Replacing agency spend on a sales team
Agency fees were climbing for roles the internal team had no time to source directly.
A B2B SaaS company was spending over £400K annually on agency fees to fill mid-level sales roles — Account Executives and Business Development Managers across the UK and DACH region. The internal talent acquisition team was stretched across senior hires, leaving volume sales roles entirely dependent on external agencies.
What the client was up against
Agency quality was inconsistent and expensive. The submit-to-interview ratio sat at 3:1, meaning three candidates were put forward for every one worth interviewing. First-year attrition among agency-sourced hires had climbed to 22%, suggesting a poor cultural and capability match. Meanwhile, the internal TA team had no bandwidth to take sales sourcing in-house — they were fully committed to senior-level and specialist recruitment.
How Audentia solved it
Audentia embedded a two-person sourcing team working exclusively on the client’s sales vacancies over a nine-month engagement. We sourced, approached, and pre-screened candidates against a scorecard co-designed with the VP of Sales — covering quota attainment history, deal size experience, vertical expertise, and cultural indicators. Candidates were delivered interview-ready with a structured summary that reduced hiring manager screening time by roughly 60%. We provided weekly pipeline reports and monthly market insight briefings.
Results that lasted
34 hires were made directly from Audentia shortlists over nine months, at a total project cost 58% below the equivalent agency spend. The submit-to-interview ratio improved to 1.4:1, and first-year attrition among Audentia-sourced hires dropped to 9%. The client subsequently brought one additional sourcer in-house using Audentia’s process documentation, scorecards, and outreach templates as the foundation for a permanent capability.
Hires from Audentia shortlists
Cost saving vs agency spend
Submit-to-interview ratio
First-year attrition (down from 22%)
We cut agency spend by more than half and got better candidates. The maths speaks for itself — and the hires are staying.
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