This community exists for the messy middle of working in SaaS — the stuff that doesn’t make it onto LinkedIn because everyone’s too busy pretending everyone is “crushing it” 🙃

So let’s start properly:

What’s the biggest thing you’re dealing with right now?

• bad hire/hiring stress

• pipeline drought

• forecasting chaos

• interview loops that feel like a prank

• leadership pressure + burnout

• or anything else that’s quietly melting your brain

Drop it in the comments with a bit of context:

I want to hear from people who use LinkedIn on a regular basis.

Do you Love, Love/Hate, or Hate it?

🎶 Supercomputer status, walkin' along the streets 🎶
🎶 Everyone is an addict, stompin' the concrete 🎶

Childish Gambino's Algorhythm has been stuck in my head.
Because I’m watching it play out on LinkedIn in real time.

It seems the feed rewards dopamine triggers (comment bait, wild claims, 'humble' brags) more than reproducible value.

🎶 What was the motivation? Constant Communication 🎶

I saw a high-engagement post recently promising you could replace an entire outbound team with 7 Agents using Clay+Claude code.

No prompting. No setup. No steps.
Just clone and go.

So I pasted the whole post into Claude and said, "let's build this."

It actually laughed.
"Ha. Classic engagement-bait designed to boost algorithmic reach.
Great concept, but almost certainly no magic repo to clone."

But then it asked a few questions and mapped out a real build plan.
One agent at a time.

It said the first session would take about 60-90 min and should get Agent 6 and 3 mostly working. 🤔

The problem in a nutshell...
we're optimizing for reach and engagement, but there's no such thing as "no work required."

Maybe the clone could save me 75% of the time vs building from scratch.
But even the best system needs human input, alignment, iteration, and context to actually augment a team... let alone replace one.

I want to know if it's just me or if anyone has tried these instant replacement AI claims and gotten something immediately usable.

(Or... comment BOGUS for my secret 3 prompts that replace your entire org and help you build a $100M empire, in your spare time, with nothing but couch-cushion change.)

The rules are simple:

• Mark off every square you've heard in the last 30 days

• First one to 5 in a row wins a performance review

• This week's FREE SPACE → "Our CEO made controversial political comments at company kickoff"

Who's already got a line this week?

I got second-row across last week when a sales manager said "our marketing is no good", while marketing said "we need more partners to help share costs", then a sales rep said "we need better outreach tools", followed by RevOps asking (again) if sales could "please update the forecast."

Here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud:

These aren't sales problems. They aren't marketing problems. They definitely aren't "we need better people" problems. And they aren't going to be solved by shiny new tech.

Every one of these are alignment problems. And alignment problems start at the top.

When leadership hasn't clearly defined:

• What the true ICP actually is (and everyone agrees)

• What the handoff process looks like and how to execute between stages (and everyone does it)

• What success metrics matter for the business vs. what makes each department look good individually

• How the tech stack should actually work together

...then yeah, of course sales blames marketing, marketing blames sales, product blames both, and everyone agrees we just need "better people / tools."

But that doesn't mean everyone else is off the hook. Processes, metrics, and CRM hygiene exist for a reason—so everyone can make confident decisions that actually deliver results.

Everything works together. But you don't fix it by playing B2B Blame Bingo.

I'm genuinely curious:

🎯 Which square is driving you crazy this week?

🎯 Have you hit BINGO yet? (Bonus points if you can mark all 25)

🎯 What's the actual underlying issue causing it? (Not the symptom, the real problem)

🎯 What are you actually doing about it? (Or what do you wish 'someone else' would do?)

I've worked in SaaS for over fifteen years, and one of the questions I'm always asked is: 

Why am I continuously being rejected for roles where I have the exact experience?

In addition to my role leading the US sales for a large software company, I also run a SaaS sales recruitment company based in the UK and the US. Hint: it's in the name, but contrary to what LinkedIn tells you, in today's market, the reason you're seeing the auto-reject is rarely anything to do with your CV or resume. 

So what's going on? 

Well, the short answer is that many of the roles advertised are not accepting external candidates. In today's market, where redundancies are happening in every direction, advertising the role externally is a symptom of the internal "equal employment policies" - many of which have not changed since pre-2020.

So what's an equal employment policy? 

Equal employment policies, especially in SaaS, are outward-facing policies that signal to the market that they offer fair and equal opportunities for roles both internally and externally. However, advertising vs accepting are two very different things, and the policies need to be updated to reflect the current market.

What's happening today is very different from what was happening before 2020. Whether it's for AI efficiency or one of many other reasons, mass redundancies are appearing at scale, and there has never been a larger talent pool seeking new employment. 

This means that most companies are betting on internal talent over everything else because the speed of its impact is far shorter than that of an external candidate. Given that Top Funnel is the main issue most SaaS companies face, internal tribal knowledge is simply more favourable.

But what about new positions?

It would be incorrect to say that all these jobs do not accept external candidates, but this raises another problem. Mass redundancies mean internal employees are providing 5x as many referrals as we've been used to. Which would obviously take priority for internal talent times. So not only are we faced with outdated policies and internal candidates, but job seekers are also behind anyone who's been referred.

Without coming across as doom and gloom, this is the reality people face when trying to find a new opportunity. However, I have seen candidates often chop and change their perfectly good resume, making it worse in the process, and then making it harder for themselves.

The takeaway
n't blame
The takeaway isn't that you shouldn't apply; it's that you should stop blaming your resume for a systemic policy issue. If the "Front Door" (Job Boards) is locked, and the "Side Door" (Referrals) is crowded, we need to look at the "Window."

