This is the second part of a two part series. If you missed the first post, you can read it here.
In the first post, we talked about how we carefully plan and define our process to give our candidates the best chance of success, with a focus on
In this post, we’ll wrap up with phases 3 and 4 — interviewing and offers. You’ll see how we’re different from some companies in how transparent we are throughout the entire process. We’ll talk about why being straight-forward and honest is important to us and how we spend extra time getting to know you.
Apolloio is a leading AI-powered revenue acceleration platform used by companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Hubspot If you have an upcoming interview with Apollo.io, you likely want to know what to expect and how to prepare so you can put your best foot forward. This comprehensive guide covers key details about the Apollo.io interview process, sample interview questions, and tips to help you ace your interviews.
Apollo.io Company Overview
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in San Francisco Apollo.io leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to help businesses drive more revenue. Their solutions enable sales and marketing teams to identify ideal prospects automate outreach, and engage contacts using hyper-personalized messaging powered by data.
Apolloio is a relatively young yet fast-growing tech startup They’ve raised over $80 million in funding to date and appear to have a bright future as AI adoption grows. Working at a scaling startup can provide opportunities for career development, learning, and equity upside.
Apollo.io Interview Process Overview
The standard Apollo.io interview process consists of:
- Initial 30 minute phone screen with a recruiter
- 60-90 minute technical phone interview
- 3-5 hour onsite interview loop with coding challenges and behavioral/technical interviews
- Team matching interviews if extended an offer
However, the process length and specific stages can vary by role. Technical and engineering candidates can expect more rigorous coding assessments while sales and marketing roles focus more on situational interviews.
Expect the interviews to assess both hard skills through technical evaluations as well as soft skills like communication, collaboration, and culture fit. Come prepared to discuss your background, showcase relevant accomplishments, and connect your experience to the role.
12 Common Apollo.io Interview Questions and Answers
Here are some of the most frequently asked interview questions at Apollo.io across various roles along with example responses:
Tell me about yourself and your background.
Highlight your education, most relevant work experiences, and a quick career progression overview. Share some of your top skills and accomplishments that make you a strong fit. Conclude with what excites you most about this role and Apollo.io.
Why do you want to work at Apollo.io?
Show enthusiasm for their mission of leveraging AI to accelerate revenue. Note specific things that appeal to you such as their innovative technology, rapid growth, collaborative culture, talented team, etc. Share relevant strengths you hope to leverage in helping drive their continued success.
What interests you about this role?
Spotlight parts of the role that align with your skills, interests, and career goals. Share your relevant experiences and strengths that would enable you to excel and contribute value in that position. Convey a genuine passion for the role.
Tell me about a challenging work situation or project and how you handled it.
Choose an example that highlights relevant skills for the role like communication, project management, problem-solving, leadership, etc. Walk through the specific situation, actions you took, and the positive results achieved. Demonstrate qualities like resilience, critical thinking, and levelheadedness.
Describe a time you had a conflict with a coworker or client. How did you handle it?
Candidly summarize the situation, but focus most of your answer on the constructive actions you took. Share how you approached the individual, had an open and understanding discussion, identified solutions together, and worked to build a better working relationship moving forward. Demonstrate maturity and emotional intelligence.
What is your greatest professional achievement?
Select an achievement that showcases abilities critical for the role. Provide details on the situation, the deliverables or impact you drove, and how it benefited your team or company. Quantify the scope and results when possible.
How do you stay up-to-date on industry trends and developments?
Share some of the habits you practice to actively build your skills and knowledge. Highlight sources you rely on like reading industry publications, taking courses, attending conferences, learning from peers, and experimenting with new technologies. Demonstrate curiosity and commitment to continuous learning.
How do you prioritize tasks when you have multiple projects with tight deadlines?
Outline your systematic approach to evaluating urgency and importance when faced with competing priorities. Discuss factors you consider and strategies to help mitigate risks. Share tools and techniques you use to organize work and manage time effectively.
What is your experience working with data analytics and translating
The final phase: Offers
When we make an offer, it’s an exciting time. It means that we’ve looked at hundreds of candidates, and now we’re approaching the finish line. We approach our offers as a conversation with our candidates. Our goal is always to find a situation where everyone wins. This means making an offer that the candidate is happy with and that we know is fair market value.
Remember how we talked about candidates being able to ask questions in part 1 of this post? I may have said that once or three times already. (You will have asked a lot of questions of each interviewer by the time it’s time to decide if you want to accept the Apollo offer or not.) We’re open to more. The worst thing that could happen to both Apollo and a candidate is that you get here and find that the job and company are not what we said they were. We do everything we can to keep this from happening because it’s bad for both Apollo and the person who wants to join us.
Phase three: It’s interview time
The interview basics are pretty straightforward. We pay extra attention to making sure candidates have time to interview us, being on time and prepared for these steps, and answering honestly when we’re asked a tough question.
Step 1: Screening: The first part of the interview process is usually a short call with a recruiter to talk about the role. During this call, candidates can ask questions about Apollo. You will be able to ask us questions during almost every interview with Apollo. This will help you decide if Apollo is the right company for you. On this first call, we love to talk about our company culture (we’re proud of it!) and let people know how things are going with the business.
Next, you’ll have a call with the hiring manager to talk about some of the most important skills for the job (as we talked about in part 1 of this blog). You’ll also have time to ask questions and learn more about the job. If there are technical parts to the job, we will have one more interview with you before the final round.
The second step is the final interviews, also known as the “virtual onsite.” One note about Apollo’s distributed culture: we’ve had it since the beginning. Our goal has always been to hire the best people from all over the world, which has meant hiring people from pretty much anywhere. Also, we know that timezones on opposite sides of the world don’t work well, which is why people on the same team usually live close to each other. We now have an office for people who would like one and a policy that is friendly to people who work from home. This lets us get in touch with both groups of people, which has been good for our team.
As a distributed-flexible company, all of our interviews are over video or phone. The final “virtual onsite” interviews comprise the bulk of our competency interviews. Each interview will test a different skill, and candidates will have the “blurbs” we talked about earlier to help them get ready. We like to include the interviewers you will be working with so that you can get to know them better while you are interviewing.
While we talk to people, we always make time for you to ask questions about Apollo. If I could give you a cheat code, it would be to have a few good questions ready for each of your interviewers. We’ll be honest with you about what we have, and what we don’t. No company is perfect, and that includes Apollo.
The best way to describe this step is as a “life story interview.” This is the “getting to know you” interview we talked about above. “This interview has gotten a lot of good feedback from candidates, and it’s something that’s different about how we do things.” A manager will leave this interview knowing how to make their next hire successful, which is one of the most important things that comes out of it.
It’s a mutually beneficial result when you’re successful in your job at Apollo. In order to start off on the right foot, we try to figure out what happened that led to your best performance in the deep dive. Talking about these topics gives us an understanding of someone’s self-awareness, and how growth-oriented someone might be. We learn a lot about how to best motivate people and, hopefully, how to keep them from losing motivation as well.
When candidates tell us they like us, it’s usually because we took the time to get to know them. (We love that feedback. ).
