In this guide, we explore how to attract and hire B2B pricing leaders who can drive real impact in $1B+ companies. With insights into essential preparation steps, the best approach for reaching top pricing talent, and effective assessment strategies, this guide provides a complete roadmap to secure the right leader for your organisation’s pricing function. Joe Fleming (joe@venortech.com) is an executive search recruiter focused on finding exceptional Pricing & Commercial Excellence talent for B2B companies in the US & Europe, helping firms make pivotal hires to advance their strategic goals. Connect with Joe on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jmfleming.

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This guide is tailored specifically to hiring for B2B pricing roles, offering specialised insights beyond general hiring practices.

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Once you’ve decided to hire, any delay – whether from taking too long to find the right person, making a poor hire, or not hiring at all – can risk achieving the exact opposite of your objectives:

• Revenue Loss & Profit Erosion
• Competitive Weakness & Customer Churn
• Market Entry Delays & Poor Product-Market Fit
• High Opportunity Costs & Internal Frustration

Each of these challenges grows over time, but by following the steps in this guide, you can reduce these risks and get it right the first time.

Professionals in pricing often approach new opportunities cautiously, frequently sceptical of a company’s ability to understand their unique role and objectives. This caution often stems from past challenges, setting a low initial bar and creating an opportunity to differentiate your organisation from others.

Working through the following steps will strengthen your ability to attract and hire top pricing talent.

This guide covers:

• Preparation
• Approach
• Assessment

Preparation

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Are you thoroughly prepared?

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This stage is critical. Can you define exactly what you want this person to achieve, and will you provide the environment to enable it? Lack of clarity here risks misaligned hires and costly, prolonged searches.

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The “Get Ready” CheckList

• Job Title: Ensure clarity here, especially if it’s a senior hire without people management. Misalignment on this point can deter strong candidates.
• Role Placement: Where does pricing reside in your organisation? Why?
• Reporting Structure & Stakeholders: Who does this role report to, and who has stakes in its success? C-level support can be a decisive advantage.
• Pricing Maturity: What stage are you at in your pricing journey, are you using Excel and cost-plus or  value-based and data-driven?
• Operational or Strategic: If the role isn’t strategic, who oversees strategy? No autonomy or support typically means setting the hire up for failure.
• Master Data Management: What’s the state of your MDM?
• Career Path: Does this role have growth potential internally, or is it standalone?
• Success Metrics: Define how success and bonus metrics align.
• Compensation: Benchmark externally, especially for specialist roles.
• Job Description & Advertisement: If advertising, create a distinct, compelling job advert. Effective ads are different from detailed job descriptions; consider seeking expert guidance if necessary.

Take Note: Get This Right

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Role Placement is critical – getting this wrong can make it much harder to attract the best people. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer; different organisations may place pricing under Finance, Operations, or Strategy (rarely under Sales without a compelling reason). A set-up becoming increasingly common is to make pricing independent, reporting directly to a C-level executive or CEO in a strategic capacity.

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For a newly created role, pricing will need a strong sponsor to ensure project execution; this can help determine its placement, as the person able to best navigate bureaucratic barriers may be the best option.

For further insights, Paul Hunt’s World Class Pricing: The Journey is an excellent resource for those establishing a pricing department.

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Once you have the above all figured out, it will make the rest of the process a lot more straightforward.

Approach

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Setting Yourself Up for Success

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Pricing roles can be hard to find – often scattered across job boards or recruiters, making visibility a challenge. Many online postings attract hundreds of irrelevant applications, which can dilute brand perception and negatively impact applicant experience. Whether hiring through a firm or in-house, getting the process right from the outset is crucial.

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For In-house Recruiting: If non-experts are screening applications, establish a clear, detailed framework to qualify applicants effectively. Otherwise, the effort invested in crafting the role will go to waste.

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AI Screening: While AI tools can streamline screening, they may also exclude well qualified people, making it a game of who has the best AI. Use caution here, especially for specialised roles like pricing where expertise matters more than automated filtering.

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Expertise: If lacking internal expertise, consider using a pricing consultant or specialised recruiter to guide the process.

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Level & Location Considerations

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Crafting a well-written job advert, backed by a solid job description, and offering a benchmarked salary with a transparent range sets you ahead of competitors.

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When budgeting, factor in location and set-up (In-Office/WFH/Hybrid).

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Quick Tip: Search LinkedIn by “location” and the term “pricing” (in Job Title) to roughly gauge the size of your local talent pool.

