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Hiring Top Sales Talent in Germany — What Founders & Sales Leaders Need to Know

In this episode, Dominic sits down with Elvin Kingma from Bluebird — one of the leading SaaS-focused recruiting agencies in the DACH region.

With a background in SaaS sales and years of placing top talent, Elvin brings a rare perspective:

He’s been the seller, the hiring manager, and now the recruiter behind the scenes.

Together, they discuss why Germany is one of the hardest markets to hire in, why most companies lose candidates without realizing it, and what world-class hiring looks like in 2025.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why most hiring processes fail before they even start

• The biggest differences between hiring in DACH vs. the rest of Europe

• Why SDR roles are surprisingly hard to hire successfully

• The 3 mistakes almost every company makes in their hiring process

• How AI is reshaping hiring — and why SDRs will stay, but teams will shrink

• What top-performing candidates do differently in interviews

• How non-hiring-expert founders can still run an excellent hiring process

🔥 Hot Takes from Elvin:

• “Speed beats everything in hiring.”

• “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.”

• “Hiring is sales — discovery decides everything.”

• “Germany is the second-hardest market in the world to hire sales talent.”

• “OTE means nothing without context. Earning potential is what matters.”

Don’t miss new episodes:

📲 Subscribe to the Sales & Pepper Podcast

👉 https://www.youtube.com/@SalesPepperPodcast?sub_confirmation=1

Connect with Elvin:

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/elvinkingma/

Connect with Dom:

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicklingberg/

Bonus: Get 50 Free Kickscale Meeting Analyses

👉 https://www.kickscale.com/lp/partnership-sales-and-pepper

Transparency / Ads

This episode contains paid partnerships.

Our partners Kickscale and HubSpot support the Sales & Pepper Podcast.

All opinions shared in the episode are independent; partner mentions are part of the collaboration.