A conversation that comes up often goes something like this. A CEO or CCO knows something isn't working. Customer satisfaction is flat despite a platform investment. Revenue is growing but the cost of that growth is getting higher. Churn is creeping up in a segment that used to look solid. The board has noticed. Something needs to change.
What that something is, specifically, they're not yet sure. And so the conversation that should result in a clear hiring brief instead stalls at the question: which role would actually fix this?
It's a more common situation than it might seem, and it's one where most recruitment firms aren't much help, because most recruitment firms only get involved once you've already decided what you're looking for. We think that's too late in the process.
The problem with writing the job description first
When a business is under pressure to hire, the default move is to open a job description based on the role that feels most obviously missing. If customer satisfaction scores are low, the answer seems to be a Head of CX. If campaigns aren't converting, it seems like a Marketing Operations Manager is the gap. If sales are slower than they should be, the board tends to push for a VP Sales.
Sometimes that instinct is right. Often it isn't. What looks like a CX problem is sometimes a data problem, because nobody owns the customer data well enough to know where journeys are actually breaking down. What looks like a marketing conversion problem is sometimes a platform problem, a MarTech stack that's been configured once and never properly maintained. What looks like a sales problem is sometimes a go-to-market problem, the motion isn't broken, the addressable market or the pricing structure is.
Hiring the wrong type of person well is significantly more expensive than taking a few extra weeks to work out which type of person you actually need.
The cost of a misdirected hire isn't just the salary. It's the six to twelve months before it becomes clear the person can't solve the underlying problem because the role was designed around a symptom rather than the cause.
Three questions that usually clarify the decision
Before arriving at a role title, it helps to work backwards from the outcome you're trying to reach. These three questions are the ones we tend to ask when a client is uncertain about where to start.
What would have to be true in twelve months for this hire to have worked? The answer to this question usually tells you more about the right profile than any job description would. If the answer is "customers are staying longer and our NPS is up," that points toward someone who can understand and own the post-sale journey. If the answer is "our marketing platform is working properly and we're getting reliable data out of it," that points toward a technical specialist, not a strategic leader. If the answer is "we've broken into a new market segment," that points toward a commercial hire with specific network access in that segment, not a RevOps manager.
Is this a strategy problem or an execution problem? Most businesses, when asked directly, can tell the difference. A strategy problem needs someone who can build a new approach from limited information and bring the organisation with them. An execution problem needs someone who has done the specific thing before, in a similar context, and can do it again faster and more reliably than the current team can. These are genuinely different people, and hiring a strategist into an execution seat, or vice versa, is one of the most common and most avoidable hiring mistakes in this space.
Who in the business doesn't currently have a counterpart? In growing businesses, the gap is often visible in where decisions slow down or get made by the wrong person. If your CTO is making platform purchasing decisions because there's no one who understands both the technology and the marketing outcomes, you need a Marketing Technology Architect. If your CEO is the de facto Head of Sales because there's no one credible enough to take ownership of revenue strategy, the gap is commercial leadership. Following where decisions get stuck tends to lead directly to the hire that would unstick them.
Where a specialist search firm helps before the brief is written
The honest answer to "should I use a recruitment agency?" is: it depends on what you're hiring for and how well you understand the available talent market for that role.
For roles where the profile is clear, the market is well-understood, and good candidates are genuinely active, an internal hiring team or a generalist agency can do a reasonable job. For senior, specialist or niche roles in ecosystems like CX, MarTech and Revenue Technology, the dynamic is usually different. The people you want are rarely applying. They're often already doing the job well somewhere else, which means they need to be approached directly, with a specific and credible conversation about why your opportunity is worth considering.
A specialist search firm that knows the relevant market well can also help before the brief is finalised. Knowing what a particular type of candidate is actually available at, what their motivations tend to be, and what the role would need to look like to attract the right person, can save significant time and money compared to opening a brief that the market can't fill as written.
We're happy to have that conversation before you've decided what you need. It's not a sales call. It's a market map conversation, and it usually makes the search itself faster and more accurate once it starts.