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This may return a very small number of people and may have you rethinking how you approach things.

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Do not use another department’s “equivalent level” to set the salary, if you do not know what this should be, find someone that does.

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Recruiting Breakdown

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Headhunting for Pricing Roles

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To secure the best people, proactive search is essential. Here’s a strategic breakdown to refine your approach and increase your chances of success:

• Map the Competitive Landscape
  Identify and analyse the competitive landscape, pinpointing industries and specific companies of interest. Understand where pricing talent is most likely to be found – whether in similar industries or related sectors with transferable pricing experience.
• Develop a Targeted Search Profile
  Craft a clear profile for the ideal candidate, including must-have skills, relevant pricing software or systems experience, and industry background. For pricing roles, consider including knowledge of pricing strategy frameworks, data analysis skills, and cross-functional collaboration experience.
• Building the Target List
  If you don’t have an existing pricing talent pool, LinkedIn will be a primary source to identify qualified individuals. Focus on narrowing down profiles based on specific skills, keywords like "pricing strategy," "price optimisation," and relevant certifications.
• Optimise LinkedIn Searches
  Access to LinkedIn Recruiter can help filter candidates who are “open to work” (different from the “open to work” green banner). Using LinkedIn alone, however, limits reach, so combine this with broader research to avoid missing out on non-LinkedIn users.
• Data Enrichment for Contact Information
  After building an initial Target List, use data enrichment tools to access additional contact details, making it easier to reach out through multiple channels.
• Multi-Stage Outreach Plan
  Use a layered engagement approach: start with Connection Requests, InMails, and emails, then follow up with phone outreach if they’ve expressed interest. Engaging candidates with different touch points increases response rates and builds rapport over time.
• Craft a Compelling Outreach Pitch
  Customise your messaging – contacting a Pricing Manager with a like-for-like job match won’t spark much interest. Highlight how your opportunity advances their career, impacts strategic pricing outcomes, or aligns with their professional goals. Discuss specifics about your company’s pricing maturity or current growth plans that make the role unique.
• Engage Well-Qualified Candidates Only
  With careful targeting, you’ll focus on candidates who meet most or all of the role’s requirements, saving time and ensuring productive conversations.

Advertising for Pricing Roles

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When advertising for pricing roles, be prepared for significant variability in response rates – this can range from having to process 300+ applications to looking for ways to promote your advert due to very low response rate. Factors such as market conditions, industry trends, location and the perceived desirability of the role will all have a strong effect on engagement.

• Standard Response Rates
  Industry standards suggest that only about 1–3% of those who view a job post will apply. Achieving 100 applications typically requires anything from 3,000–10,000 views across platforms, depending on the appeal of the role and clarity of the job description.
• Application Volume & Quality
  However, in the current market for pricing roles, we’ve seen job posts receiving upwards of 300 applications, though quality can vary widely. Screening 300 applications at 2 minutes per resume takes ~10 hours, often by recruiters who may not have pricing-specific experience, leading to potential oversight of qualified candidates.
• Return on Screening Effort
  On average, <10% of applications (and sometimes even 5% or less) are worth progressing, meaning substantial time invested yields a small pool of qualified candidates.

Summary of Time Commitments and Candidate Flow

• Total Candidates to Initial Screen: 300
• Total Qualified Candidates for Phone Interviews: 30 (10%)
• Candidates for In-Depth Interviews: 10-15
• Candidates for Final Round: 3-5
• Final Offers: 1-2

Total Estimated Time (Excluding Non-Responsive Candidates): 40+ hours

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This above example illustrates the intensity of effort and significant time investment required for pricing roles (in a very streamlined process–most are longer). High application volumes do not directly correlate with high-quality candidates, emphasising the value of targeted sourcing and screening.

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The processes above (Headhunting and Advertising for Pricing Roles) cover the Candidate Generation stage. This guide does not include sections on Candidate Management or Offer and Counter-Offer Management.

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What’s critical here is ensuring top-quality candidates at the beginning of the funnel. Recognising and differentiating a strong candidate requires a trained eye – avoid leaving this to someone without the necessary expertise. Effective management throughout the process will build candidate confidence, ultimately increasing the likelihood of your preferred candidate accepting the offer.

Assessment

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Role-Specific Expectations

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Your first pricing hire will likely differ from future hires, especially with varied experience levels.

The challenge with your first hire is requiring a combination of all three of the following levels in one person.

Below are common role expectations to guide your search.

