Founded in October 2010, Freshworks is the second fastest-growing SaaS (Software as a Service) company to reach $100m annual re-occurring revenue, and recently became valued at $1bn+.
They provide organisations with advanced customer engagement solutions that allow support, sales and marketing professionals to communicate effectively across their businesses. Freshworks’ cloud-based solutions are widely used by over 150,000 clients, including the NHS, Honda, Rightmove, Hugo Boss, Toshiba and Cisco.
They are also backed by some significant investors (Accel, Sequoia and Google’s CapitalG) which has allowed Freshworks to develop and grow 50-100% year on year.
The brief…
To meet Freshworks’ aggressive growth plans, they needed to quickly expand their UK team of; sales account managers, solution consultants, post sales engineers and a European marketing director. With an established relationship in place, Freshworks turned to RBLAssociates to deliver this brief.
The challenge…
Sourcing these professionals in London, where there is significant competition for the best candidates, was a major challenge:
- The target demographics are in high demand, and over hunted for job opportunities as leading businesses struggle to attract the best talent.
- Freshworks’ commitment to creating a diverse workforce, combined with stringent requirements in terms of education, background and experience, also added extra levels of complexity to the hiring process.
- Finding a dynamic European marketing director, operating in the European SaaS environment, with the ability to demonstrate a creative and disruptive messaging style, whilst at the same time bring best marketing practice, was a particular challenge.
The solution…
RBLAssociates brings a mix of deep operational knowledge of enterprise software, 17 years software sales leadership, SaaS and HR experience. This puts them in an unique position to help Freshworks build their team of specialists.
As part of RBLAssociates consultative approach, a virtual in-house talent acquisition was created that saw dedicated resources become an extension of the Freshworks business.
Taking this approach and utilising RBLAssociates’s extensive network and knowledge of the SaaS technology sector, the team mapped the candidate community and created a clear hiring strategy for Freshworks.
This included:
- Assigned dedicated research resources to the company, to identify suitable candidates for the various roles
- Designed, sequenced and executed a 5 level messaging strategy to attract and engage the right candidates
- Became intimately familiar with the company’s products, values and culture – an activity that RBLAssociates does as a matter of course with all clients – enabling them to conduct initial screening interviews that included a compelling presentation of Freshworks and the career opportunities
- Managed candidate communications, ensuring they received regular news and updates to minimise drop out
- Supported candidates during the hiring process, and beyond, to ensure new hires transitioned with ease.
The result…
RBLAssociates has filled 11 urgent roles in six months, building the UK sales and pre-sales technical teams, placing a senior product specialist and filling the EMEA board level marketing leader vacancy, to help meet Freshworks’ aggressive expansion strategy.
Following the successful hiring round, Freshworks continues its relationship with RBLAssociates.
What the client says…
Simon Johnson UK Managing Director “If you are a fast-growing SaaS vendor without the time to invest in building a talent pipeline then RBLAssociates can deliver that service. RBLAssociates’s pro-active head-hunting of people who match our requirements and the team’s ability to project the right brand image of our company to candidates in a compelling style ensured we filled our roles quickly and efficiently.”