What we look for

Same title. Very different sellers.

Enterprise AE is one title covering half a dozen different jobs. These are the distinctions we screen for, and why two identical resumes rarely produce identical hires.

8–12
Stakeholders in a cycle
3–12 mo
Typical cycle length
VP+
Buyers screened against

Every distinction on this page came from building these teams first, then recruiting for them.

01 — Stage

One writes the playbook. One runs it.

A seller who built a territory from nothing and a seller who scaled one that already worked are different hires, even when the resume reads identically.

Builds it

The 0-to-1 seller

  • Writes the pitch before anyone has proven it works
  • Finds the first buyers with no reference customers to point at
  • Learns which objections actually kill deals, the expensive way
  • Has no playbook to inherit, and leaves one behind
Runs it

The scale-stage seller

  • Inherits a motion that already converts
  • Pushes more volume through a system that works
  • Optimizes against benchmarks someone else established
  • Executes a playbook rather than writing one

Both are legitimate hires, and both look the same in a list of closed-won numbers. We've hired for both, which is the only reason the difference is obvious to us — it stays nearly invisible to anyone who hasn't.

02 — Pipeline

Nobody is filling this calendar.

Plenty of strong AEs have never had to build a pipeline. There was an SDR team, an inbound flow, a list that arrived already warm. That's real work — it just isn't this work.

31
sellers in our network run full cycle and source their own pipeline, because that is what an early-stage seat actually asks for.
Building the target list
The seller
Booking the first meeting
The seller
Running the evaluation
The seller
Closing and expanding
The seller
Support staff assumed
None

We screen for evidence of this specifically. A large number at a company with a deep SDR bench doesn't prove it, and it is the easiest thing in the world to miss reading a resume quickly.

03 — Leadership

The manager who still carries a bag.

A leader managing reps while carrying their own number is doing two jobs at once, and the ones who do it well are rare. It is a different animal from a manager who coaches, runs forecast calls, and never personally closes anything.

When the team is small and the leader is expected to sell while they build it, that is not the thing to discover in month three.

Both are legitimate hires, and the right answer depends entirely on the stage. A first sales leader at a company with four reps and no closed-won history is a fundamentally different job from running a department of forty against an established quota model. We settle which one the seat actually is before screening anyone against it.

04 — Access

Champions don't sign contracts.

A candidate can close real business for years without ever sitting across from the person who controls the budget.

01

The user

Wants the product, champions it internally, and can sink the deal by going quiet. Approves nothing.

02

The manager

Runs the evaluation, gathers requirements, and carries the recommendation upward. Signs nothing.

03

The economic buyer

Owns the budget line and the final approval — a VP, an SVP, or the C-suite, depending on how large the purchase is and how much of the company it touches.

Where the deal is actually won

A champion makes the introduction, walks it through internally, and the deal lands. That is a real skill. It is not the same skill as building the relationship with the executive who signs.

The resume reads the same either way: closed business, recognizable logos. The difference surfaces the moment you ask who was in the room at the end.

05 — The buyer

When the CISO joins the call.

A CISO or VP of Engineering evaluates the product line by line, and the questions get specific enough that a polished pitch does not survive them.

“

Where does our data actually live, and who on your side can read it?

“

Which model is this running on, and does anything we put in train it?

“

What happens to everything we've loaded if we don't renew?

“

Walk me through your last incident, and what the notification window was.

We spent years in those rooms, working between engineers and security teams on live enterprise deals. That is what we listen for when a candidate walks us through a technical sale — whether they were in the room answering, or waiting outside for somebody else's answer.

Put it to the test

Send us the role.

Twenty minutes is usually enough to work out which of these actually decide your search, and which ones don't matter for the seat you're filling.