If you’ve ever worked in an office setting and someone calls or comes to the office with their business card and wants to speak with your office manager, or the person who buys office supplies for the company, this is that job. It’s a very metric-driven, always be closing, hunter kind of sales job. If you’re going to apply for this job, there will be multiple steps you’ll need to pass during the interview process. In retrospect, I think their job application/interview experience somewhat mimics their sales model, where the salesperson first calls, then visits with the customer two or three more times. There is an initial HR recruiter who calls and asks pretty general questions about your sales experiences and what you learned from failure.They explained the position is a 40-hour a week job (it’s actually more like 50, I later found out), with two days in the office setting up appointments, three days in the field, visiting prospects. If this initial call goes well, you’ll receive an email with a link to a sales personality assessment.
If you pass the assessment, the area manager will contact you by email to set up a phone interview. The phone interview continues with the same sales related questions. I passed that and went in for an in-person interview with the area sales manager a few days after talking on the phone. The interview was very conversational but they’re looking for hints that you’re not a hunter, so you had better always be closing by asking what the next step in the process will be. I left convinced I blew it and would not be called back, but I was called more than week later for another interview.
The second interview went better and we set up an interview with another manager a few days later, which was a good sign. I should have cancelled the final interview, which did not go well, by the way, because the more I thought about the day to day of the job, the more I realized it was not me. I didn’t prepare for the last interview and am glad I didn’t waste more of my time.The questions were very detailed and scenario-driven, some I couldn’t even follow because they were so elaborate, and I didn’t even care enough to try. Be prepared to rank yourself on a scale of one to ten in terms of competitiveness and determination, etc., and what three things your past manager would say about you. If you have any of your sales rankings or metrics from previous jobs, be sure to know that information (I did not). I was not at all surprised when I received a generic rejection email several days later. I didn’t do a ride-along or make a fake presentation like I read others have, so I guess that would have been the next step. I think it’s a great company but I would be much better suited to a different role.