Origina is a successful Irish company providing third-party software support and maintenance (TPSM) solutions that save their clients considerable costs on their annual IBM® spend while keeping all current product versions healthy and secure.
Origina has offices Globally including Texas, USA. As part of its global expansion, Origina is building a follow-the-sun offering to cover 24/7 support including its sales offering. There was a real need to expand their pre-sales engineering expertise in Texas to support the Head of Global Security Services and SecOps based in Dublin. This key senior hire was critical to expanding the sales capability to provide expertise and thought leadership in Cyber Security to prospective clients during the sales process. Their mission would be to lead Origina Security in never losing a deal because of customers’ security fears or concerns about moving to third-party support. As part of the Security team, this role would support the Origina sales teams leveraging challenge sales methodologies whilst promoting Origina’s security capabilities and services.
Fortis started working with Origina in 2021 and in August 2022 Origina requested assistance with a comprehensive search of the US market in Texas for a qualified Security Sales Engineer position based in Texas. A meeting was held between Origina’s talent acquisition officer and the Head of Global Security Services and SecOps and Fortis Exec Search team. During this meeting, we spoke at length about the essential requirements for the role and in particular the type of candidates that would fit the company culture and work well with the Head of Global Security Services and SecOps and build a strong working relationship with colleagues globally. This briefing session was a critical component in guiding us to find the right candidates.
The role required an individual with a mix of both technical and soft skills. A broad deep knowledge of cyber security, information security, regulatory frameworks and industry standards and technical know-how was needed to be coupled with customer success capabilities.
Given the skills shortage in Cyber Security globally, finding skilled candidates with both hands-on technical experience, proficiency in nearly every aspect of information security and excellent customers, commercial and thought leadership qualities within the most competitive market (USA) and within the designated budget for the role was a real challenge but one Fortis accepted gratefully.
Patricia Shields took on this appointment in August 2022. She worked closely with the Head of Global Security Services and SecOps, alongside Origina’s Talent Acquisition lead in this role.
Drawing from an existing US senior technology network in Texas, which Patricia had developed working in Accenture, she quickly established an understanding of the cyber talent landscape in Texas and drew from her contacts any referrals they had. In parallel to this she reached out to Senior Cyber Security Consultants and Security Sales Engineer candidates identified through LinkedIn.
Due to her industry background, Patricia was adept at finding the correct technical and information security skills required for the role. The pre-screening process resulted in a shortlist of seven candidates throughout the search and five candidates were selected for interview.
The interview process consisted of 3 rounds with interviewers from both Ireland and the US locations. The 3rd round of the interview process was a presentation based on a real-life scenario in which candidates had to demonstrate their abilities in interacting with a customer at the warm lead stage and demonstrating their expertise and knowledge in Cyber Security to convince this prospective client to move their support to Origina without concern. This stage allowed the interview panel to evaluate in depth the skills, approaches, and personalities of the candidates. Patricia helped each candidate prepare for this presentation by offering a review of their proposal and feedback to help them tailor it to the brief.
Three candidates made it to the final round, this was designed to be a challenging test and to identify the strongest fit for the role.
Patricia's experience as a hiring manager, who would often require presentations as part of the interviewing process, allowed her to provide a lot of support to each candidate at the stage.
The candidate who engaged best in the process outperformed their competition in this crucial presentation task and emerged as the front-runner. They were offered the position in December 2022 and accepted. They started working in their new role in January 2023.
To learn more about how Patricia can support your recruitment needs, click here, or reach out directly at patricia@fortis.ie.
