie Jongejan [00:11:19]:
Sure. So we, you know, I think a lot of different companies do something similar, but we’ve on multiple occasions gotten all of our account executives together in order to dive deep into their own networks and identify potential candidates that we could reach out to. The last one we did ended up driving 100, I think over 100 candidate leads to our recruiting team for them to start reaching out to. In some cases folks, AES did the reach out themselves to those candidates to warm up the conversation. And in other instances, the recruiting team led the outreach for those candidates. So it is still in progress. So we’ll see if it does actually drive any actual hires. But we’ve seen really strong success with with referrals historically and are really hopeful that it will help this time around too.
Matt Alder [00:12:16]:
Final question, what’s next?
Matt Alder [00:12:17]:
What are you most looking forward to in the next sort of, you know, 12 to 24 months?
Angie Jongejan [00:12:22]:
Yeah, that’s a, that’s a good question. So we at SurveyMonkey just announced the acquisition of Get Feedback yesterday, or I think it was Monday. And in March we announced the acquisition of Usabill. And so it’s really interesting to watch this 20 year old company that is just over the last year gotten really with the IPO and with other investments that we’re making, get really more aggressive in growing the company and finding new ways to do that and finding new ways to bring value to our customers. So it’s been super exciting to see this journey and be part of this journey and I think it will be amazing to watch and learn how we successfully integrate both acquisitions into the fold of SurveyMonkey to drive value for the business and our shareholders and customers.
Matt Alder [00:13:17]:
Angie, thank you very much for talking to me.
Angie Jongejan [00:13:19]:
Thank you so much, Matt. Great chatting with you too.
Matt Alder [00:13:21]:
My thanks to Angie Jongejan. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts or via your podcasting app of choice. The show also has its own dedicated app which you can find by searching for recruiting feature in your app store. If you’re a Spotify or Pandora user, you can also find the show there. You can find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com. on that site, you can subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
