I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at HubSpot in Apr 2022
Interview
Very odd interview, a disappointing experience that left me unlikely to recommend anyone apply for a role at HubSpot.
The recruiter rushed a lot to explain the company and role. This was fine as I imagined he wanted to ask more questions and understand my experiences.
But surprisingly all he wanted to know was the numbers I had on each experience, nothing more. When I tried to give some context with a situation and task, he would interrupt and ask for numbers only. I understand results are very important for a sales role but shouldn't context also be taken into account?
He wanted to know the average deal size of all my previous experiences (including an experience of nearly 10 years ago), percentage of new business and existing, etc.
Other odd thing is that since the beginning I said that I enjoyed doing inbound campaigns as I was doing it in my previous experience. Unfortunately, I couldn't contextualize as he was looking for numbers only.
I mentioned that the only thing I don't really enjoy is cold calls without any background information on the customer. In that moment, he interrupted my explanation (again) to say that I wouldn't be a good fit for the role because I didn't like to do prospecting (?).
Then I tried to explain that I believed that as long as I have info on the customer, I'm ok with that. But he interrupted me (again) and said that I would be doing cold calls in the role and for this reason I wouldn't be a good fit.
Many articles from Hubspot explaining why it's important to do inbound campaigns and have background info before making a cold call.
So I just don't get it. Or Hubspot says something and do another, or, the recruiter doesn't know well what the sales team is doing.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
What's your average deal size (existing and previous roles)?
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at HubSpot (Dublin, Dublin) in Jan 2022
Interview
4 defined stages:
1. Screening Call
Quick call with the recruiter, where she gave me all of the details about the role, day-to-day, organizational structure, benefits, salary etc., as well as outlining what the process would be.
2. Interview with Sales Manager
This was a getting to know you type conversation, but centered around Sales. Understanding a bit about what kind of a seller you are, what motivates you in Sales etc.
3. Mock Sales Call
I was given a case study and told I would be running a mock discovery call where the objective was to book in a follow on demo. There was plenty of background information sent to me to allow me to prepare. I got good feedback from the sales rep that was facilitating the call.
4. Final Round(s)
This was one stage but split into two 45 min interviews. Firstly with a Sale Manager on their own, and then two other Sales Managers. These were a bit repetitive. I felt I was answering the same questions in both interviews (mostly situational type questions) but all of the people were really nice and it was great to meet a lot of different people along the way.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do you view your pipeline?
Situational questions (tell me about a time where you missed quota, tell me about a deal that got away, tell me about a time where you had to fix a process etc.)
I applied online. I interviewed at HubSpot in Dec 2021
Interview
The interview process wasn’t difficult at all. I went through 4 rounds of interviews and the feedback on all of them was, I scored well on the attributes that are important to the company and the position. They decided to pass on me due to my lack of software sales experience. However, the recruiters and hiring staff were aware of that pretty early in the process. Oddly, one of the hiring managers I interviewed with bragged about how the number #1 person on their team didn’t have software experience when he was hired. I say all of that to say is I believe if I looked different with the same experience and skillset I would’ve been offered the position. I interviewed with 7 different people, one woman and six men, who were all white, which in my opinion shows their stance on diversity.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time you received criticism that didn’t lead to success?
Tell me about a time you had to involve multiple stakeholders in a deal?