Tips and Tricks to Ace an Interview

Krissy Manzano: Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Blueprint Roundtable. I’m your host, Krissy Manzano.

I have with me Emily Bell and Matt Lewers. And today, we’re going to talk about how to ace an interview, all the tips and tricks from the hundreds, probably thousands we’ve done at this point, that regardless of the function or the role, these are things you’re absolutely going to want to listen to because they apply to any and all interviews and all companies.

So yeah. All right. Lewers I’m going to start with you.

Matt Lewers: Very broad sweeping statement, so I’m going to tailor my answers to go to market motion. So you’re, relatively close to the revenue stream because that’s what I know. So that’s what I’m going to, I’m going to tie mine back to. I think a couple of things in order to prep for an interview.

And some of this goes even farther than prepping for the interview goes back to your resume or application process. But I 2 tips I would give anybody. Always quantify whether you’re an AE, you should be quantifying, deal sizes, cycles. You should be quantifying quotas, quota attainment for CSMs.

The, what was your book of business, how many clients were you managing how often were you doing X, Y, or Z? For marketing, it’s, most of it’s gonna be tied back to some level of attribution, or, even, for like, product marketing, right? There’s metrics that you can tie back to all of those goals and those objectives that you held in role.

So, when coming across resumes that don’t have numbers or metrics, naturally, people are just going to assume, oh, this person didn’t hit quota, or they don’t, they don’t know this information off hand. And it doesn’t allow either a recruiter or a hiring manager to say, this person has the exact qualifications that we’re looking for, or this aligns very closely to the role that they would be interviewing for.

So they are a fit. By even putting those metrics on there, yes, you’re going to disqualify yourself from some opportunities. Like, if you apply for, what is an enterprise a role and your experience is more closely aligned to that organization’s mid market commercial or S and B. But at the end of the day, do you want to take a recruiter phone screen just to be told you don’t meet the qualifications anyway?

So, I think being transparent and up front with those metrics and not even for the sake of being up front, but just so that all parties know your experiences and what you’ve done and how it may align to what you’re interviewing for. That would be number 1. The other piece of advice someone gave me.

in my career and it’s, it even though I didn’t have this role per se, Krissy lives, every bullet that you have on your resume is a brief like statement, right? You should have the story backing that up. and so taking the time to sit down and if you’ve got a bullet on your resume that says, you manage this, which help contribute to this, which led to this, that may just be very, Quick little blurbs, but you need to have the background of the story there. And, by taking your resume and taking that approach across all those bullets across your most recent, let’s call it 2 to 3 roles. You’ll find that when you’re in an interview, and you’re asked for a situational, a situational example, you can recall that.

And you could even say, hey, you may have seen this on my resume. Let me go in a little bit more detail. And then you can use, that’s part of the ear of the star method. I like the ear method example, action results. Here’s an example of what you’re asking. Here’s the action I took.

These were the results. And so those 2 tips alone, I think it can help individuals greatly pre interview and in the interview process because for a brief moment. I didn’t say this, but time back to adding all those metrics on your resume. You’re going to get asked that in an interview. So if you’ve typed them out and you’ve read them every time you look at your resume, it’s going to be second nature to just say average sales cycle was between 30 to 60 days.

Average deal size was anywhere from 5k ARR up to 20K ARR my average quota KARR on a quarter was 200 K. It was closing 30 deals a quarter, and I was able to achieve, over 90 percent 6 quarters in seat that just answered probably for follow up questions that a recruiter is going to ask.

Emily Bell: yeah, I mean, I would agree with all of that. I would second it profoundly. I would say that a preparing for the live interview itself, like, doing your research beforehand, outside of, having a conversation with me, a recruiter, or kind of looking generally on the website.

Like, I think really doing thoughtful research, it does 2 things. It allows you to know, if you’re actually really interested. In the company and the role, and the answer might be no, and that’s okay. You want to know that having done your research. And I think it also brings to the table, the perception on, from an interviewer standpoint, that you’re not only really interested in the role, but you’re incredibly intelligent, you’re able to understand how to prepare for an important call and in sales, that’s massive.

being able to show how to do pre call research and also be able to apply it effectively in a live setting is like, like that is sales. So it’s very important from a sales perspective, outside of like being more focused on the go to market function, like from a sales individual contributor, that’s critical.

I mean, it’s as simple as like deep diving the company history, looking at their like press releases or blogs and then kind of naturally weaving that into conversation, where, or maybe it ticks up like a, question that you want to ask that comes across as very thoughtful, outside of just like interest in the role, showing that curiosity and showing them how you can do so with, Finesse without it feeling scripted is really important.

So I think that I think everybody prepares on some level for an interview. Hopefully, not everybody, but most people, but I think doing it in a strategic way is the most important because you might not know exactly what questions you’re going to be asked, but understanding what questions you want to ask.

Based off of your pre call research is going to have more of an impact on the interviewer’s perception of you than you realize as an interviewee. yeah, that’s my

Krissy Manzano: No, I think those are all great. I would just add to that one, which this does apply to everyone, even how to go to market, make sure to pause. Don’t try to just answer the question right when it’s asked, like pause, make sure you actually understand what they’re saying. And sometimes the way that you can interpret that question is different than what they’re wanting.

