When it comes to hiring top sales talent, especially in the tech sector, Asad Zaman has seen it all. Now the CEO of Sales Talent Agency (STA), Asad has climbed from a commission-based sales role to leading one of North America's most respected tech recruitment firms. With an impressive record of placements and a billion dollars in salaries facilitated at STA, he’s learned that hiring the right person is both an art and a science and that we can greatly improve our chances of success with the right system in place. This is essential reading for SaaS leaders struggling to hire the right people and build high-performance teams.
Here are a few of the key takeaways from my conversation with Asad Zaman.
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1. The Talent Crunch is Real—and It’s Not Going Away
Asad opened with a dose of reality: demand for top tech talent is far outpacing supply, especially in SaaS. In fact, while the number of tech companies expands by about 7% quarterly, talent in tech grows at just 2% annually. This disparity creates a fiercely competitive hiring landscape. “When demand outweighs supply, compensation spikes,” he explains, pointing to the hiring frenzy of 2020-2021. Although demand has stabilized somewhat post-pandemic, Asad makes it clear that hiring in SaaS remains highly competitive, especially if you’re aiming for the top 10% of talent. I agree with him that there simply aren’t enough A-players in the market to support the quantity of companies being founded.
But Asad believes the solution to this talent crunch is not just about filling seats; it’s about being “methodical.” He emphasizes the importance of a systematic hiring approach—one that considers everything from talent attraction to candidate experience and the specifics of a role’s “fit” within a company’s growth stage.
Key Insight: Approach hiring as a long-term investment. Understanding the supply-demand imbalance helps frame recruitment as an essential, ongoing strategy rather than a reactive task.
2. The Power of the Launch Phase: Preparing to Hire Well
My favourite takeaway from this conversation was Asad’s opinion that most hiring mistakes are born out of insufficient planning. "The launch phase is the most critical step," he explains, detailing how STA’s data showed that spending more time on this phase—sometimes three to four hours per project — doubled (yes, doubled!) their candidate win rates. This stage includes everything from defining “jobs to be done” to developing a detailed scorecard and outlining the interview process.
A solid launch phase does more than reduce in-role employee churn; it establishes a framework for success and ensures that each new hire is role, stage and values aligned. “If you’re hiring someone from a big brand into a high-growth startup, they might struggle with ambiguity,” Asad points out. “But if you bring in someone who’s adaptable, you’re aligning with the realities of your business stage.” That type of understanding comes from doing the diligence in role scoping and scorecarding.
Actionable Step: Create a checklist for your launch phase that includes job scope definition, scorecard development, and interview guidelines. Prioritize stage alignment to ensure each hire will thrive in your specific environment.
3. Outbound is for Sales—and Talent
Many companies wait passively for the right candidates to come to them, but Asad views recruiting as a proactive endeavour. He emphasizes outbound recruitment as the way to attract top talent, especially when passive candidates—those not actively searching—are often the best fit. “Think of recruiting like early-stage sales,” Asad says. “You need to get in front of people who aren’t looking yet.”
Hiring managers can assist by networking and sharing open roles, but Asad suggests companies invest in full-time recruiters who specialize in headhunting. “If no one owns the headhunting process, you’re limiting your access to the best talent,” he explains, adding that an internal recruiter dedicated to outbound efforts is often more effective than a generalist HR function.
Key Insight: Just as in sales, the best candidates aren’t always looking. Invest in a dedicated headhunter or an internal recruiter who can actively source top talent.
4. Scorecards Are Essential—But They’re Only Part of the Picture
In building a winning sales team, many leaders skip over one of the most critical components: a detailed scorecard. Asad calls scorecards the “underutilized gem” of recruiting. But he’s quick to point out that a scorecard is only as useful as the thought behind it. Rather than providing a simple pass/fail result, a scorecard should help evaluate potential by aligning competencies with your company’s specific requirements and culture.
Asad encourages a comprehensive approach, using questions that delve into candidates' past challenges and adaptability. He introduced me to a method he uses: “What’s the toughest moment you’ve faced? Great, now tell me another one. And another.” This tactic digs beyond the rehearsed answers and reveals a candidate’s true grit. I’ve already starting doing this.
Actionable Step: Design a scorecard with both talent and experience-based metrics that align with your unique organizational needs. Use probing questions to assess a candidate’s resilience and adaptability.
5. Candidate Experience Reflects Your Culture
Your hiring process communicates your company’s culture as much as your onboarding process. According to Asad, candidates assess companies based on the structure, communication, and flow of the interview experience itself. An uncoordinated, haphazard process signals chaos or disorganization, which is a turn-off for top-tier candidates who are in high demand.
To elevate candidate experience, Asad recommends creating personalized marketing materials for roles, recording podcasts, or even sharing videos that humanize the opportunity. At STA, they’ve found that candidates feel more confident about their choices when they know what’s good and what’s challenging about a company. “No elite candidate joins a company just for a job,” he says. “They’re joining a journey.”
Actionable Step: Use branded materials, from video intros to detailed job descriptions, to tell a compelling story about your company. Candidates want transparency—share both the advantages and challenges of the role.You can steal one of my best personal hiring innovations, which is the candidate primer video. It went viral on Linkedin earlier this year and has been adopted quite widely since.
Closing Thought: A Systematic Approach to Talent as a Competitive Advantage
For SaaS leaders, the takeaway is simple yet powerful: treat hiring as an investment in the long-term health of your business. A structured hiring process doesn’t just fill roles; it builds the foundations of a high-performance culture. So next time you’re hiring, slow down. Invest in your launch phase. Clarify your scorecards. Approach recruitment with the same discipline you apply to sales—and watch as your teams evolve into a true competitive advantage.
“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”
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