How to test candidates for ability to deal with the sales people?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I am leaving my current company to go to something better within my current company's parent organization and will very shortly be tasked with interviewing my replacement. The company is extremely small < 10 employees overall and my replacement will need to be an island unto himself in terms of software and product development, maintenance, and final tier product support.

The past employment history of software developers at this company is abysmal, with every previous software developer (apart from myself) being fired for inability to perform the basic functions of his/her job, or by the unique stress of the job driving them away in months of starting. I admit that the job is "difficult" and had its frustrations and scary moments, but I still count it overall as a positive experience. I picked up a wealth of career advancing experience and was afforded a technical freedom and creativity that your typical corporate job would have never allowed for.

I feel that I know how to spot somebody who is independent minded, a jack of all trades, and eager to learn new things. One thing I am not sure how to test for is the ability to handle the unique stressors that come from dealing with sales people at a small company.

Part of my job would be to participate as the technical guy in sales meetings with current or prospective clients. When current clients were angry or unsatisfied with work or progress then I would internalize this and get stressed. Also when meeting with prospective clients where the sales people pitch a product, as these things often go, the client says something to the effect of, "Yeah your product V is great! We love it! But what we really need is custom development for W, X, Y, Z and integration packages into A, B, etc...". The sales people of course humour and confirm these ridiculous demands before even asking you about level of effort offline, or worse yet they put you on the spot and ask for a rough estimate immediately. Two hours later you are in another sales meetings and even more promises are made so now you are sweating buckets worrying what happens if they both take you up on it, only to realize a week later that both prospects fell through because they were hoping the custom development was free.

Needless to say, dealing with sales can be an emotional rollercoaster and isn't for the faint of heart.

My question is, how can I take the above scenario and somehow translate that into an interview test that accurately judges the candidates ability to deal with a similar stressful situation? Bonus points: How can I do this without being overly cruel or unfair?

manpreet 2 years ago

I ask people about working with non-programmers and the funny thing is that the ones giving the "wrong" answers - answers that make them a bad fit for my company - are clearly positive the whole time that they are giving a fantastic answer. You can practically hear "Nailed it!" echoing across their forehead as they finish the answer.

If you ask, "our environment is like this, is that good for you?" some people will say yes because they want the job. If you ask "do you prefer this or that environment?" some people will say "they both have their advantages" etc. You need to ask a really open ended question. Some that have worked for me:

• tell me about working with non technical people. What roles do you work with a lot? What roles would you like to be insulated from?
• where do requirements and requests usually come from in your company? Do you think that's the best way to do it?
• do you estimate tasks before you do them in your current role? What tools do you use for that? How would you change that process if you could?
• tell me about a time someone asked for an unrealistic schedule and what happened
• tell me about a time you were asked to start a task without proper requirements and what happened

Often you will get someone who very proudly tells you about their ultra rigid waterfall way of thinking complete with escalating to HR, or someone who delights in telling the time they prevented a release that had been promised, or elaborate hypothetical explorations of what they would do that are the opposite of what you know would be right in your firm.

If you're lucky, someone will "light up" telling you about a scenario that's very much like one you've faced recently, and will describe doing something that would be right in your firm. Then you know you've found a good fit. If you're not sure, you could actually just tell them a recent story, and ask what they would do next. If they say they would write a memo to the CEO explaining why the customer couldn't have what sales just promised, you know you haven't found the right person yet.