Chris Birkedale is co-founder and CEO of Saiyō. He has spent around fifteen years in technology search, headhunting Leadership, GTM and AI talent for B2B software vendors across the UK, Europe, North America and APAC.
He founded Saiyō in 2023 to end the rationing of headhunting. Most technology scale-ups can only afford proactive search on one or two roles a year, so the rest of their hiring runs on job ads and inbound. The subscription model removes that constraint.
He writes The SaaS Review, a weekly LinkedIn newsletter on B2B SaaS hiring read by 1,200 subscribers, and authors most of the Saiyō Knowledge Centre.
Publications
- The SaaS Review
Weekly LinkedIn newsletter on B2B SaaS hiring, 1,200 subscribers.
Knowledge Centre guides (27)
- What is embedded recruitment?
- What is the difference between sourcing and headhunting?
- Embedded recruitment vs recruitment agency: which is better?
- Embedded recruitment vs RPO: what is the difference?
- Choosing a Hiring Model for a Technology Scale-up
- Building an Internal Talent Acquisition Function
- How to Reduce Cost per Hire Without Lowering the Bar
- How to Reduce Time to Hire for Specialist Roles
- Building a Predictable Hiring Process
- How do you reach passive candidates who are not applying?
- The Market First Method: How to Map a Talent Market
- How do you recruit enterprise SaaS salespeople?
- How do you hire a CRO for a SaaS company?
- Building a GTM Team After Series B
- Hiring Senior and Specialist Talent Internationally
- The Complete Guide to Hiring in a Technology Scale-up
- The Accessibility Gap: Understanding Market Access in Hiring
- The Economics of Technology Hiring
- How to Hire Marketing Leaders for Technology Scale-ups
- Are headhunters still needed now that companies have AI recruiting tools?
- Measuring Candidate Quality
- The Hiring Performance Framework
- How Technology Scale-ups Should Structure Talent Acquisition
- How to Hire Product Leaders and Specialists
- How to Hire Customer Success and Professional Services Talent
- How much does embedded recruitment cost?
- How do you hire AI and machine learning engineers?
Questions (108)
- How does embedded recruitment work?
- When should a scale-up use an embedded recruitment partner?
- What does a professional headhunter actually do?
- How is embedded recruitment different from a recruitment agency?
- Is embedded recruitment the same as RPO?
- Can embedded recruitment replace an internal TA team?
- How much does embedded recruitment cost?
- What is the difference between sourcing and headhunting?
- Why do headhunters still cold call candidates?
- Is LinkedIn outreach the same as headhunting?
- What makes a good headhunter?
- What is the difference between executive search and headhunting?
- Why do high performers rarely apply for jobs?
- How can an internal talent acquisition team reach more passive candidates?
- Is candidate volume a useful measure of hiring quality?
- How should inbound applicants be assessed against headhunted candidates?
- What is talent market mapping?
- How many candidates should be mapped before outreach begins?
- Which companies should be included in a talent map?
- Can internal Talent Acquisition teams build talent maps?
- What is the Accessibility Gap in recruitment?
- How do you measure talent market coverage?
- Why does more outreach not always improve candidate quality?
- Which recruitment channels reach the most passive talent?
- Which hiring model is best for a technology scale-up?
- Agency, RPO or internal TA: how do you choose?
- When should executive search be used?
- Can a company use several hiring models at once?
- When should a company stop relying on recruitment agencies?
- Why do agency costs rise at scale?
- How many recruitment agencies should a company use?
- When is a recruitment agency still the best option?
- Is RPO suitable for a Series B company?
- What does RPO cost compared with embedded recruitment?
- Why do scale-ups struggle with traditional RPO?
- When is RPO the right choice?
- When should I hire my first internal recruiter?
- How many recruiters does a 300-person SaaS company need?
- What should internal Talent Acquisition own?
- Should a Head of Talent recruit or lead the function?
- How should a technology company budget for recruitment?
- What is a good cost per hire for specialist technology roles?
- How should recruitment ROI be measured?
- Is agency spend an operating cost or a growth investment?
- How can we reduce cost per hire?
- Does lowering recruitment fees reduce hiring cost?
- When is internal TA cheaper than agencies?
- How does hiring volume affect cost per hire?
- What is a good time to hire for specialist roles?
- Why do specialist roles take so long to fill?
- How can Series B SaaS companies hire faster?
- Does adding more recruiters reduce time to hire?
- How can a scale-up make hiring more predictable?
- How many interview stages should a specialist hiring process have?
- How should hiring managers be held accountable?
- Why do offers fail at the end of the process?
- How do you measure candidate quality?
- Is interview-to-placement ratio a useful metric?
- What makes a high-quality shortlist?
- How many candidates should be interviewed before a hire?
- Which recruitment metrics should Talent Leaders report to the board?
- What is the difference between activity and outcome metrics?
- How should market coverage be measured?
- Which hiring KPIs predict better outcomes?
- How should TA be structured in a 250 to 1,000 employee technology company?
- What roles belong in a modern TA team?
- Should sourcing and recruitment operations be separate?
- How should TA capacity be planned?
- How do technology companies hire internationally?
- Should we use local recruitment agencies in every country?
- How do you maintain candidate experience across regions?
- Which roles are hardest to hire internationally?
- How much does it cost to hire an Enterprise AE?
- How long should Enterprise AE hiring take?
- What should you assess in an Enterprise AE?
- Why do high-performing AEs fail after moving companies?
- When should a scale-up hire a VP Sales?
- What makes a strong revenue leader?
- Should a CRO come from a larger or smaller company?
- How do you assess revenue leadership without relying on quota claims?
- Which GTM roles should a Series B company hire first?
- How large should a GTM team be at Series B?
- Should a scale-up hire leaders before individual contributors?
- How do you sequence sales, marketing and customer success hiring?
- How do you hire a strong Product Leader?
- What should a scale-up assess in product candidates?
- Should product leaders come from the same industry?
- Why is product hiring difficult?
- How do you hire a Customer Success leader?
- What should you assess in Professional Services candidates?
- When should Customer Success be separated from account management?
- How do you hire for retention and expansion?
- When should a scale-up hire its first CMO?
- What makes a strong B2B technology Marketing leader?
- Should Marketing leaders have category experience?
- How do you assess brand versus demand generation capability?
- How should AI be used in recruitment?
- Are headhunters still needed now that companies have AI recruiting tools?
- Which Talent Acquisition tasks should be automated first?
- How do you protect candidate experience when using AI?
- What is the best hiring model for a technology scale-up?
- How many recruiters does a scale-up need?
- How should a scale-up plan annual hiring?
- What should founders and Talent Leaders measure?
- What is the difference between embedded recruitment and embedded headhunting?
- What should you assess in a machine learning engineer?
- What is the difference between an ML engineer and an applied AI engineer?
- Why do AI engineers not respond to job adverts?
Frameworks (17)
- The Market First Method
- The Talent Accessibility Pyramid
- The Reactive Hiring Cycle
- The Hiring Operating Model
- The Conversation Advantage
- The Specialist Hiring Curve
- The Cost Per Hire Curve
- The Hiring Maturity Model
- The Candidate Quality Index
- The Technology Hiring Flywheel
- The Accessibility Gap
- The Hiring Economics Curve
- Embedded Headhunting Explained
- Complementary Capability Model
- The Headhunting Spectrum
- The Professional Headhunting Process
- Professional Headhunter Competency Model