This is the second of a two part series, where we cover, end-to-end, what an effective interview process for a sales team looks like. You can read the first part here.
The current state of affairs:
You’re running first calls with candidates (either yourself or through an internal / external recruiter), and you’ve now got a pipeline of people you’re excited to interview.
So, what do our next steps look like?
Let’s talk about the number of interviews, the idea of having candidates “do work” and a timeline that you should aim to fit everything into.
Number of interviews
We’ve talked about the raw number of salespeople you need to hire to hit the team growth plan before.
It’s a lot.
And probably more than you’d expect.
For the roles where you’re effectively hiring in bulk (aka SDRs and AEs), you need a process that quickly identifies good talent and moves them forward.
In my view, an effective interview process shouldn’t have more than 3 core interviews (4 if we include the initial recruiter screen).
There’s also room for a final “interview” (usually with the founder or a Sr leader) that functions more as a candidate closing call than anything else. I don’t count this as part of the core process either - by the time you’re walking someone through your PTO and benefits policies, you’re probably going to make them an offer.
Each interview needs to build on the information you’ve collected earlier. There’s no point having three separate interviews where you rehash the experience that the candidate brings to the table.
I view the interview process as a sliding scale. At the start you’re heavily qualifying the candidate and trying to ascertain if they’re worth adding to the team. By the end, you’re mostly focused on selling them on the opportunity.
Evaluating Competence & “Free Work”
Should you make candidates ‘do work’ as part of the hiring process?
A lot of candidates make the argument that this is unfair. The company is getting free work, and they aren’t being compensated for this time.
The counterargument of course is, as a company, you want to do some degree of ‘trying’ before ‘buying’. And fair enough! If you’re going to pay someone, expecting some evidence that the person can actually do the job is very reasonable.
I think it’s fair to expect sales candidates to demonstrate their competence - it’s very different to asking a graphic designer for a free logo, or a videographer to shoot a bunch of content for you.
Usually with sales this task comes in the form of writing an email following up with a prospect, or having the rep run a demo. Occasionally you’ll see companies ask candidates to build a prospect list.
When it comes to demos there are two approaches: you can have them demo the product they are currently selling, or you can have them demo your product.
I am personally a fan of the first option: having the candidate demo the product they are currently selling.
This is for two reasons
1: There isn’t a major time commitment from the candidate to make this happen. Running demos is a core part of their job.
2: You can grade much more harshly, because they should be able to give you detailed answers to your questions.
Even a highly invested candidate will only spend 3-4 hours learning the ins & outs of your product prior to a demo interview. This means even a great demo of your product is going to have a lot of “I don’t knows” when you start asking tricky questions and makes a lot of the exercise fairly hypothetical.
The timeline
From start to finish, a candidate should be able to make it through the hiring process within 2 weeks. It’s fine if that final CEO call takes a little longer, or if the candidate themselves has scheduling issues that means they need to push things out.
But on the company side, you need to be able to turn things around quickly. Otherwise you will lose your best candidates throughout the process.
Getting help
If you would like help hiring for your sales team, you can book a time to speak with me here
Speak soon!
Sam