The interview process began with an online task, comprising a number of different sections- the most daunting of which was a short video describing yourself, your experience and what you feel you could bring to the company. After taking 25 minutes to record a minute long video clip, I filled in the other sections, comprising of similar topics- what experience do you have in a sales or sales-like environment seemed to be the main focus of these questions.
After successfully completing this section, I was invited in to have a face-to-face interview. Arriving, I found I was one of three applicants on the day. A quick introduction by the senior manager explained how the day was to be structured- we had 4 tasks to complete, and would move around them separately.
Starting off with a Q&A session with the senior manager, which involved similar questions to the prior online seciton, was a nice starting point for myself. Being sat nearby the other staff in the office put me at ease, as it felt like I was already being involved in everything despite it being my first time in the office.
The next step was writing a draft message to a person, based on their LinkedIn profile. Using the provided profile, we had to write a message that showed an interest in the person's profile, without being too "sales-y", with a limit of around 120 words. I feel like this was a good choice of activity, as it gave you a brief idea of the sort of work you would be carrying out on a day-to-day basis whilst still starting you off lightly, given my lack of experience.
Following this was a more standard interview with one of the directors. This focused more on my CV, my university experience and why it was that I wanted to go into recruitment. Despite being with a director in his office, I still felt comfortable and able to say what I wanted to say, no doubt thanks to the director coming across as an actual approachable human being!
The final stage was with the other director, as a sales task. Given the 5 steps of selling, and 5 minutes to write a brief script, I was tasked with selling the director a stainless steel water bottle. Again, this was made easier by the approachable nature of the director, but was none-the-less slightly daunting due to my lack of experience. After tackling the task, we were all thanked for our time, and left- I think I spent a total of 2 hours in the office.
Arriving home, I did not expect to hear back from them until at least the next day- to my surprise, about 2 hours later I received a call from the senior manager, with feedback on how they felt everything went, along with the offer of a trial period relating to my lack of prior office experience. They were completely honest about this, which I appreciated, and I accepted the offer.
My trail week started the following week, at the end of which I had a meeting with senior management in which they expressed that they were happy with how my week had gone, and offered me the role on a full-time basis, which I happily accepted!