The first recruiter to reach the hiring manager wins
Thayer Selleck works as an account manager at Insight Global, the third-largest tactical staffing agency in the United States. With 1,001-5,000 employees across 58 offices, Insight Global places talent across technology, finance, government, and other sectors.
Thayer’s job: find clients, build relationships, fill their staffing needs. Fast.
His biggest obstacle: actually reaching decision-makers.
The hardest part of my job is cold calling and getting in touch with the right people.
Generic phone numbers route to switchboards. Receptionists transfer you endlessly. You leave voicemails that never get returned. And while you’re stuck in phone tree hell, your competitor who has the hiring manager’s direct mobile is already having the conversation.
Before Lusha, Thayer faced that problem constantly. Low contact rates. Wasted time. Lost placements.
Your conversion rates are lower when you’re relying on switchboards. I knew I needed to invest in platforms that provided me with personal information.
Then he started using Lusha Extension to find direct mobile numbers.
Contact rate: 5% → 20%. 4x improvement.
Conversion time: 10x faster.
Major win: landed IBM using a mobile number Lusha provided.
Now with Lusha, I have a way in.
Not a better way in. A way in at all.
The switchboard wall
In staffing, your entire business model depends on phone conversations.
You need to talk to hiring managers about their needs. You need to understand their timeline, budget, team dynamics. You need to pitch candidates. You need to close deals.
None of that happens if you can’t reach them.
Generic company phone numbers lead to dead ends. Receptionists transfer you to the wrong department. Voicemails go unreturned. And every hour spent dialing switchboards is an hour your competitor is using to place candidates.
We need to get in front of the right people and the right stakeholders. My biggest challenge is finding a client’s phone number.
Before Lusha, Thayer’s contact rate was 5%. That means 95 out of 100 calls went nowhere. Time wasted. Opportunities lost. Deals that went to recruiters who had better contact information.
He needed verified mobile numbers that connected directly to decision-makers. Not company lines. Not switchboard numbers. Direct mobile numbers that bypass gatekeepers entirely.
4x more conversations
Thayer started using Lusha Extension while prospecting on LinkedIn. Find a hiring manager. Pull their verified mobile number. Call them directly.
Contact rate jumped from 5% to 20%.
My contact rate is up by 4X from 5% to 20% using Lusha Extension.
That’s not just a better metric. That’s 4x more actual conversations with decision-makers who can approve staffing needs.
More conversations mean more relationships. More relationships mean more placements. More placements mean more revenue.
Thayer measures conversion by whether he gets through to the right person with the phone number Lusha provides.
I’ve seen a great conversion rate with Lusha, getting through to the right contact with the phone numbers you provide.
The numbers work. The contacts connect. The conversations happen. That’s infrastructure that determines whether you compete or not.
How to win IBM when they publish no phone numbers
Some companies make prospecting deliberately difficult. No phone numbers on their website. No direct contact information anywhere public.
IBM is one of those companies.
Thayer needed to reach hiring managers at IBM. Generic outreach wouldn’t work. Email sequences wouldn’t cut it. He needed actual phone conversations to understand their staffing needs and pitch candidates.
IBM has no phone numbers online, my only option was to find cell phone numbers, so I grabbed Lusha and found my way in. We now support IBM.
That’s not hyperbole. Lusha’s verified mobile numbers gave Thayer the only access point that worked. He found the hiring manager’s mobile. Called them directly. Built the relationship. Won the account.
Now Insight Global supports IBM’s staffing needs—a major enterprise account that would have been impossible to reach without direct contact information.
Recently, my biggest win with Lusha is my success working with IBM.
One mobile number unlocked an enterprise account. That’s the value of bypassing switchboards.
Record sales during COVID
When COVID hit, most recruiters struggled. In-person meetings disappeared. Office phone systems routed to empty desks. Traditional prospecting methods broke.
Thayer had his best months ever.
The reason: verified mobile numbers. While other recruiters dealt with dead office lines and unanswered voicemails, Thayer reached hiring managers working from home on their mobile phones.
COVID didn’t kill his pipeline. It proved that direct mobile access works better than office switchboards even in normal times.
Thayer’s most successful sales months came during a pandemic because he had infrastructure that worked regardless of where people were located.
Conversion speed that matters
In staffing, speed determines winners. The recruiter who places the candidate first gets the fee. The recruiter who fills the role fastest gets repeat business.
Before Lusha, Thayer’s conversion process took 10x longer.
Before Lusha, my conversion rate took 10x times more time.
Not 10% longer. 10 times longer.
That delay compounds across every deal. If a competitor can reach decision-makers in days while you’re spending weeks, they win every time.
Lusha collapsed that timeline. Find prospects on LinkedIn. Pull verified mobiles through the extension. Call immediately. Have the conversation.
10x faster means you’re first to the hiring manager. First usually wins.
Customer service that actually helps
Thayer appreciates something that should be standard but often isn’t: responsive, helpful customer support.
You have a very intuitive website, and your customer service is great.
When he had account questions, he got immediate support. Not tickets that sit for days. Not automated responses that don’t answer the question. Actual help.
More notably: Lusha support proactively helped him save money. When they noticed his usage patterns, they suggested switching to a lower-price plan with fewer credits that better matched his needs.
“A Lusha representative recently helped Thayer change his plan to help him save him money, by switching to a lower price-plan with less credits.”
That’s not upselling. That’s genuinely helping a customer optimize their spend. Most vendors push you toward higher plans. Lusha recommended downgrading because it made more sense for his workflow.
Thayer values Lusha’s ability to “understand a customer’s pain points, and willingness to satisfy these pain points and beat out the rest of the competition.”
Support that actually supports. Rare enough to mention.
When “efficiency” means infrastructure
Asked to describe Lusha in one word, Thayer chose: Efficiency.
That word carries weight for staffing recruiters. Efficiency isn’t a nice-to-have benefit. It’s competitive advantage.
Contact rate: 5% → 20% (4x improvement)
Conversion speed: 10x faster
Major accounts won: IBM and others using verified mobiles
Best sales months: During COVID when competitors struggled
Support quality: Proactive help that saved money
I started investing in Lusha’s paid plan when I started seeing success, and how much money and opportunity I was missing without it.
Not missing potential opportunity. Missing actual money. Real deals that went to recruiters with better contact information.
After quadrupling his contact rates, Thayer sees exactly what Lusha delivers: access to decision-makers that determines whether you compete effectively or not.
In staffing, having a way in is everything. Switchboards block it. Direct mobile numbers provide it.
That’s not efficiency as a feature. That’s efficiency as infrastructure that determines who wins deals.
