Account Executive, Staffing (US)

firstwork; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Firstwork is seeking a seasoned enterprise sales professional in New York to drive new business for its AI-powered staffing platform. You will own the full sales cycle from discovery to multi-year contracts with staffing firms and large employers, focusing on high-value, long-term engagements.

You will lead strategic conversations with owners, CEOs, COOs, and operations leaders to quantify value and accelerate time-to-start, working closely with deployment teams to ensure rapid value realization

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional sales experience
• Proven track record closing new business with multi-year or high-value contracts
• Experience selling to owners/CEOs/COOs of staffing firms
• Demonstrated ability to self-source a meaningful share of deals
• Knowledge of staffing metrics (bill rate, fill rate, time-to-fill) and onboarding processes

Responsibilities

• Source and close new staffing accounts and build a pipeline through events, referrals, and outbound efforts
• Conduct discovery to map onboarding and compliance workflows and articulate them clearly to buyers
• Build a compelling business case on cost and risk to convert pilots into multi-year contracts
• Collaborate with AI Deployment Specialists and engineers to onboard customers quickly
• Expand accounts across branches, modules, and countries after initial deal

Skills

New business closing

Enterprise SaaS sales

Quota achievement

Self-sourcing

Stakeholder mapping

Tools

Bullhorn

Avionté

TempWorks

JobDiva

Job description

About Firstwork

Firstwork exists so that every frontline worker gets the same personal, 24/7 support in starting and staying in a job that a senior professional gets from a dedicated recruiter, made affordable by AI.

We're an applied AI company running frontline workforce operations for staffing firms and large employers of hourly and shift workers. Our software does the work that sits today with recruiters, compliance teams and outsourced back offices, from a worker's first application into the job itself. We support 150,000 workers a month across more than 80 countries, for customers including Job&Talent, Deel, Wonolo, BGSF, ProLink and Multiplier. Our Series A was led by Earlybird Venture Capital alongside Gradient Ventures and Y Combinator.

The role

Help staffing firms get workers into jobs faster and keep them there, with AI that runs the work their back offices and outsourced teams carry today. Your buyer feels the problem every day, the product pays for itself within weeks, and Firstwork already runs in production for some of the most demanding firms in the industry.

You'll sell to owners, CEOs, COOs and operations leaders at mid-market and large staffing firms across light industrial, commercial, healthcare, logistics and warehouse staffing. They care about how fast a worker is ready to start, how many back-office people it takes, margin per placement, and I-9 and E-Verify audit exposure.

What you'll do

• Source and close new staffing accounts, with a meaningful share of pipeline you build yourself through events, referrals and outbound to named accounts
• Run discovery that maps the real onboarding and compliance workflow, then play it back more clearly than the buyer described it
• Build the business case on cost and risk, and turn pilots into committed, multi-year contracts
• Sell alongside our AI Deployment Specialists and forward-deployed engineers, who take customers live in weeks
• Expand accounts across branches, modules and countries after the first deal

What we're looking for

• 6+ years of professional experience, including 3+ years closing new business with strong recent quota performance
• You've sold to the owner, CEO or COO of staffing firms and can explain how a staffing firm makes money: bill rate, fill rate, time-to-fill
• You've closed deals worth $100K to $150K a year, including at least one multi-year or committed-volume contract
• At least 30% of your closed business was self-sourced
• You multi-thread deliberately across champion, economic buyer, operations and compliance stakeholders

Strong signals

• You've sold to staffing firms with 100+ branches or $1B+ revenue, through procurement and security review (Strategic level)
• You've started or have an interest in selling AI agents or automation to staffing firms, priced on usage or per hire
• A network in the American Staffing Association or SIA community
• You know the staffing stack: Bullhorn, Avionté, TempWorks/zvoove, JobDiva
• You've sold onboarding, I-9/E-Verify, background screening or a staffing back-office product

Firstwork is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or any other protected status.