So come back, someone’s like, tell me about your career, right? Well, in a lot of cases, People have a lot of career, right? They have a lot of a year. So it’s like, well, do you want me to just go over the most recent, like the last few years? You want me to go through my whole career, start from the bottom and top.

What is it? Can you clarify that one that shows that you’re listening? And the number one thing that candidates don’t do during interviews is listen. It’s we’ll care if you’re in leadership. I don’t care what role you’re in individual contributor, senior entry level, they don’t listen. And no one’s got time for your story.

Like just being real. No one cares about your story. They just want to know, are you aligned and a good fit for what we’re doing? And so I get it. We want people to know who we are. But at the same time, like, we have 30 minutes max, maybe an hour if you’re talking to a hiring manager or someone else. So give them the answer.

The quick and dirty if they want details, they’ll go into more. And so, kind of going back to your point, Lewers, there’s some things. whether you’re in marketing or CS or whatnot, like have those metrics ready to go, what your goals are, whether it was a quota or specific, goal to hit and know what all those were for the last five years.

Right and write them out. So you’re prepared to answer them and go bing, bing, right? Take the complications out of how your company set goals or how they measure revenue, make it simple and translatable to, people just want to know, are you hitting your goals and do you know what they are? And also, please stop saying, when we say, what interests you in this role?

I just want to the culture and everything. Let’s move on from that. Like, of course, right? Those are table stakes. Of course, people no one’s going. I just really want to go to a shitty culture. You know what I mean? It’s like everyone wants to go to a good culture. That’s fantastic if you did that, but like you need companies care that you know what they’re doing and what problem they’re solving, right?

You don’t need to be an expert, but have your own one liner of what you’re doing in XYZ is really interesting to me because of A, B, and C. That will knock the socks off people, right? Because so many, so few folks do that, right? And have questions to ask, and close people at the end, right?

Matt Lewers: Speaking of that time that in to, uh, when you have questions at the end, don’t I’m surprised by how many times. As a recruiter, I get asked, what’s the culture like at the organization, knowing full well that I don’t physically work at the company. So if I’m getting asked, I know other individuals in the interview process are getting asked.

So I always give feedback on the interactions that we’ve noticed and some of the positive experiences we’ve had with our clients. But when you’re talking to a hiring manager, somebody that works there, whether it’s an internal recruiter or not, my advice is don’t ask what is the company culture like you’re going to get a canned answer every single time.

And if you feel that you must ask something about company culture, try asking to the appropriate person throughout the interview process. Well, how do you, how have you found the interactions between your team and this department? What is that culture? Like, is the leadership team is the C suite supporting the sales team?

What is that culture? Like, give it, more narrow example. That shows you’re paying attention. I, for example, I was going to go back into sales leadership or an IC role. I want to know how closely aligned is the customer success team and the sales team? How closely aligned are the SDR team members and the AE team members?

Those are the type of questions, find out what is the culture like in the sense of those relationships, but don’t just ask broadly, what is the culture of the company? Like it gets nowhere.

Emily Bell: Even asking, like, what’s, the typical, like, go to communication style for your team and leadership. I mean, communication is massive for it’s a way to ask that same question, but get like a very specific answer around, for sales rules. I mean, asking, like, Hey, how, what is your rules of engagement look like?

Like, how do you guys hold yourselves accountable to running a fair and equitable sales process, across various territories? And if they don’t have a rules of engagement, it’s not always a red flag, but it’s like, all right, well, what, how does leadership, handle scenarios where there might be some question around where a deal goes and you can, it’s way more effective, versus the broad end question.

I would agree with that. 1 thing I would add, and I know we’re probably close to wrapping, but, In the sense of, like, having questions prepared, and this ties into something you shared, Krissy, it’s like, if somebody asks you a question and it’s too vague, absolutely get clarity. But if the question is direct, answer it for what they ask.

I can tell you how many times I’ve asked folks to kind of walk me through the last, like, 5, 7 years, and they bring me all the way back to the original and it’s like, I’ll get there, but that’s not what I needed right now. And we have a pace to the call. And so I think just, making sure that you have assertiveness, but you’re also listening to what the interviewer is asking, because usually they’re asking it for a specific reason to uncover information.

That’s going to be important for that particular call. The whole story will unfold throughout the interview process. So that would be a big piece of advice.

Krissy Manzano: Yep, well said, and you again, secondary questions on top of your questions, but interviewing is a 2 way street. I was like, pretend you got the job today. What would you do? You’d have really good questions and they’d be much more basic than how’s your culture. Right? And like, well, what am I selling?

What am I doing? and your own research on top of that. So, it’s helpful because you want to go to the right place too. It’s not just you trying to impress them. Right? And you also want to show who you are in the right way. Allow yourself to, stand out. We’re at the end of our time, depending on the response we get, we might do a part two, but one that we’re definitely going to do. So subscribe to our channel on YouTube or at blueprintexpansion. com under round tables is we’ll, do a second episode where we talk about how to negotiate when you get to offer stage and what to do and what not to do, because we have a lot of those things. So until next time, we’ll see you later. And have a great day, everyone.