Years ago, I started recruiting a candidate who was a perfect skill match for my client. He was from the same industry, called on similar departments, and ran an identical sales motion. He took the first call, did the second interview, and talked through comp.
He was in year 7 with his current employer. The last year before tenure crosses into “won’t move” territory.
Whenever things weren’t going well at work, we’d talk. He’d say, “I want to know what else is out there.” But he never moved. When it came down to resigning, he always stayed.
It’s been more than four years since that first call. He just passed year 11, and he’s still at the same employer.
The pattern took too long to recognize. He was never going to leave. Year 7 should have been the warning. The next four confirmed it.
We see this play out across software sales hiring. Hiring managers and recruiters get attached to candidates who will never make the move. The interview rounds pile up while the seat stays empty. And the candidate keeps taking interviews because being wanted feels good.
Probability is the antidote.
Every sales candidate has a probability of taking your offer. That probability is set by their current situation, not by how impressed they are with your pitch.
The skilled recruiter reads the probability fast and decides where to spend the hours. The hopeful recruiter keeps pursuing low-probability candidates because the candidate seems interested, ignores the signals, and burns weeks of search time the client doesn’t have.
Here are the signals to read.
1. Direct competitor with similar pay. If a candidate is at a direct competitor earning the same salary, they have no reason to leave. Exception: if your client is #1 or #2 in the space and the candidate is at #4 or #5, the brand step-up changes the probability.
2. 8+ years of tenure. Year 7 is the line of last recruit. Past that, candidates are usually too embedded in their current organization. Equity, role, comfort, identity all keep them anchored in place. Exceptions that change things: they accepted a counteroffer in the last 18 months and now regret it, or there’s a CEO or CRO change so material that even long-tenured people start looking. The CEO change exception is a big maybe.
3. Just promoted to a new role. A fresh promotion buys 12 to 18 months of loyalty. They want time in the new role before making a move. Exception: their boss recently left or is about to leave. The relationship that drove the promotion is gone.
The opposite of the above is the candidate worth investing time in. A few patterns that put the odds in your favor that they’re recruitable:
1. The new job is a step up in some way. A move from mid-market to enterprise, a real comp jump, or a brand step-up to a name everyone in the industry knows.
2. Recent disruption at their current company. Merger, acquisition, reorg, layoffs, commission plan cuts, product problems, implementation problems, CEO issues. Any of these break the loyalty math.
3. Recent leadership change. Especially the CEO or CRO. The relationships that made the company feel stable are getting rebuilt. Long-tenured employees start asking themselves if they want to be part of the next chapter.
4. Personal inflection points. Milestones of any kind cause people to reflect on where they are in life and assess if they could or should be doing better. This includes birthdays, weddings, new babies, and the passing of parents.
The pattern across these circumstances is that something has changed in the candidate’s world, making changing companies less costly.
The hard part is applying the probability assessment in the first interview with every candidate, not in week 6.
Hopeful recruiting feels productive. Interviews are happening, calendars are full, and hiring managers are happy. But if you’re investing hours in a candidate with 11 years of employer tenure, no disruption, no comp issue, no leadership change, no inflection point, you’re wasting time.
You’re scheduling meetings with someone who will keep interviewing forever and never move. Every unfilled day costs revenue.
When the candidate finally says no, or worse, ghosts, the client has lost weeks they didn’t have, and they’re starting over without the goodwill they had at the beginning.
Pick up the signals early and walk away from the low-probability bets fast. Spend the hours on the candidates whose situation says they’ll move.
Then, when the high-probability candidates show up, don’t pass on them for small flaws. Move on them quickly.
If your search has been open more than 60 days and you’re not sure whether the candidates you’re talking to are real, that’s the conversation worth having before you burn another month. Reading probability is one discipline inside how a software sales search gets designed and executed.
