At Skilljar, weâre excited to be hiring for a variety of positions in sales, marketing, product, and engineering. Getting a job at a startup is very different from getting a job at a large company. Iâve now conducted hundreds of interviews at Amazon. com and Skilljar, so Iâve seen both sides, and have a unique perspective on the differences. Learn how to get hired by a tech startup like Skilljar that is still in its early stages and has been backed by venture capitalists.
Landing a job at a fast-growing company like Skilljar is an exciting opportunity. However you need to be fully prepared to stand out during the Skilljar interview process. In this article we’ll overview the top 20 most common Skilljar interview questions and provide tips on how to answer them successfully.
Overview of Skilljar
Founded in 2012, Skilljar is a Seattle-based technology company that provides a cutting-edge learning management system for customer training. Their platform empowers businesses to deliver engaging training programs that drive customer success
With a diverse client base of over 300 customers, including leading brands like Twitter, ASICS, and Autodesk, Skilljar has quickly become a major player in the customer education space Their innovative solutions and exemplary customer service have earned them multiple awards and recognition
As Skilljar continues its rapid growth trajectory, competition for openings is high. Acquiring an in-depth understanding of their interview process is crucial for setting yourself apart.
Skilljar’s Hiring Process
The typical Skilljar hiring process involves:
- Initial phone screen with a recruiter
- Call with the hiring manager
- For some roles, an assessment or mock presentation
- 3-5 interviews with team members and leaders
- System design or technical interview for technical roles
The process can be lengthy with multiple rounds. However, Skilljar’s recruiters and hiring managers aim to provide a positive, conversational experience. They look for candidates who align with Skilljar’s technical and innovative culture.
Top 20 Skilljar Interview Questions and Answers
Here are the 20 most frequently asked Skilljar interview questions with tips for crafting winning responses:
1. Walk me through your approach for identifying and reaching out to potential new clients.
Tips:
- Demonstrate your research process to understand clients’ pain points and decision makers.
- Explain how you tailor outreach messaging to showcase Skilljar’s value.
- Provide examples of using persistence and consultative approach to build relationships.
2. How would you streamline lengthy sales cycles without compromising customer relationships?
Tips:
- Discuss strategies like lead qualification, marketing automation, and clear communication.
- Emphasize maintaining positive customer experiences.
- Share examples of successfully shortening sales cycle durations.
3. Describe a complex software problem you solved. What was your approach?
Tips:
- Outline the problem context and your structured, methodical process.
- Highlight how you incorporated user feedback for refinement.
- Share the positive impact of your solution.
4. How would you handle a lead who expresses interest but doesn’t commit to purchasing?
Tips:
- Discuss building trust and understanding hesitations through consultation.
- Explain persistently guiding lead while being patient and knowing when to re-prioritize.
- Share examples of eventually converting hesitant leads.
5. How would you conduct a tailored, successful product demo for a client?
Tips:
- Explain your process for understanding client’s pain points.
- Discuss how you would match product features to their needs.
- Highlight your adaptability and integrating feedback during demo.
6. Share a time you managed a difficult customer post-sale. How did you ensure satisfaction?
Tips:
- Outline specific example and how you turned a negative into a positive outcome.
- Emphasize listening, problem-solving, and consultative approach.
- Share how your efforts enhanced customer loyalty and business relationship.
7. Discuss your experience collaborating between engineering and sales teams.
Tips:
- Share how you facilitated understanding and common goals between the teams.
- Provide examples of positive outcomes from bridging the communication gap.
8. How do you strategically prioritize and manage your pipeline?
Tips:
- Demonstrate your organized process for segmenting and tracking prospects.
- Explain how you balance new prospects and existing customers effectively.
- Share examples of pipeline strategy driving successful conversions.
9. Provide an example of how you translated customer feedback into product changes.
Tips:
- Outline specific scenario of gathering and analyzing customer insights.
- Discuss process of collaborating with product teams to implement improvements.
- Share measurable outcomes that demonstrate positive impact on customers.
10. How have you balanced improving code quality without sacrificing speed?
Tips:
- Demonstrate knowledge of methods like CI/CD, code reviews, TDD, etc.
- Articulate how you’ve integrated these practices into efficient workflows.
- Provide metrics evidencing how approach enhanced quality and productivity.
11. Walk me through planning and monitoring a product from conception to launch.
Tips:
- Showcase your structured process through each product lifecycle stage.
- Emphasize cross-functional collaboration and gathering user insights.
- Share examples illustrating successful product launches.
12. How do you stay updated on the latest sales trends and apply them?
Tips:
- Mention specific resources you leverage to stay current.
- Discuss your process for evaluating and implementing new methodologies.
- Provide examples of successfully applying cutting-edge knowledge.
13. Share a high-impact product enhancement you championed based on research.
Tips:
- Outline specific opportunity you identified and advocated for.
- Discuss process of aligning initiative with business goals.
- Share measurable outcomes that evidenced positive impact.
14. How do you balance resolving technical debt vs. delivering new features?
Tips:
- Demonstrate understanding of implications of technical debt.
- Explain your methodical approach to prioritizing and integrating debt resolution into development.
- Convey the importance of maintaining system health and delivering business value.
15. Share a challenging implementation project you successfully managed.
Tips:
- Articulate specific obstacles and your strategies to address them.
- Highlight leadership capabilities and promoting innovative solutions.
- Emphasize ability to deliver complex solutions within constraints.
16. How do you approach contract negotiations to meet both client and company needs?
Tips:
- Outline preparation process and balancing flexibility with protecting company’s interests.
- Discuss communication approach to uncover win-win opportunities.
- Explain importance of building rapport while knowing when to walk away.