1. Pricing Analyst (Junior)
   • Responsibilities: Pricing analysis, reporting, process transformation, tool administration.
   • Key Skills: Data analysis, proficiency in pricing tools, cross-functional collaboration.
2. Pricing Manager (Mid-Level)
   • Responsibilities: Regional strategy, pricing tools, leadership in change.
   • Key Skills: Cross-functional engagement, pricing strategy, regional reporting.
3. Global Head of Pricing (Senior)
   • Responsibilities: Strategic framework, global team oversight, value driven transformation.
   • Key Skills: Change management, finance integration, global leadership.

Assessing Transferability

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Well-qualified candidates may be overlooked due to industry biases. Pricing skills are often transferable across industries, though hiring managers sometimes seek direct industry experience due to perceived nuances. Instead, assess candidates’ familiarity with business models similar to yours rather than exact industry alignment.

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‍Consider:

• Business Type (e.g., B2B, B2C etc)
• Regulation Levels: Industries like Finance and Pharma may have higher regulatory expectations, but don’t filter solely on this.

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Example:

In the above example, pricing experience gained in company one will transfer very well to company two (and vice versa). Company three however is going to involve a very different way of working and pricing, meaning the gap will be bigger.

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Provide a framework to help non-experts recognise transferable skills.

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Qualifications & Tools

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Hands-on experience outweighs certifications, but certain credentials signal competency:

• Certified Pricing Professional (CPP) from the Professional Pricing Society
• Certified Pricing Manager (CPM) from the European Pricing Platform

Proficiency with tools like Power BI, SQL, Tableau, and Alteryx is increasingly expected along with knowledge and experience with CRMs (Salesforce) and ERPs (SAP, Oracle).

Pricing Software Vendors

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There are many third-party pricing tools and platforms that support diverse business needs. Whether or not your company uses these tools (or plans to in the future) will largely depend on your current pricing maturity and budget – typically only found in very sophisticated companies.

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For a comprehensive overview of the major pricing vendors, explore our proprietary pricing landscape tool: Pricing Landscape Discovery Tool.

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Different industries often gravitate towards specific vendors, so it’s beneficial to know which companies are prominent in your market. Being familiar with these can help you recognise relevant experience in candidates.

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If your hire will be responsible for selecting and implementing pricing software, consider candidates who bring hands-on experience with key vendors. Navigating a successful software selection and implementation process is a specialised task, and there are multiple approaches to make it work effectively.

Interview Guide

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Here are six questions to gauge knowledge and experience in pricing. Consider developing model answers as a guide for follow-up.

1. What is your standard approach to creating a professional pricing function?
2. What's your experience shaping Pricing Excellence Roadmaps and driving financial impact?
3. How do you secure organisational buy-in for pricing changes and drive a project to completion?
4. What’s your process for managing price exceptions?
5. What pricing systems and software do you prefer and why?
6. How would you approach improving current pricing systems?

To help further we’ve gone into more detail about how you can run the interview, this sets out the Questions, with Follow-Up Prompts and What to Listen For. This is a “ready-to-use-guide” or you can tailor it to your own needs.

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1. Introduction and Context-Setting

• Objective: Set the tone, introduce the interviewer and company, and briefly outline the role’s importance within the organisation.
• Interviewer Prompt: “To start, we want to give you a bit more context about our pricing team, the objectives we’re hoping to achieve, and how this role is intended to fit into the bigger picture of our pricing function.”
• Company-Specific Background: Add details about pricing’s role in the company’s strategy, competitive landscape, and any recent changes or initiatives within the pricing team (e.g., expanding team, moving to value-based pricing).

2. Foundational Approach to Pricing

• Question: “What is your standard approach to creating a professional pricing function?”
• Follow-up Prompts:
  • “Can you share a specific example where you established or significantly evolved a pricing function?”
  • “How do you prioritise between quick wins and long-term strategic goals in this process?”
• What to Listen For: Look for structured methodologies, alignment with business goals, and adaptability in approach. Ideal candidates should mention frameworks they use and be able to explain how they balance strategy and operational needs.

3. Strategy and Impact with Pricing Roadmaps

• Question: “What's your experience shaping Pricing Excellence Roadmaps and driving financial impact?”
• Follow-up Prompts:
  • “How do you measure the success of a pricing roadmap?”
  • “What key milestones do you set, and how do you adjust if targets aren’t met?”
• What to Listen For: Insight into long-term planning, specific results achieved, and adaptability to changing business needs. Experience with specific KPIs or metrics to track pricing impact is beneficial.

