I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Gartner
Interview
Like most on here, I was approached by a recruiter via LinkedIn which led to a dead end. First interview is a screening with said poacher, very casual. Second was with another recruiter who canceled on me TWICE and when finally was able to connect, claimed he didn’t have a stable internet connection and had his screen off. It felt very awkward and unpleasant, mostly indifferent and disconnected as if they were just going through the motions. It all seems a farce to me and that these recruiters genuinely have zero intention of actually moving you forward but just a “candidate data collection pool”. Hey, they need job security too. Overall, a complete waste of time and only seem interested in keeping busy. If poached on LinkedIn like many here, keep looking elsewhere.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why sales? (They seem to ask this question in every interview and they tell you there is NO wrong answer when there clearly is)
Es finden mehrere Runden statt, daher müssen Bewerber einen langen Atem mitbringen. Eine gute Vorbereitung ist das A&O. Zusammengefasst war es eine äußerst angenehme und sehr professionelle candidate journey. Respekt an das HR-Team.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Gartner in Nov 2023
Interview
The process runs through several levels: First introduction interview, then longer lasting traits and role play interviews. The 2nd interview was 1 h the third one was planned for 1.5 h. Questions were around your past behaviour at specific situations at work ("Tell me about a time you received feedback and how this changed your work...").
At every step you get a good input and tons of material to prepare. The recruiters are very helpful and really want to support you. But, overall, I believe the process is very artificial. All conversations including the 3rd interview (role play) were done "only" with HR and recruiting stuff, that follow a very formal process. They take notes about your answers and later, for example after the role play, give you feedback about your answers. The role play follows a certain structure that is defined and that can be prepared, according to the briefing provided. It is not an open conversation, but a go-through of a previously defined structure. The recruiter wants to hear you asking the right (and a lot of) questions. And you must find out about the real problems of your counterpart.
I don't believe such a highly structured, artificial and unrealistic conversation will help Gartner to find the best salesperson, but the best actor will most likely survive.
Furthermore the process is very time intensive, it needs a lot of preparation and you feel like in university exams. And of course, every longer lasting process will rise the possibility you will finally have a bad day and miss it to ask the decisive, intelligent, killing questions... what I believe happened to me. In case I will be asked by Gartner for new opportunities (what they offered) I will step back from this process - I'm not brave enough, never again.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time you received feedback and how this changed your work.