From establishing your first pipeline to scaling teams and coaching reps, the Vice President of Sales is the key decision-maker driving all sales activities. Given that the role’s responsibilities vary widely based on each organization’s size, growth stage, and culture, partnering with an experienced recruiting agency is crucial when seeking an executive who aligns with your goals and reduces the risk of a costly mis-hire.
At early-stage organizations, the VP of Sales builds the sales function after the transition from founder-led sales. This involves creating sales strategies, setting sales targets, defining the ideal customer profile, hiring and training team members, and often continuing to close deals themselves. In this context, close cultural alignment with the founder and CEO is critical to executing a growth vision.
As the company scales, the scope of the role evolves. The VP of Sales typically becomes less hands-on in day-to-day selling and more focused on breaking into new markets, ensuring cross-functional alignment with the marketing and product teams, monitoring the sales funnel, optimizing CRM systems, and refining the sales process. They increasingly rely on data to identify trends and design targeted strategies that produce predictable outcomes.
Below are the top ten recruiting agencies for Vice Presidents of Sales in tech. These firms gain a deep understanding of your organization’s revenue goals, growth journey, and vision to match you with executives whose sales expertise and leadership skills deliver long-term value.
1. Betts Recruiting
Founded in 2009, Betts Recruiting is a deeply trusted partner for high-growth companies in search of exceptional go-to-market (GTM) talent. The firm combines niche expertise with a forward-thinking, tech-enabled approach to place impactful leaders with innovative organizations such as Apptimize and UXPin.
The firm’s executive search team recruits senior-level candidates within 45 days, 50% of whom are diverse hires. Recruiters implement thorough vetting processes to ensure that your next VP of Sales understands your sales motion, brings deep market awareness, demonstrates proficiency with modern sales tools, and aligns with your current stage of growth.
Throughout your partnership, the firm also leverages its proprietary sourcing platform, Betts Connect, to streamline the search process. Connect enables access to one of the largest GTM talent networks in North America by allowing recruiters and hiring managers to filter candidates based on numerous KPIs, dramatically reducing time-to-hire and helping partners achieve ROI within just three months on a Connect subscription.
2. Captivate Talent
Captivate Talent has hyper-specialized in recruiting top GTM and RevOps candidates for early- to growth-stage SaaS startups since 2017. The firm leverages deep market and functional fluency to deliver personalized talent solutions that support long-term success.
Executive recruiters take a consultative approach, working to understand your company goals and culture so they can identify candidates who align with your business strategy. They draw on market insights and feedback from your hiring team to refine their search throughout the partnership.
The firm also provides market analysis, salary benchmarking, and offer-structuring guidance, ensuring your role attracts competitive candidates.
3. VibeScaling
VibeScaling, a GTM recruiting and advisory firm, has partnered with AI-native seed to Series D companies since 2018. The firm is a strong partner for early-stage organizations hiring their founding sales leaders.
As former and current GTM operators, VibeScaling’s talent advisors bring firsthand experience navigating challenges similar to yours. They apply a consultative approach to develop a deep understanding of your culture, product, market, financial position, and ideal hire before sourcing candidates with proven early-stage experience.
The firm also provides GTM leadership advisory services, including sales process development, outbound strategy and playbook creation, and tech stack implementation. This expertise enables the firm to identify executives who can confidently fulfill these responsibilities at your organization.
4. Formative Search Partners
Founded in 2014, Formative Search Partners recruits executive-level talent for startups and scale-ups at key growth transitions. The team draws on software engineering backgrounds to support technical founders across domains such as enterprise SaaS, developer tools, and FinTech.
The firm’s startup fluency has helped it build a talent network of 4.7 million candidates and develop valuable relationships with leading venture and private equity firms, making it a deeply trusted partner for organizations making mission-critical hires.
Recruiters provide rigorous vetting processes, role design services, and founder coaching to ensure you attract leaders who share your growth goals.
5. Optimal Sales Search
Optimal Sales Search has recruited mid- to senior-level GTM talent for SaaS companies since 2004, with a particular focus on leaders who can scale teams quickly. The firm applies a boutique approach to match top candidates with high-growth organizations across diverse sectors, including AI, analytics, big data, FinTech, and more.
Recruiters learn about your culture and revenue goals before sourcing passive candidates from an extensive, confidential talent network. The firm’s deep industry expertise and nationwide reach enable the team to deliver the first round of candidates within five to ten business days.
6. salestalent.com
Founded in 2021, salestalent.com exclusively recruits permanent sales candidates across the tech, SaaS, industrial, and medical industries. Each recruiter draws on at least three years of sales leadership experience to identify leaders who drive measurable results.
Recruiters build a tailored search strategy that targets 100 to 300 passive candidates through seven-point outreach campaigns. Emphasizing precision, the firm delivers professionals who meet your specific requirements across vertical experience, deal size, sales cycle, target buyer, and more, enabling organizations to interview just four to five candidates per role.
7. Sales Talent Inc.
Sales Talent Inc. has recruited sales talent across the SaaS and technology industries for companies of all sizes since 1999. The firm combines functional expertise with a focused headhunting approach to provide fast hiring solutions without compromising quality.
Recruiters spend around 62 hours on each contingent search, nearly three times as many as the industry average. Within this timeframe, they target passive candidates and interview each professional twice, with a particular focus on cultural alignment, before presenting a curated group of three to five matches.
8. Talentfoot
Talentfoot is an executive search firm that has placed leaders across numerous industries, including SaaS, since 2010. The firm pairs a deeply consultative approach with rigorous vetting processes to connect impactful leaders with companies of all sizes.
Recruiters evaluate candidates through cultural analysis, technical competency assessments, and psychometric testing before presenting the top three to five matches. The firm also provides complementary coaching and valuable insights into your competitors’ compensation models, hiring trends, revenue goals, and sales culture.
9. True Search
Founded in 2012, True Search is a global recruitment and advisory firm that places board members, directors, C-suite executives, and VPs across diverse industries, including AI, enterprise software, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, and defense technology.
The firm implements a data-first approach to deliver insights that support confident hiring decisions. It engages with over 250,000 executives across 1,000 projects at any given time, contributing to a wealth of proprietary market intelligence.
10. Bespoke Partners
Bespoke Partners is an executive search and leadership advisory firm that has partnered with PE-backed tech, software, and SaaS companies since 2011. Recruiters leverage a proprietary talent mapping platform to conduct comprehensive, yet streamlined, hiring solutions.
The firm’s Executive Index, an AI-powered market mapping tool, provides insights into 700,000 software executives by drawing on data from over 575,000 public and private sources. This platform also includes a candidate scorecard application that identifies leaders who align with your requirements across performance, end-market experience, geography, and more.
Compensation Trends for Vice Presidents of Sales
The average base salaries for Vice Presidents of Sales vary depending on the organization’s stage of growth. Below are the typical ranges between the 25th and 75th percentiles:
Seed
Base: $185K—$275K
Series A
Base: $200K—$275K
Series B
Base: $200K—$275K
Series C
Base: $225K—$300K
Series D
Base: $250K—$300K
Our Comp Engine provides the most up-to-date salary ranges across all GTM roles, based on our placements in the last six months. You can also learn about the market trends influencing these benchmarks in our Compensation, Executive Compensation, and Enterprise Compensation guides.
Ready to find your first sales executive? Contact Betts here to get started today.