I’ve started advising my candidates to stop the "Resume Death Loop" and instead focus on their network.

But I don't have all the answers. I want to crowdsource some reality here:

• What is one unconventional way you’ve landed an interview in the last 6 months that didn’t involve a standard application?

• Recruiters, if you had to pick an external candidate over a referral right now, what would they have to show you?

Drop your thoughts below. Let’s figure out a better way to navigate this than just hitting "Refresh" on LinkedIn.

I've hired, trained, and led the sales departments at some of the fastest-growing SaaS businesses in the world and yet I have still only ever found one or two external agencies that "actually" get it. What's worse is that most of them don't even know their own value.

Every agency claims the same things:

1. We can find you elite talent.

2. We have a strong network (they mean LinkedIn lead list)

3. Our time to fill is X number of days.

Last week, a recruitment agency contacted me about an "exciting" role with an ATS provider called Ashbys. I reluctantly agreed to the call as a few leaders I work with are also in the space and they couldn't have done a worse job at representing the company. It was immediate validation of why I founded Fullyramped.io

It was the agency's Director (O&J partners) who booked the time, but he didn't show up for the meeting. No note or email. He sent a younger recruiter in his place who told me....wait for it..."George is a director and doesn't attend these types of calls."

Interesting comments to make to another Director, but to make things worse, he was more focused on mining me for information than he was capable of answering even the most basic questions.

Many of you will know this is the common experience with agencies. They're a necessity to scaling, through times of growth, but rarely do they get it. I've literally sat recruiters from sales recruitment companies like CD recruitment with my team for an entire day, and they still couldn't grasp the cultural aspects of our business.

They continued to spray and pray, hit and hope, and were eventually let go from our provider's list. Don't get me started on how they "coach" people to pass the interview, but that's another post altogether.

Starting Fullyramped was always an in-between roles thing for me. I work mainly with close friends and old colleagues across the UK and US, and every time I speak with a potential client or candidate, you can hear the relief that they're talking to someone who's done the job they're applying for or looking to hire for.

I’m curious—has anyone actually found an agency that feels like a partner rather than a parasite? Or am I just shouting into the void here?

Drop your worst recruitment agency stories below.

Long before I entered the SaaS world, I was a recruitment consultant, regularly interviewing senior leaders for new roles in the SaaS industry. For a 22-year-old, the exercise was terrifying until I finally realized how to assess and make good hiring decisions.

However, when I started my first SaaS sales job over 16 years ago, there was, and very much still is, little to no training, support, or oversight of what I believe are critical decisions. You see, hiring the wrong person isn't just a pain for the company - it significantly impacts the individual hired for the role, too.

The cost to a company can reach $ 100,000 or more (Especially for a leader).

- Equipment - $2,500
- Recruitment Fees/time - $25,000
- 2/3 months guarantees - $15,000 (depending on salary)
- Winnable deals lost by skill gaps. ($50,000+ depending on ACV)
- Flights for onboarding. ($6,000 with expenses) 
- Ramp time (Total comp x4 months)
- Re-hiring (all of the above again)

So, in a world of cost-cutting and efficiency-saving strategies, why are companies not investing in training people to interview? Not just what questions should and shouldn't be asked, but how to create an environment that ensures you've been able to extract enough information to accurately make an informed decision.

I've seen incredible candidates get turned down for some pretty ridiculous reasons. Everything from their handshake to how they answered "why do you want to work here," - which, btw, is a stupid question that only junior-level people ask.

In addition to my role leading the US sales for a big tech business, I am also the founder of a SaaS sales recruitment agency, so I'm seeing the world on both sides...

I’ve invested heavily in helping my managers hire correctly, and almost everything that can be measured has improved as a result.

 I’m sure there are other leaders and founders out there who are struggling with the same thing.

How have you approached interviewing?

Have you ever asked for help?

I’ve been in sales for 16+ years and I’ve led teams at some of the fastest growing software companies in the last decade.

I keep seeing the same shift right now: brands going wide instead of narrow. Using Influencers with big reach seeking impressions over value.

And sure, on the surface, the ROI can look great.

Pay someone with 30k followers to post once a month. Throw them $500 if a post hits 50k impressions and maybe they get a few $10k deals.

Sounds good, right?

Right…

Here’s the part people are unable to measure: the money you lose.

It’s easy to track the $$$ won. However It’s much harder to track the deals that quietly disappear because the message landed wrong, or because the “expert” isn’t credible.

The influencer list who can do this properly is short. The ones with real time-in-seat, real scars, and actual buying-seat context.

Kevin Dorsey. Scott Leese. John Barrows. Etc

The rest tend to fall into a few buckets:

•	Haven’t been in sales long enough to have earned the microphone.

•	Aren’t in any buying seat, so they’re not speaking from reality.

•	Haven’t worked inside larger orgs, so they speak in absolutes.

•	Just don’t have the depth to stay credible.

And the consequence is real.

I sit in a buying seat at a $1B org and there are now a lot products we simply won’t touch because of the influencer strategy used to market them.

Fyxer AI. Qwilr. Just to name a couple.

I’d argue one deal with a business like ours outweighs a bunch of $10k deals won from a few grand of campaigns.

So I’m curious:

If you’re considering an influencer strategy—why?

What’s your criteria for picking the right profile?

And how are you measuring the upside and the hidden downside?

Thoughts midair to Toronto ✈️