TLDR; #1-5 straightforward about your experience and how it could be a fit for the role and DS. #6 very poorly done, scenario was sent 24hrs to interview time and was my dealbreaker, usually in demos one is assessed on flow, tech demo, and obj. handling, they never let me get into a flow from the very agenda slide, they really need to rethink how they execute this and not contradict themselves and what their ask is and ultimately the feedback they give in return.
1. Recruiter Screening: Straightforward. What are you looking for? Why DS? Why this role?
2. Interview with Hiring Manager's Boss: A straight shooter that balanced between sounding arrogant, and sounding caring. Interview was fine, go over experience, why DS, why this role. some situational, and then just make him talk about himself, and ask questions.
3. Interview with multiple people currently in the role (2-3), and another person in proj. mgmt: Situational questions, as long as you know your competencies in relation to the role, you should be fine.
4. Interview with Hiring Manager: Same as above, situational questions, so know how it relates to the role and why you want a role.
5. Invitation to do a demo for the team: Recruiter mentions the team would like to invite you to a demo/presentation interview and sets up a call with the fella from point #2 for him to explain. As he does, he we like you, we want you to be successful in his half straightforward half arrogant way. He mentions he will send the scenario that the candidate will be asked to present and demo on 24 hours prior to the scheduled time of the interview, which is exactly what he did. Keep in mind 24 hours.
All the interviews above went pretty okay, all things considered thus far. The next part is where things really fell flat. I spent the interim of the above interview and when the next was scheduled to get the lay of the technology and offerings in the sandbox.
6. Demo presentation 1hr with 30mins QandA: Fictitious company that has DS and is looking to implement it in another department and wants the Why DS is right for that department and How will it work. Rather straightforward (right?). Demo started with guy from #2 recapping the scenrio, and guy from #4 in the background, and three other folks from he department playing various roles. I came prepared to recap, assign roles, do an intro, I made a crisp PPT, sandbox ready to go, and dummy data/emails ready to rock. I was quite literally on my agenda slide and the so called objection handling role-play on their end started, people yelling over one another, incoherent asks and questions (which since they are the interviewer they would claim otherwise, and by this I mean the scenario mentioned they already viewed and were excited about the product, but the folks raising their voices were playing the I have no idea and this is disturbing card), cutting me off mid-sentence, asking to jump the gun, side conversations. At a certain level, that isn't viewing a candidates meeting and objection management, that is just really all over the place and unprofessional and not knowing the scenario you gave. I've been in professional services for over a decade, and have interviewed with major companies like Salesforce and others, and they were extremely professional during the demo. Very exhausting experience. Never did I have a real life client experience where that amount of idiotic objection handling would have been needed.
During the Q and A portion the Hiring Manager and his boss shared feedback of good and quote "where it wasn't good", and allowed for questions. They liked my presentation, and grip of technology, and didn't feel there was grasp on handling q's of panelist and knowing which individual to focus the most on for the sale. They seemed to be quite impressed on my questions, and the more I prodded the more they were thinking about how their organization is run and how these questions are causing them to reflect and assess themselves.