17. How would you implement a new tool or process on your sales team?
Tips:
- Discuss strategies for gaining team buy-in through education and involvement.
- Share experience demonstrating patience and providing ongoing support/training.
- Highlight positive outcomes of driving adoption of new tools or processes.
18. Tell me about a time you had to be strategic in making a sales pitch.
Tips:
- Outline sales situation and how you prepared tailored messaging.
- Explain adaptability and reading cues during the pitch.
- Share outcome that evidenced effectiveness of strategic approach.
19. How would you go about developing an educational training program?
Tips:
- Showcase understanding of fundamentals: identifying goals, outlining content strategy, determining delivery methods.
- Discuss iterative process of incorporating feedback and usage data.
- Share examples of developing impactful training programs.
20. Why do you want to work at Skilljar?
Tips:
- Research Skilljar’s mission, culture, and products to provide informed response.
- Express genuine interest and fit with values like innovation and customer centricity.
- Share why you’re attracted to their growing leadership in customer training space.
Preparing for the Skilljar Interview Process
To maximize your chances of interview success at Skilljar:
- Thoroughly research the company, customers, competitors, and products.
- Review commonly asked questions and craft compelling stories to demonstrate relevant experience.
- Prepare for technical questions applicable to the role by brushing up on skills.
- Practice responding to questions out loud to polish your delivery.
- Prepare smart questions to ask that demonstrate your interest.
- Review tips from sites like Glassdoor to understand the interview structure.
- Ensure you understand Skilljar’s mission and values, and how you align with them.
With practice and dedication, you can master the Skilljar interview process. Showcasing your fit for Skilljar’s collaborative and innovative culture is key. We hope these tips equip you with confidence to land your dream role driving transformative customer training experiences. Let us know if you have any other questions!
Why startups are different
Interviewing for a job is like any sales process. Know what your customer needs, and show how your skills and experience solve their problem. The key differences Iâve found in our interview process at a startup vs a large company:
- Every hire makes a huge difference in how well or how poorly a startup does. Especially when still less than 10 people. This means that functional skills, adaptability, and cultural fit are more important. It takes more than one or two meetings to really get a feel for these traits, and a bad hire costs a lot more than it would in a big company. Startups will likely ask for several references, have you work on sample projects, and go through several rounds of phone screens and interviews before we’re both happy with how well we fit together.
- A startup environment is highly self-directed and self-motivated. Everyone is expected to âget stuff done. So, these are the things we look for in a candidate during the interview process It’s a sign of how they’ll act as a potential team member if a candidate takes a long time to respond, needs a lot of follow-up, or gives us information that isn’t complete when we ask for it.
- Time is precious. I don’t have a team of recruiters to help me like I did at Amazon who can do initial phone screens and work on scheduling. We try to make the best use of the time we have for interviews because it takes us away from customers or working on new products.
Now that you know this, let’s talk about specific things you can do to improve your chances of getting a job at a startup.
- Use correct spelling and grammar. When you make mistakes, it makes us wonder if you need more help than we can give.
- Keep it to two pages max. The resume’s job is to get you called in, not to go into great detail about every project you’ve ever worked on. Startups need people who can take a lot of information and boil it down to the most important things. Include this skill on your resume as well.
- Have decent formatting. Again, the resume is the entry point to a conversation. It’s hard to imagine that you’ll be able to finish high-quality work on your own at a startup if you can’t even take the time to format your resume properly. This is one reason why we started asking for a LinkedIn profile on our application: it gives a short summary of your experience in a standard way.
- Use it wisely. We only need your resume and LinkedIn profile, no cover letter. There is an extra field for extra information, but it’s not required. If you are going to add a message, make it something good about your application and not something bad.
- Keep it short and personalized. Most of the cover letters I see are long and generic, full of tech-speak that don’t always match up with what we’re looking for in the job description (e.g. g. a cover letter that talks about how excited they are about a consumer product (we work with enterprise software, after all) If it doesnt help, leave it out.
- Address any perceived dealbreakers. Tell me that you’re moving to Seattle next month if you’re not already here. If it’s been a while since you worked, do you mind telling me why? This is your chance to make your application stand out and answer any questions I might have based on your resume.
- Do some basic research. Not many applicants get this far, and I’m talking to you because I want to be sure you’re a good fit. Spend some time with our trial if you’re applying for a product role. If you want to work in sales or marketing, check out our website and talk to our customers. Not being ready shows either not caring or not respecting our time, and I’ve found it very hard to get back on track after getting off to a bad start.
- Donât make disqualifying statements. There are some candidates who come in with very clear new ideas about features, markets, or technology. We are open to new ideas, but only if they fit with our overall business goals and the knowledge we have gained so far. Because of how quickly things change at our startup, we’ve had to make and still have to make hard decisions about which activities will give us the best return on investment. You are taking a big risk when you tell us what we should or shouldn’t do. For us, this means being told that we have to focus on teachers or non-profits as a vertical.
- Follow up on your next steps. For sales candidates in particular, we see this as a sign of how well you follow through with the sales process. But we need to know that anyone running for office will do what they say they will do (or we need to change our expectations).
- Accept decisions gracefully. We have to turn down most of the applicants, even though many of them have great backgrounds but aren’t quite right for what we need right now. If you call us over and over, show up at the office without warning, or insist on us looking over your application again, it shows that you are not professional and makes our decision to pass even stronger.
The tips above are meant to provide context for how we think about hiring at Skilljar. Theyre actually applicable to any interview process, from early stage tech startups to large companies. The main difference is that we don’t have as much time or money to make exceptions, and we often judge you based on how well you interacted with the recruiter as much as your skills and experience. Have any other tips? Let us know in the comments!.
Customer Education Software: A Skilljar Deep Dive
FAQ
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