Designing a great interview process

Hello Friends!

How did you design your interview process for hiring great sales reps? What resources did you use to design the process?

I'm a new sales manager for an EdTech SaaS start up and would love to help thinking through the interview process on the whole. Everything from the design of the who process to the design of individual interviews.

Any advice, resources, tools, tricks would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Zac

☁️ Software Tech

👥 Hiring

🧢 Sales Management

2 comments

Sort by:

SADNES5

Politicker

down voters are marketing spies

Hey,

Interview process for my team. (It's a long business cycle, so the interview reflects this)

Resumes - Shortlist 8 people for 1 role.
Phone Screen - How are the on the phone, short to 6. keep 8 if they are amazing.
In-person - have a LONG interview. Think 2-3 hours, we try and do a breakfast and lunch interview, so they can at least get something out of the meet.

We chose a lunch/break so we can see how they will be in a high pressure low intro situations. Cater to dietary, but meet off site.
Once the breakfast/lunch is done, and you get a feel for the person without any formal interview questions. Great break the ice stuff is over the food, get the comfort out. Set the stage for the next part, while you're eating. "When we head to the office, we will have a ppt deck for you to go through" highlighting key points of a made up product. Chat about common objections etc.

Head to office, do the HR song and dance star questions (ugh - personally I don't see value in these, as a prepared interviewee will have these picked out in advance)

Then give them 15-30 minutes to go through the deck, and ask how they will use some made up stuff to overcome objections with info provided.

What it comes down to is, will this person fit in, are they trainable if they don't have the skills right now? What do they bring to the table IF they have the skills.

We have a lot of success with this, and long term, great fit employees (pre-covid) and people chomping at the bit to return when we have budget.

I think the breaky/lunch thing really throws people for a loop, you can get to see how they are in high pressure situations when work isn't the only focus.

Stay well

mapache

Head of Sales

We do:
1) Resume

2) Phone Screen - if they pass:

3) Challenge round w/ sales team via Zoom (can they write an email, do a discovery call or a cold call, can they take feedback)
back to back we do 15 min meet and greet w/ the manager to answer the candidates questions (def. candidate focused ) - if they pass:

4) Cross-functional round w/ Marketing and Success and then back to back we do Final Round - if they pass

5) Offer - then manager usually needs to come in as closer during the counter.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

Press Careers

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.

zacstein

Designing a great interview process

2 comments

Related posts

*Interview* Is a roleplay part of your company's interview process?

Pregnancy: to disclose or not to disclose during interview process

ADVICE - Palantir Sales Interview Process - Heading into #4

Interview Is a roleplay part of your company's interview process?