The interview process was pretty standard. Initial screen with HR, chat with the Hiring Manager, do an assignment, review the assignment with the HM and speak with the extended team. The GTM team is very B2C-centric and lacks knowledge around B2B. They're hiring for this, which is great. But they may lack the experience in identifying what they should be looking for. The recruiter is great and seems to have an eye for talent and understands what gaps they need to fill.
The GTM assignment for the interview does not provide a great reflection on the skills required of this position. They want you to prepare messaging for a product that has a very poor fit to the audience they have defined. A difficult assignment indeed - cool thought exercise, I guess. Because the assignment is very B2C focused - emotional selling is going to be what they're primarily looking for. Note to Rippling: in the B2B world, emotions only go so far as a call to action in TOFU - they lack power the closer we get to the revenue.
In the real world, the product & target audience detailed in the assignment would be categorized as poor product market fit. The Hiring Manager made the analogy that this scenario is very similar to the product/solution they are hiring a GTM lead for. Yikes! I would argue otherwise as there is a lot of opportunity for the solution category, but this goes to show the knowledge gap that seems to exist between the solution and its market. Regarding the assignment, they are looking for you to identify an ICP, not just any persona.
Be prepared for a stress-interview during the assignment review - knowing this will better prepare you for that discussion and passing the evaluation. My guess for why this is done is due to the high intensity culture that Rippling seems to have. They want to check for culture fit. I initially expected a professional conversation regarding thought process and approach. It was, instead, an interrogation with leading questions that lead me to believe there was a right answer they were looking for. From initial discussions with the hiring manager, I was told the team is collaborative, but this portion of the interview was far from that. They want to see how you respond to an argumentative dissenter, which probably reflects their culture. I wish I had known, as I would have liked to have better prepared for a grilling session. I was completely caught off guard and naturally became a bit defensive and flustered. Probably a big contributing factor to a poor interview performance.
The rest of the team seems cool and eager for someone with the right knowledge to step in. But the hiring manager does seem a bit smug (seems like another interviewer felt the same. not sure if it was the same person or just the GTM department) and may prefer someone that is more aligned with their way of thinking.
