Interviewing for RevOps roles
Read Time: 7 minutes
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Layoffs have been in the headlines recently but more importantly it's impacted people we know. Losing a job is never fun. I don't live to work, do you? We have lives outside of work. My work funds my lifestyle, it funds my retirement, and it funds my daughter's education fund. So whenever someone is out of work it pushes out our timelines for those funding buckets. I've noticed that my colleagues who were impacted from layoffs late last year have taken on average three to four months to find a new role. That's three to four months of monthly expenses chewed up.
This isn't a personal finance newsletter but I highly suggest if you're feeling nervous about your role and company that you create some security for yourself. SAVE!
In this week's newsletter I'll go through my process for interviewing and share some of the questions I personally use when interviewing others. Hopefully this will be a useful guide you can visit to incorporate into your interviewing approach.
I use a variation of the STAR interviewing format which I call RCA. I'll go into RCA in a second but let's go over what STAR is.
Old faithful: STAR format
The STAR interview format is a common approach used by interviewers to gather information about a candidate's past experiences and behaviors. The acronym "STAR" stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result.
You’ll be to describe a specific situation they have faced in the past that is relevant to the role. Then you’ll go into more detail into your exact role you played in achieving the outcome.
Situation: describe the context or setting in which the situation occurred.
Task: explain the specific task or goal you were given in the situation.
Action: detail the specific actions you took to address the situation or complete the task.
Result: shares the outcome or result of your actions, including any measurable or tangible accomplishments.
The STAR interview format is designed to help interviewers assess a candidate's Although I’m a fan of STAR, I prefer simplifying it so that you get straight to the point. When I interview candidates I often get lost if the interviewee isn’t able to clearly articulate or help me envision how they would be a valuable member of my team.
RCA All Day
Okay so what is RCA. It stands for:
Result
Context
Action
When it comes to your resume each bullet is formatted slightly differently. I use ACR (action-context-result) when it comes to the resume bullets. For example:
“Architected and implemented a new lead routing process which decreased lead SLA from over 1 hour to under 10 minutes and increased sales pipeline by 10%”
I won't go too deep into your resume but here are my quick tips:
ACTIVE verbs
TELL THE TRUTH
Be succinct. Save the long-winded stories for the interview
3 to 4 bullets per role
Unless you're applying for a Head or VP or C level role keep your resume to one page. Cite “additional experience prior to YEAR available upon request
Back to the RCA format. I try to keep each of my examples to a medium length of 3-4 minutes tops. Going over that and you may lose your audience.
Here's an example of an interview story:
At XYZ company the sales cycle averaged 330 days. The challenge I was faced with was helping the organization to improve this by a factor of 20%. My process was to take an orderly and hypothesis driven approach to the problem.
First, lead with the data. I analyzed all deals that Closed Won over the previous two years. That analysis gave me insight to the overall sales cycle per deal. There was plenty of data cleanup needed to get this to a state where trends could be believed.
Second, the time spent in specific stages provided insight to areas to dive into.
Third, we listed a ton of hypotheses why those particular areas which could be streamlined.
What I uncovered is that the deals with one engaged contact tended to take much longer than those with three of four contacts. My first recommendation was to develop an Opportunity Plan which was required to work with our champions to outline who will be involved at different stages of our conversations.
My next recommendation was to shorten the negotiations portion of our deals. I found that over half of all deals required a Deal Desk approval. The deal desk would add an average of 21 days to the sales cycle. We simplified our pricing and raised the threshold of what triggers a deal desk. Reps and managers were able to use a rate card with their own discretionary concessions without requiring additional approval.
These two recommendations were instrumental in helping us reduce our sales cycle to 280 days. I feel short of my goal but I'm really proud of the approach and the results.
Prep your stories
I suggest prepping a few work stories. These examples should be juicy work samples that can pass the “…and then what” test. What I mean is that if someone were to say “…and then what” two times to you you'll have enough material to share.
Start with the job description. Highlight it. Look for stories that address one or several bullets. When a recruiter or hiring manager wrote the job requisition they were thinking of the gaps that need to be addressed. By matching your examples to these bullets you are painting a picture why you're a qualified fit to be hired.
Here are some stories I myself would use:
A time where I've had to build an investment case for a major change
A time where I have battled several people internally by having a different point of view with others
A time where I've had to drive change with limited to zero spare resources
A time where I've had multiple high priority projects running concurrently
Prep your stories. Build a consistent narrative of who you are, what you've done, and what you want to do.
Don't be afraid of failure
Everyone has fallen short at one point or another. If you have a failure which you've learned from and used it as a comeback in another situation I wouldn't mind if you shared it. What a trilogy of a story.
Act One: you had a plan and went for it
Act Two: you were punched in the face and it looked like your career is over
Act Three: you learned and you grew. You used what you learned and pulled in a W
Sign me up to watch that movie.
Tradeoffs show you're thoughtful
RevOps interviews tend to reflect the needs of the business interviewing you. If you are peppered with technical questions then likely the role and the business gap is going to be technical in nature.
Tell me of Salesforce flow you built from scratch
What was most difficult integration you've dealt with?
Tell me about a situation where you've dealt with bad data and what did you do to resolve the issue?
Or perhaps you're interviewing for a leadership role and the questions focus on business strategy or high level process related.
What are your thoughts about how we can improve our CAC payback period
Given what you know about our goals for the next three years and where we stand today, what are the top risks you see that we'll need to address? Why those priorities?
No matter what kind of interview you face I highly suggest of taking your stories and push “what if” button. What I mean is recalling the other options you considered. You obviously did not go down that path so it would be good to discuss why you chose the path you did.
Scalability trilemma
It's often said in project management you cannot maximize the project management triangle. The three edges are Time, Cost, and a Quality. So by choosing a path you may not always choose the optional path because you had to sacrifice something. Revenue Operations often is forced to sprint (Time) on a project. By maximizing Time you may surge spend with a contractor or you sacrifice some quality (i.e. release a portion of the project and leave the remainder on the back burner).
This approach showcases you take the time to make decisions among options. You also have justification why you did what you did. Knowing what you know now also provides you an opportunity to look back and discuss what you would change. It's also just a fascinating time to reflect on your successes and your failures.
Good luck
If you're reading this and you're looking for q new role I hope this helps. There are no templates today but if you want to do a mock interview with me or would like some coaching I do have a few hours of paid coaching available. Click here if you're interested. Good luck out there!
Go forth and OPERATE.
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