PreSales Hireside Chats

What would the ideal hiring process look like for PreSales?
This is gold from Ramzi Marjaba.

“I can’t stand it when people try to sell me a product, I don't like being manipulated.”
“It’s sales without being annoying”
Such a nice take here from Rew Dickinson on his vision of what PreSales and leadership should be.

There’s a lot of talk currently about SE/SC skills and competencies matrixes, another example of PreSales professionalising further.
Transforming the idea of a skills matrix into an adopted reality is the true challenge, Sandra Palm led an internal team that did this and took the time to talk us through the experience step by step.

For most people, it’s a pleasure to work in an industry as international as software.
Evaluating a candidate’s soft skills is hard enough as it is, more so when as a hiring manager you need to allow for subtle cultural differences, some of which you may not even be aware of. Gigi Carlino runs an international team, so it was great to have his take on how he goes about allowing for language and cultural differences when interviewing.

Intuition.. does it help or hinder when hiring?
The benefits and pitfalls of using intuition for hiring decisions, as well as thoughts around how to mitigate some of the risks of ‘going with your gut’ has been a reoccurring theme in the conversations we’ve been having with PreSales hiring managers. Here the brilliant Sveta Kostinsky provides her view.

Treat the recruitment process as a sales cycle and make a lasting impression through storytelling.
Rock solid advice from Kerry Sokalsky for anyone interviewing for a PreSales role.
During the full conversation, Kerry shared his view on the essential qualities for successful demos, different compensation models for PreSales jobs, and the most and least trainable PreSales skills. Big thanks for the time Kerry!

We enjoyed an enlightening conversation with Simon Gillis, discussing a range of topics around hiring, including the importance of diversity and proactively looking to bring in individuals who bring new perspectives to a team, as a cultural add.
Thanks so much for the time Simon!

What abilities make up a top-performing PreSales professional and how can you assess these in the hiring process?

We asked Chris Jones and this is what he had to say.

Matthieu Rider is a seasoned PreSales leader with a lot of hiring experience.
Matt took the time to discuss in depth his beliefs around hiring. Some highlights for us were:
- Have an 'always hiring' approach, identifying future hires and nurturing these relationships for the right time.
- Look beyond the obvious, there are excellent potential hires outside of traditional SE candidate pools. Take time to build a diverse candidate pool.
- Culture fit is really important to interview for
- Trust your gut, but listen to others to validate
- Have a structured consistent hiring process
Thanks for the time Matt!