Whispered Hiring with Julien Sauvage - CMO @ Cordial

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Julien Sauvage, CMO at Cordial, about building authentic hiring processes that cut through scripted interactions. Drawing from his experience scaling marketing at Salesforce, Gong, Clary, and Talend, Julien reveals why he starts every interview by saying "I hate interviews," how to identify storytellers within three sentences, and why the commoditized 30-60-90 day plan has become useless for evaluating senior talent.

Topics discussed:

• How to assess storytelling and listening skills immediately: evaluating whether candidates create narrative contrast in warm-up questions versus flat responses, while ensuring they demonstrate empathy and active listening rather than constant pitch mode.
• Why you must build the plan and define outcomes before the org chart: using the create-capture-convert demand framework to color-code performance gaps, then determining whether to solve with programs or headcount rather than reflexively backfilling roles.
  
  
• The strategic outsourcing decision matrix: why PMM and brand require full-time employees who breathe company identity daily, while creative and MOPs can be outsourced when CEOs won't approve design headcount over campaign managers.
  
  
• The broken state of VP+ recruiting: receiving 3,000 applications for a senior manager role at Cordial, leading to targeted outreach through operator networks instead of posting senior roles that waste everyone's time.
  
  
• Why company pedigree matters and when to take risks: prioritizing candidates from high-growth companies over inflated titles at stagnant organizations, while recognizing when to make strategic bets like his jump from public company VP to three-person team at pre-unicorn Gong.
  
  
• Creating joyful interview experiences through radical authenticity: starting with "I hate interviews, let's not make this feel like one" to drop facades and enable real assessment of how candidates handle ambiguity.
  
  
• The go-to interview question for marketing leaders: "What's the riskiest bet you've taken?" to assess boldness, self-awareness, and ability to reflect on both wins and failures in a risk-averse industry.
  
  
• How to close candidates with brutal honesty: explicitly stating "there's no dream job" while painting the real challenges alongside opportunities, removing fluffy mission-driven narratives that candidates see through.
  
  
• Why the 30-60-90 day plan is dead: everyone uses GPT to generate identical plans, making it worthless for evaluation while emphasizing the need for balance between strategic thinking and delivering quick wins in the first six months.

ABOUT YOUR HOST: 

Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. 

Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com

Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search