M
M

mmsells

Account Executive

Politicker
Opinionated
Good Citizen

"Projects" / "Homework" during sales interviews?

I'm currently going through a few different interviews for different AE roles, and 1 or 2 of them are making me do what they're calling "homework", and creating a presentation on a few questions that they asked me. If they like what I've done then I have to present it to their teams once it's done.


I've been in sales for 5+ years now and rarely have come across assignments that need to be this thorough. I haven't interviewed in quite a while, but is this the norm now for sales interviews?? Are more people seeing this type of structure?

Do you think companies should give homework as part of a sales interview?

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9 comments

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poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
2
☕️
I've seen this a lot more now that we cannot get in-person interviews set up. I recently interviewed for an exec role (that I took) and had a longer-format presentation and data analysis project, but that's also par for the course at that level.


In the past, for AE level roles I've had to do a mock demo or presentation for the hiring team--but they gave me a pre-built deck and I build my talk track. Took an hour to really polish it up, so that's why I voted for the nothing more than 1 hour option.
SADNES5
Politicker
3
down voters are marketing spies
Totally fine if they give you the stuff to sell, I just despise the "you put in work FOR free, to pitch us" ugh. nightmare. 
SADNES5
Politicker
2
down voters are marketing spies
I hate this. Stop working for free, some of these companies will use the deck/ideas/pitch if they decide not to hire you. 

If they have a deck/pitch for you to sell, that is fine. Give you an hour or a day to look it over so you can find your voice, sure. But the "create a deck/pitch" is some shitty bottom of the barrel moves. 

I understand there are good intentions behind it, but I mean... hire for attitude, train for skills. 
JuicyKlay
Celebrated Contributor
1
AM
Going through this right now as well! Roleplaying a discovery call, creating and sending practice cold emails, fake cold calls, product pitches and powerpoints, etc..  I'd say half of all my sales jobs have had similar "homework" during the interview phase.
Juancallclose
Catalyst
0
Director
That's a lot of work
Rallier
Politicker
1
SDR Manager and Consultant
It's a fairly common practice nowadays. But I get why they want to do it. Hiring is expensive, and if you make a mistake it's exponentially more expensive.
CaneWolf
Politicker
1
Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract
Only acceptable as a theoretical sales pitch. If they try to get you to do actual work, including but not limited to:

-Building a plan on developing the territory
-Discussing how you'd bring over current customers
-Developing a target account list

just run.
braintank
Politicker
0
Enterprise Account Executive
Depends on the role and seniority level. Early in my career, I had to do mock demos/presentations. Now that I'm seasoned the interview process is more focused on understanding your process and approach. The worst is making you sell the new company product to them... if they ask you to do that it's a waste of time.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
0
🦊
Waste of time.

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