Kimball Midwest Interview Questions
& Process

Phone screening and then one in person interview. Mine was in person with 2 others was not super difficult just research the company and know what they do/sell. Might ask you some questions like “name a few items we sell”.

I was supposed to have a phone interview at 8am but it was rescheduled for the next afternoon. The next day, the person who rescheduled it couldn't make it, so I was interviewed by someone else. A few days later, a local employee contacted me for the next round. We scheduled an interview for 8am, but at the START TIME, one of the interviewers couldn't make it, so we rescheduled for the afternoon. The interview went well because I had prepared a lot. They told me the next steps were watching some videos about what to expect and how to prepare for a 'JOT' (job observation tour). I thought it would be short YouTube videos, but it was 14 videos totaling 87 minutes. These videos were about the role and product knowledge, like what employees do during onboarding. They wanted me to do this all for free on my day off (8:45am - 3:45pm), which would be at least 7.5 hours of free labor plus an hour lunch, before even getting a job offer. They do this for every candidate, and there were five candidates for the outside sales role. I texted the first local employee saying I was uncomfortable with this. They said the process can't be changed and I could withdraw. I told them asking for a free day of labor was unethical and then withdrew. There were too many red flags in less than two weeks. They advertised a BASE salary of $52-95k, but even with my experience, they tried to make the lower end sound good as a TOTAL salary (including commission).

I first talked to HR about the job, which she said was entry level but with chances to move up. She asked some basic questions and after about 30 minutes, I moved to the next stage. I then had a caliper test, which I did well on. After that, I spoke with the sales manager for the territory I'd be working in. We had a phone call, and then he scheduled an in-person meeting about an hour away. He then suggested I might earn more as a Sales Representative, even though the Account Manager role I applied for had a guaranteed salary. This felt like a bait and switch because after four meetings, including researching businesses to cold call and spending time in the field (driving over 8 hours total), I discovered the 'compensation plan' was actually aggressive quotas, and the expense reimbursement was contingent on meeting quotas. I'd never heard of that before. Also, if the ratio of eComm to traditional sales wasn't met, the reimbursement wouldn't be given. It seems like sales reps take on all the risk and expenses with no income security or vacation time. I used a lot of gas just to find this out. My references were checked very early on, and it was a long call where the sales manager even offered them jobs, which was awkward.

I had an initial phone chat with HR, who was nice enough but sounded really bored. Then I was asked to come in for an in-person interview. The HR person was again nice, but didn't seem really engaged and just asked the same old questions. I also spoke with the head of the department, who was actually great. Overall, I'm leaving a negative review though. They made me do a bunch of stuff like a personality/IQ test when I got there, and it took them a whole month to get back to me with a decision. The turnaround time was pretty weird.