People.ai Account Executive Interview Questions
& Process

The hiring process was mostly good until the very end, which was the worst candidate experience I've ever had. The internal recruiter was awesome – super friendly and always got back to me quickly. I had a phone screener, then an initial Zoom with the hiring manager, followed by an in-person meeting with them, and then another Zoom with the Chief of Staff. Everything went well, and I got positive feedback after each step. They said they wanted to move forward to an on-site with panel interviews and a presentation to the team. The on-site was set for the next Tuesday, so I planned to travel on Monday. I spent over 10-12 hours between Friday and Sunday prepping for my presentation. I watched tons of videos and read everything I could find. I put together my presentation, speaker notes, discovery questions, and even made an agenda and printed materials for the panel. It was a lot of prep to impress them. Then, on Monday, just 30 minutes before I was supposed to leave for the airport, the recruiter called. They canceled the interview and decided not to move forward. I was shocked because all the feedback had been positive, and I was sure the on-site would lead to an offer. When I asked why, the recruiter said it was because I didn't prepare and send a PG (Pipeline Generation) plan to the hiring manager. The hiring manager had mentioned a PG plan briefly in our in-person meeting, but it was never made clear that I needed to do it then. If I had known, I would have definitely done it, putting in the same effort as my on-site prep. It's really disappointing how little they seemed to value my time. As someone who works 50-60 hours a week, my weekends are precious, spent with my wife and kids. To have to lock myself in my office all weekend and neglect my family just to be canceled on with almost no notice is really bad form. Apparently, the decision to cancel was sent in an internal email Friday at 7 pm, and the recruiter didn't see it until Monday (I don't blame her for that). Whoever made the decision should have over-communicated and contacted me directly as soon as they decided, out of respect for my time. If I'm being disqualified for supposed poor follow-up, the decision-makers should be held to the same standard.

I got contacted by a recruiter from New York for a call. He was super fast and not very friendly. He seemed to think I don't know how to prospect because I have a BDR, which was weird because I've been successful in sales by doing outbound lead generation. His attitude was also strange, like he was annoyed talking to me. Maybe he was just having a bad day, but it gave me a really bad impression and by the end of the call, I just wanted it to be over and lost all interest in joining.

They communicated the interview process really well. It started with a chat with the hiring manager, then I spoke with the VP of sales. After that, I had a round-robin where I met with people from different departments I'd be working with, like customer service, engineering, and other sales folks. It was a thorough process and I got all my questions answered.