I applied for this role online in late August. I received an email about two weeks later to set up a phone interview, and this email also included the salary amount that would be allocated to this role, which was a surprise.
The first phone interview was with a member of the Recruiting team. They asked about my current position, why I am in the job market, why I was interested in HubSpot, what I knew about HubSpot, and what I knew about inbound marketing.
The following interview was with the Hiring Manager that used to hold the position for which I was being interviewed. I gave a brief overview of my current role, and then the majority of the conversation was centered around my knowledge of HubSpot. I had done an immense amount of research on the company prior to this phone interview, so I was confident with my answers. However, I was disappointed by this topic being the focus of the interview. Since the Hiring Manager had direct experience in this role, I was hoping for more questions related to my training methodologies and experiences to gauge if I was a right fit for the role related to those aspects. Having little previous involvement with inbound marketing in my career thus far, I admitted this, and I expressed my enthusiasm to learn more about inbound marketing and sales methodologies and how they help businesses grow.
Within three business days, I received the generic email from Recruiting that they would not be moving forward with the interview process, but there could be another position in the future, follow our blog, etc. I replied to receive some honest feedback related to this decision.
The feedback that I received was that their concern was around my knowledge of HubSpot and inbound marketing. I absolutely recognize that gauging a candidate’s knowledge of the company is important during the interview process. I spent hours researching this company, delving into all possible resources – their website, blog, press releases, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, outside articles, etc. I could have easily answered questions about HubSpot and inbound marketing by regurgitating their website, but presented my answers in how I viewed these things based on my research.
Overall, I am disappointed in the interview process not furthering, but I am moreso disappointed that HubSpot may be losing out on remarkable potential employees by not giving them a chance to show how well they can learn the ins and outs of the company and the product. For prospective candidates, make sure that you research as much as possible about HubSpot prior to interviewing, as this appeared to be the most important subject during my two phone interviews.