Healthcare and industrial sales roles are outperforming SaaS

While US software sales hiring has cooled, medical device, industrial and energy sales vacancies have continued to grow, offering longer tenures and more stable quotas.

Employers in these sectors are actively recruiting from SaaS, valuing process discipline while accepting a longer ramp on technical product knowledge.

Candidates report lower variable upside but materially better attainment rates.

For sales hiring, the honest reading is that a strong CV predicts very little. What correlates with performance is evidence of a repeatable process, a credible account of ramp in the last role, and territory design that makes the number achievable. We would rather present four sellers with verified ramp stories than twenty with impressive logos.

Across the US, the pattern is regional rather than national. Aggregate figures hide markets that are still extremely tight, so we benchmark by metro and sector rather than by country-level averages.

If you are hiring in sales right now, the practical takeaway is to shorten your process and be explicit about what is genuinely non-negotiable. Fewer, better matched candidates almost always beat a longer list — and in a market moving this quickly, speed of decision is itself a competitive advantage.