Building Teams - Candidate Phone Screens
Background/Objectives for the Call:
Goal is to determine if candidate has the basic skills to talk with customers, tackle a case study and some level of passion/interested in software and or the industry your
Get a general read if the candidate will fit into the culture (growth minded, positive mindset, works/plays well with others, etc . . . )
Set expectations that this is an ENTRY-level role . . . and while we have a functional/effective career path with opportunity for growth, first year expectations include some pretty “grunt-level” tasks (tech support, documentation, etc.). This is role is a good fit for a recent graduate with technology/customer skills or someone looking to make a early-stage career change into technology, not ideal if someone wants to be a manager or lead large teams in the next 2 years
Discuss general info on timing and expectations of when we will be hiring and how the process goes (Phone Screen -> Case Study/Technical Example -> Onsite Interview)
(OPTIONAL) - If a candidate has some experience, work to get salary expectation out of them.
This sometimes works better if handled by a recruiter or senior leader (VP/Director).
If candidate/can’t provide a range, provide them a range and map to the lower end of the salary range ($40-60K? ) and gauge their reaction. Share that you don't to waste either party’s time if we're too far apart.
Depending on response, re-iterate (nicely) that the candidate should be targeting a senior role and that, if we have such a role, that they are going to really impress us once they get onsite.
General Agenda:
Set expectations that you have 30 minutes, usually in the introductory email. It’s valuable to see if the candidate is conscious/respectful of interview time.
Spend 5-8 minutes providing the candidate an intro to yourself, an overview of your company and the team/role and allow them to ask questions
80% of candidates typically have no questions at this point. It is positive to get 1-2 questions here to demonstrate research (or at least they were paying attention to your overview). It’s NOT as positive when the candidates turns this into any more than 5 minutes . . . as they are eating up the time to talk about themselves. ( Offer that you can cover any un-answered questions at the end. Aware candidates pick up on this and manage their time).
Introduction and Overview:
Three main areas I cover in the introduction/overview:
Company Overview
Software start-up (SaaS/Other); Location
History (age, funding level, etc.
Size (# of Team Members (and general locations); # of Offices
Leadership (Background of active founders)
Product Overview – (While this may be a lot of absorb, but for candidates who have done research, they may have good questions)
Role Overview
Role is in Implementation/Customer Success; Typically these teams have has responsibility for all aspects of customer relationship, EXCEPT direct sales process of acquiring new customers
We work with Sales to Scope, go onsite/remote to Design, work with dedicated Product and Data teams to implement solutions . . . and then CS owns testing, training, support in perpetuity
Break the team up into roles and/or levels of seniority
“Consultant/Manager” - Typically 4-8+ years of experience, we expect short learning curve for new hires, managed most projects and high complexity clients
“Associate/Consultant” - Typically 0-4 years, less experience, longer learning curve, lost of on the job learning expected in 1st year . .
■ CS Consultant Expectations:
Will “start” within Tech Support, but with 1-3 CS Consultants sharing the role, this typically takes only 20-40% of a typical day
Once comfortable (~60-90 days), we start pulling CS Consultants into testing and other project support with senior team members
At 6-9 months, most CS Consultants are ready to take a lead role on a project and will join/get shadowed by a CS Manager
At 15-21 months, most CS Consultants are demonstrating proficiency and we promote them to that a more senior role
The following are typical questions:
Q. What is a typical day in the life?
A: No day is identical, but includes monitoring HubSpot, tickets based on where we are in Sprint cycle (Implementation phase for customers) and then project support include testing, research, documentation, training prep, chasing an issue with Product.
Q. What training is available? ‘
A: We're a start-up, so we have very little in the form of formalized training. Mostly white board discussions, documentation and learning from senior team members. However, as all Senior team members understand the value you will provide once up to speed, training moves quickly.
Q. Will I work with engineering/data/etc.
A. Given the size of the company, it is quite common to work with Product, Engineering and Data teams on a regular basis. While our intent is that not all teams are involved in implementing a customer, you can expect to have regular interaction throughout the implementation process. This can also be a good opportunity to reiterate that we are not expecting the CS Consultant to be a software developer.
Candidate Interview - Assuming the above can be covered in 10 minutes or less, that leaves 20 minutes for the candidate (and candidate questions).
General Overview - Have candidate walk through their background and tell me why they are interested in your Company. Feel free to interject and ask a few clarifying questions if I see an overlap with the CS Consultant role as this may help the candidate see what we’re interested in knowing more about.
Key Focus Areas – Tell the candidate that we're looking for two main skills at this point of the interview process (see immediately below for sample questions):
Customer-Facing Skills - Ability to work with a diverse set of users (culturally and tech skills) and resolve questions/issues, set up processes or programs and otherwise move us forward. Stress that this can come from a wide range of experience sets including Project Mgmt, Tech Support and even Retail or Academia or other (typically you've seen SOMETHING on their resume that seems to fit this).
Software Interest/Skills - As a software company, we need people that are interested in understanding software and building their expertise. We DON'T expect anyone to be a software developer for this role, but a willingness to learn about software, GUIs, database structures, etc. and be excited to debug this stuff is pretty critical if they want to be happy in their job. Advanced candidates may have been responsible for implementing or supporting a software solution their company or university.
(Optional) Industry Experience - If the candidate has skills specific to your industry, ask how they would apply. If these skills are clearly not on their resume, it’s not necessary to dive in here.
For the actual “interview” portion of the phone screen, you can usually ask the following two questions, pretty much simultaneously:
Given me an example where you've had to work with a cross-functional team (including customers) to address/resolve an issue/requests? How did it go? What was challenging? What did you learn?
Give me an example of where you needed to learn/configure a complex pieces of software? What was the most challenging aspect? How did you address it? What did you enjoy and not enjoy from the process?
Evaluation - Based on the Candidate’s responses, evaluate them in the following areas.
Customer Skills – Are they comfortable working with Customers? Will they have the patience to work with a wide range of customers and self-awareness to take feedback and adapt their approach as necessary? Do they seem to frustrate easily or “blame” customers for issues they are facing?
Software - Try to determine/confirm that they have some hands-on experience with software (or better yet, have actually volunteered to configure software or signed up for a Python class or similar on their own. Also try to determine if they are afraid or excited (or just confused) by the prospect of working with software.
Teamwork (this may come out in examples they provide) - This is where I try to get a sense of team fit, how much complexity they can handle, did they deal with ambiguity. Did they have a LEAD role in these efforts, or were they primarily a team member with lack of clear ownership? Does that they did seem to overlap with other success indicators on for the CS and partner teams?
Next Steps:
Good - If the candidate performs well on Customer Skills and Software, You can offer them the CaseTechnical Study exercise (or the next step in the process). Describe the goal objectives at a high level, that there is no due date and set their expectations of how long it will take us to score (1-2 weeks). You can also reiterate the interview process steps at this point as well.
Not a Strong Fit – Don’t offer to advance the candidate. You can say that we're talking to multiple candidates and hope to have an answer on next steps in 2-4 weeks. This typically means we have stronger candidates in the pipeline. Ensure feedback is captured (see below). While we typically don’t tell anyone "no" right on the call . . . we can highlight if they are just a really wrong fit for the position (typically this is due to the candidate being too senior).
HR Tracking Updates
Update HR system with 3-5 sentences on my feedback
Ask (or assign) the HR Recruiter (or Hiring Manager) to send the Tech Study
In the event that the candidate follows-up due to lack of Tech Study, work with HR Recruiter to escalate