4. Securing Buy-In and Managing Change

• Question: “How do you secure organisational buy-in for pricing changes and drive a project to completion?”
• Follow-up Prompts:
  • “How do you handle resistance from key stakeholders?”
  • “Can you describe a time when you needed to pivot your strategy mid-project to ensure stakeholder alignment?”
• What to Listen For: Skill in influencing and negotiating across departments, including sales, finance, and product teams. Look for concrete examples of overcoming resistance and adapting messaging to different stakeholders.

5. Handling Price Exceptions and Governance

• Question: “What’s your process for managing price exceptions?”
• Follow-up Prompts:
  • “What is your approach to balancing flexibility with maintaining margin integrity?”
  • “How do you set policies around exceptions, and what criteria must be met?”
• What to Listen For: Understanding of risk management, ability to enforce policies while accommodating key customer needs, and experience developing pricing governance frameworks.

6. Technology and Tools Proficiency

• Question: “What pricing systems and software do you prefer and why?”
• Follow-up Prompts:
  • “How did you determine which tool was the best fit for a previous organisation?”
  • “Can you describe a time you adapted to a new pricing tool or customised it to fit specific business requirements?”
• What to Listen For: Familiarity with relevant tools like Power BI, SQL, Tableau, SAP, Oracle (more advanced, PROS, ZIlliant, Pricefx, Vendavo) and experience adapting to new systems. Candidates should be able to explain how they’ve used tools to achieve pricing insights or improvements.

7. Process Improvement and Optimisation

• Question: “How would you approach improving current pricing systems?”
• Follow-up Prompts:
  • “How do you assess which parts of the current system need improvement?”
  • “Can you provide an example of a successful system improvement initiative you led?”
• What to Listen For: Analytical skills, ability to identify inefficiencies, and approach to incremental vs. comprehensive changes. Ideal candidates may also share quantitative results from their improvements.

8. Behavioural and Soft Skills Assessment

• Questions:
  • “Tell me about a time you had to influence a challenging stakeholder on a pricing decision.”
  • “How do you ensure your pricing recommendations are well-received and actionable for non-technical teams?”
• What to Listen For: Strong communication, ability to simplify complex ideas, and adaptability in communication style.

9. Close the Interview

• Final Question: “What excites you most about the prospect of managing our pricing function, and where do you see your greatest potential contribution?”
• Wrap-Up: Provide candidates with an opportunity to ask questions. This will offer insight into their understanding of the role and interest in the company's specific pricing challenges.
• Interviewer Prompt: Thank the candidate, outline next steps, and express interest in their background and how it might fit with the team’s goals.

Selling Points for Career Progression

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Pin-point what people of certain backgrounds will be interested in and make sure you highlight these areas.

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Explain how the role will evolve with the company’s needs, whether by building a team, implementing specialised software, or establishing a centre of pricing or commercial excellence. An attractive long-term roadmap will set your offer apart.

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Specific Selling Points for Consultants

• Opportunity to implement ideas with measurable impact
• Alternative to sales-driven consulting paths
• Improved work-life balance compared to consulting

Selling Points for Industry Professionals

• C-level support for change, enhancing role viability
• Personal performance related bonus
• Budget for skills improvement/training courses

Final Tips & Insights

• Cross-Industry Perspectives: Diverse industry backgrounds can bring fresh ideas to your pricing strategy, fostering innovation and reducing groupthink.
• Understand Transfer Pricing: Transfer pricing, which is internal pricing for related entities, differs significantly from product or service pricing. This is not what you’re looking for. Ensure your candidates' experience aligns with the specific pricing function you need.
• Clarify Managerial Titles: Don’t assume that a “Manager” title means the candidate has direct reports. In pricing roles, managerial responsibilities can vary widely, so verify the scope of their experience.
• Keep an Open Mind on Compensation: Pricing roles have a broad salary range across industries and companies. Avoid ruling out candidates based solely on assumptions about budget alignment.
• Outsized Returns: Extra time taken for specialist hires will repay you multiple times over.

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Ready to Find Your Next Pricing Leader?

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Hiring for specialised roles like a pricing manager can be complex, time-consuming, and costly if not done right. Our expertise lies in helping companies like yours find the ideal candidate swiftly and efficiently, ensuring you have a pricing leader who drives results and optimises revenue.

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If you’re ready to streamline your hiring process and secure the right talent, contact us today. We’re here to guide you at every step and make hiring easier, faster, and more effective.