Curiosity Works Here: From Police Officer to Selling Agentic AI in EMEA

Enterprise Account Executive Daniel Sherer didn’t plan on a career in sales. He started out as a police officer, spent some time in intellectual property law, and then took a chance on something new. Five years and three roles later, he’s part of Eightfold’s DACH sales team, based in Switzerland and working with customers across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

We talked with Daniel about how he got here, what it takes to do well in sales at Eightfold, and why this is a good moment to join the team in EMEA.

“Are you in sales?”

Daniel went straight from university into policing. It’s not the usual starting point for a sales career, but he sees more overlap than you’d expect.

“There are a lot of shared skills: communicating clearly, making decisions under pressure, and negotiating, sometimes with people I was putting in handcuffs!” he says. “It was rewarding work, and I could have stayed in law enforcement my whole career. But life happens, and I found myself moving across the country. This led me to reconsider my professional track.”

After a short stint in intellectual property law, he was ready for a change. The push toward sales came from strangers.

“I’m the guy who always ends up talking to people I’ve just met. When we got to the ‘What do you do for work?’ part, they’d always guess: ‘Are you in sales?’ I heard it enough times that I decided it must be a sign and I needed to find a path into software sales.”

A bet on potential

Daniel didn’t have a sales résumé when he applied. Eightfold hired him anyway.

“Eightfold saw my transferable skills and my potential to succeed,” he says. “Five years and three roles later, I’m very glad they took a chance on me.”

It’s a fitting start. Looking past job titles to see someone’s skills and potential is exactly what Eightfold’s Talent Intelligence Platform helps companies do.

He joined before ChatGPT and GenAI went mainstream, so he’s watched the company change alongside the market. “It’s been fascinating to see the product, our customers, and the market grow as the world around us changes. Every day brings something new: new ideas, new customer conversations, new problems to solve.”

Why now is an exciting time to sell at Eightfold

“It’s clear we’re doing something completely different and new,” Daniel says. “We’re thinking in ways other solution vendors in our space simply aren’t, and our opportunity is growing fast because of it.”

He points to agentic AI and two new products in particular.

AI Interviewer answers questions customers ask all the time: How do we scale hiring up and down without burning out our teams? What do we do about all the perfect résumés we’re getting? “An agentic layer that helps candidates find the right roles and recruiters find the right candidates is a win for everyone,” he says.

TalentForge solves a different problem. “Companies no longer have to adapt their processes to fit a rigid system they invested months or years of time and money configuring,” Daniel says. “HR and IT can build the exact applications they need on top of the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform. Each app is purpose built for that organization while keeping the same security, compliance, architecture, and Responsible AI standards. What’s more exciting and powerful than that?”

Customers are noticing, too. “It’s exciting to meet prospects who think they know Eightfold and show them what we’ve been up to lately.”

What it takes: be the person customers trust

Asked what makes someone successful in sales at Eightfold, Daniel doesn’t talk about quotas. He talks about trust.

“You have to be a trusted advisor and a real partner to your customers,” he says. “That matters even more when you’re selling cutting-edge technology in a market this noisy. With AI, it’s never been easier to go from an idea to a polished website or a perfect demo. That’s exciting and a little terrifying, because it makes it hard for customers to separate fact from fiction.”

He also emphasizes knowing the product inside and out. “I need to know Eightfold backwards and forwards and understand why we’re building what we’re building. That product knowledge helps me operate authentically and be that trusted advisor. It allows me to elevate Eightfold’s capabilities above the noise, which has never been more important.”

Why EMEA, why now

Daniel is proud of the DACH team, and he thinks the timing for the region is right.

“The market has matured,” he says. “Customers are more interested and better informed than ever. They know the business value they need to achieve, the KPIs they want to move, and the kind of technology partner they want to work with. The connection between talent strategy and business outcome is becoming more clear and the quality of our conversations has gone way up over the last three years as a result.”

That interest now goes well beyond the core platform. “Customers are coming to us about AI Interviewer, TalentForge, and the other agentic tools we’re developing,” he says.

Put that together with Eightfold’s brand recognition in EMEA, he says, “and it’s a recipe for success for our sellers.”

Life outside work

As an American living in Switzerland, Daniel has learned how much outdoor time matters for work-life balance.

“My wife and I have fully embraced la vie Suisse,” he says. “We’ve picked up skiing in the colder months, since Chamonix and other world-class slopes are less than an hour’s drive away. In the warmer months, we cycle, having the benefit of picking flat routes or climbs. And, we bring our German shepherd along on our adventures as often as we can – he recently visited Germany, his seventh country!”

Join us

We’re hiring for sales. You don’t need a traditional background to be a great fit. Like Daniel, you need curiosity, good judgment, and a knack for building trust. Visit our careers site to see open roles. 

Curious what Daniel’s customers are excited about? Learn more about AI Interviewer and TalentForge.