Recruiting technical sales and engineering professionals is not simply about filling a vacancy. These roles directly influence revenue, customer satisfaction, product delivery and long-term business performance. When the wrong person is hired, the impact is felt quickly and often at significant cost.
Despite this, many employers continue to rely on generalist recruitment agencies that lack deep understanding of technical markets. While this approach can work for some roles, it consistently underperforms when hiring engineers and technical sales professionals.
Specialist recruitment exists to solve this problem.
What employers typically experience before switching to a specialist recruiter
Most employers speak to us after experiencing repeated frustration with their hiring process. Common challenges include:
- Advertising roles with little or no relevant response
- Receiving CVs that look suitable but fall short at interview
- Recruiters misunderstanding technical products or applications
- Candidates declining offers late due to salary misalignment
- Rehiring for the same role within a short period
These issues are particularly common in technical sales and engineering markets, where experience is niche and demand remains high.
LinkedIn Talent Solutions reports that over 75 percent of professionals globally are passive candidates. In engineering and technical sales roles, this figure is often higher due to the nature of the work, with many professionals spending their time on customer sites, in laboratories or travelling rather than actively job searching.
This means the strongest candidates are rarely responding to job adverts or generic recruiter outreach.
Why generalist recruitment agencies struggle in technical markets
Generalist recruiters operate across multiple sectors and job functions. While this provides breadth, it limits depth.
For technical sales and engineering recruitment, this often results in:
- CV screening based on keywords rather than real-world experience
- Limited understanding of products, technologies and end-use applications
- Difficulty assessing whether candidates can operate in customer-facing environments
- Heavy reliance on job boards and internal databases
- Weak insight into realistic salary expectations by role and country
The Recruitment and Employment Confederation consistently lists engineering and technical roles among the hardest positions to fill across the UK and Europe, with time to hire increasing when specialist market knowledge is lacking.
How specialist recruitment delivers better hiring outcomes
Specialist recruitment works because it focuses on one thing and does it well.
At Mase Consulting, we recruit exclusively within technical sales and engineering markets. This allows us to operate as a true extension of our clients’ hiring teams rather than a transactional CV supplier.
Market and product understanding
We understand how technical roles vary depending on products, markets and operating environments. We also understand how hiring requirements change between field-based engineering positions and site roles, as well as the distinction between commercial technical sales and pure sales functions. This insight allows us to scope roles accurately and assess candidates on real capability, not assumptions.
Access to passive candidates
Research shows that passive candidates are far more likely to engage with recruiters who understand their sector.
Because we work within the same markets every day, we build long-term relationships with high-performing professionals. This gives employers access to talent that cannot be reached through advertising alone.
Higher quality shortlists
Specialist recruitment prioritises alignment over volume. Shortlists are built around:
- Technical competence
- Commercial and customer-facing capability
- Motivation and long-term career drivers
- Cultural and behavioural fit
This consistently improves interview-to-offer ratios and reduces candidate drop-off.
Reducing hiring risk through insight and assessment
The cost of a poor hire in a technical or commercial role is significant. Multiple recruitment studies estimate that a bad hire can cost between 20 and 30 percent of annual salary. In technical sales roles, where revenue impact is critical, the true cost is often much higher.
To reduce this risk, we support employers with additional services including salary benchmarking and behavioural assessment. Salary benchmarking ensures offers align with real market expectations, while behavioural assessment provides insight into how candidates are likely to perform and integrate within a business. These services are included at no extra cost within our Retained and Ready-to-go Models.
Supporting hiring across the UK and internationally
Many employers now recruit across multiple countries and face challenges around salary expectations, candidate availability and market differences.
We support employers hiring technical sales and engineering professionals across the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Slovenia, Finland, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Brazil.
Our international experience allows businesses to scale teams confidently while maintaining consistent hiring standards.
Why employers partner with Mase Consulting
Employers choose to work with us because we offer:
- Specialist recruitment focused solely on technical sales and engineering
- Proactive search and targeted outreach
- Salary benchmarking to support competitive, realistic offers
- Behavioural assessment to reduce hiring risk
- Flexible recruitment models including Retained, Retingency and our Ready-to-go Talent Acquisition Team
Our approach is designed to deliver predictable outcomes and long-term value.
Speak to a specialist recruitment partner
If you are hiring technical sales or engineering professionals and want a more effective approach than traditional recruitment, our team is here to help. You can book a discovery call with one of our recruitment experts, or speak to one of our consultants directly by calling +44 (0)161 870 5000 to discuss your hiring plans.
