Searchlight's mission is to build the best teams by helping companies hire the whole person, beyond resumes and interviews.

Searchlight's intelligent hiring software creates a profile of a candidate's team fit, strengths, and areas of growth through the people who've worked with them before. Our platform then matches the candidate to unique team profiles to predict top performers. Our customers like Zapier, Discord, and Chainlink now have the data they need to hire efficiently and effectively.

We've raised $20M from investors like Accel, Founders Fund, and Soma Capital.

Last updated 03.SEP.2021

Why Searchlight?

• Searchlight is creating a new category in people tech by making hiring objective, data-driven and measurable. Both companies and candidates win when we find better matches.

• It's the perfect time to join: Freshly funded by top-tier investors like Founders Fund, Accel, and YC.

• Fast-growing team tackling a $150B market with a category-defining product.

• 77 NPS with customers like Zapier, Udemy, and Coda.

• Women-led and mission-driven company; founders are Forbes 30U30 with backgrounds from Stanford, Uber, Google, and McKinsey.

• Opportunity for meaningful ownership, leadership, and autonomy on a <10 person team

Recommended Reading: Using Data for Hiring at Zapier

We are looking for a leader we can count on to:

• Learn what is working and not working from our two current salespeople

• Get your hands dirty and directly sell—especially for the first few months

• But also attract talent because you’ll build a function of 10 in the next 18 months

• Which means you need to be able to manage, train, and coach them

• And you’ll write the sales playbook, building off what we already have today

• Be an important voice on our GTM strategy

• Give input on product roadmap because you’ll thoughtfully listen to customers

Required Experience:

• 2+ years leading SaaS sales team of 5-10 overachievers

• 3+ years selling products with an ACV between $20-$100K+

• 4+ years of experience in a fast-growing SaaS Series A-B startup and want more ownership by being part of a founding team 

• Experience selling a new product or category is a definite plus! 

Success Profile:

• Self-starter and fast learner, especially in ambiguity

• Sharp at problem solving, critical thinking, and systems thinking

• Intellectually curious and continuous learner with customers, processes, and content

• Structured and concise communicator, both verbal and written

• Great at hiring and managing teams

Hiring Process:

• Initial Screen (30 min) (Founder)

  • Ask: sample of email communication with a prospect

• Interview (30 min) (Head of Recruiting)

• Case Study Presentation (45 min case study w/ team member + 30 min with Growth Advisor)

  • Invite your references via Searchlight’s platform

• Team Interview (2.5 hrs) (Full Team)

• Final Interviews (2 hrs)

Key Teammates:

Kerry Wang - CEO/Cofounder

Anna Wang - CTO/Cofounder

Impact Description

Within...

1 month

• Onboard yourself onto the existing sales process
• Become an expert on Searchlight’s product and market
• Prospect and develop your own pipeline

3 months

• Close your own deals
• Continue to develop our sales GTM (i.e. messaging, experiments, customer metrics)
• Advise on GTM and product roadmap

6 months

• Recruit and build the sales team around you
• Own the revenue goals and make strategic decisions to exceed them consistently
• Collaborate cross-functionally between product, customer success, and marketing

More about Searchlight

Companies with the best talent win. But the way that companies hire hasn’t changed in decades, and recruiting as a core business function has been largely left behind by technology innovations in other functions like sales, customer success, marketing, etc. Job descriptions are still written in silo-ed documents, recruiting metrics end at time-to-fill instead of quality-of-hire, and we have a devastating diversity problem. While these are big challenges, we see a huge opportunity for Searchlight to own a ton of whitespace in the recruiting tech landscape.

Searchlight's full-cycle talent platform gives companies the right data and infrastructure to assess candidates and scale winning cultures. 

Logistics:

• Remote through Nov 2021 

• Located out of the San Francisco, CA office beyond Nov 2021 with hybrid in-person and remote work

• Weekly team dinners (remote) sponsored by the company

• OTE range $220-280k 

• Significant Equity

• 401(k), Unlimited PTO, Health Insurance (100% paid premiums)

What Hybrid Work Means to Us

We are a fast-paced, tight-knit team that enjoys quality time working synchronously during core business hours. We have a PDX office and will have a SF office by EOY2021. We encourage team members to come into the office 2-3 times a week. 

Diverse and Inclusive Employer

We’re committed to providing equal treatment and opportunity to all applicants at every stage of the hiring cycle and throughout their life at the company.  We don’t discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, disability, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected status.

Note: Research says men tend to apply even if they only meet ~60% of the job qualifications, whereas women and other marginalized groups are hesitant to do so. If you don’t match 100% of the job qualifications but think you’d be a great fit, we encourage you to apply!

Our stack is primarily Javascript. We use PostgreSQL, React, Node.js, and Apollo GraphQL

Exciting upcoming projects in our product pipeline:

• identity verification of references, and flagging suspicious behavior
• automatic analysis of reference feedback through AI