Every stage of building a go-to-market team: who to hire first, what to pay at each stage, how to run the interview process, the mistakes that cost the most, and how to decide whether to run the search yourself or bring in a specialist. This is the map. Every section links to the full deep-dive.
Talk through your GTM hiring planGTM recruiting is specialist recruiting for the roles that generate revenue directly: sales, customer success, marketing, and revenue operations. It's a different discipline from general recruiting because the screening has to test for things a resume can't show, whether someone's pipeline was self-sourced or handed to them, whether their deal size and sales cycle actually match yours, and whether they've built something from zero or only managed what already existed.
"Sales recruiting" and "GTM recruiting" get used interchangeably, but they aren't quite the same scope. Sales recruiting is usually just the sales org. GTM recruiting covers the full revenue engine, sales, CS, RevOps, and often GTM-adjacent technical roles like GTM Engineer.
Most startups make this mistake: hiring a VP Sales before there's anything repeatable to lead, or hiring an SDR before there's a playbook worth feeding them. The right sequence almost always starts with founder-led sales, then the first AE once a pattern is proven, then an SDR once that pattern needs more pipeline than the founder or first AE can generate alone, then a VP Sales once the founder has become the bottleneck on every deal, typically around Series A.
Whether an SDR or an AE is the right next hire depends entirely on where your pipeline is actually coming from today, not on what the org chart is supposed to look like.
Every GTM role screens differently. An SDR search is testing for coachability and resilience. A VP Sales search is testing whether someone has actually built a team from under 5 people, not just managed one that already existed. Below is the full role library, each with its own hiring guide.
Two titles get confused constantly: CRO and VP Sales sound similar but aren't, and getting the choice wrong is an expensive mistake at the wrong stage.
Comp is the fastest way to lose a search you're otherwise winning. Below is a starting reference; the full benchmark guide breaks this down further by role, stage, and company size.
| Role | Base | OTE | Equity |
|---|---|---|---|
| First AE | $70K–$110K | $140K–$220K | 0.05%–0.25% |
| VP Sales (Series A) | $160K–$190K | $280K–$360K | 0.25%–0.75% |
| VP Sales (Series B) | $180K–$220K | $320K–$420K | 0.1%–0.4% |
Underpaying base to preserve runway is the single most common self-inflicted wound in early GTM hiring. It doesn't just lose the candidate, it signals you don't know the market.
Running the search yourself works when someone on the founding team has a real network in the exact role and stage you're hiring for. It stops working the moment you're hiring for a role the team has never hired before, or when the strongest candidates are passive and simply will not respond to a job posting, which is most of them.
If you bring in outside help, the next decision is contingency versus retained, and then which specific firm. We built a transparent, scored comparison of the leading GTM recruiting firms for exactly this decision.
A bad GTM hire rarely fails loudly. It fails slowly, a quarter of missed pipeline, a team that quietly disengages, a founder pulled back into deals they thought they'd delegated. The salary is the smallest part of the cost.
Most founders only make a VP Sales hire once or twice in a company's life. The pattern recognition to spot a mis-hire in the interview process just isn't there yet, which is exactly why it's worth borrowing someone else's.
A slow, disorganized process loses great candidates to companies that move faster, full stop. And the hire isn't done at the signed offer, the first 90 days determine whether it actually works.
Specialist recruiting for go-to-market roles, sales, marketing, customer success, and revenue operations, at companies whose growth depends on those hires working. It differs from general recruiting because it screens for stage-fit, motion-fit, and quota history, not just credentials.
Founder-led sales first, then the first AE once a repeatable pattern exists, then an SDR once there's a proven playbook worth feeding, then a VP Sales once the founder becomes the bottleneck, typically around Series A. CS and RevOps hires usually follow once there's enough customer volume to need dedicated ownership.
Fully loaded, a first AE typically runs $70K–$110K base with $140K–$220K OTE depending on market and ACV. A Series A VP Sales runs $160K–$190K base with $280K–$360K OTE plus 0.25%–0.75% equity. Recruiting fees, if using an agency, are typically a percentage of first-year total compensation, agreed upfront.
In-house works when the founder or an early team member has a real network in the exact role and stage being hired for. A specialist agency earns its fee when the search is for a role the team has never hired before, when speed matters, or when the best candidates are passive and won't respond to a job posting.
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