I applied to Transperfect through my school's career site. I was contacted by a recruiter from Vancouver the next day requesting a phone interview with her. Our conversation, lasted about 20 minutes. She asked me questions such as why I wanted to work for Transperfect, am I a hunter or a farmer when it comes to sales, my strengths and weaknesses, and why I wanted to work in sales. She then gave me a detailed description of the job and what it entails. For the hunter vs. farmer question, I stated that I am more of a farmer because I think it is important to maintain your current client database and make sure they are content and satisfied, but, also having a hunter mindset in order to continue expanding your business. This seemed to fit the role of sales account manager as the recruiter told me that this specific position is about 60-70% managing current clients, and 30-40% developing new relationships. Whatever answer you give, just make sure to emphasize both the hunting and farming aspects and how you need both!
I then spoke to a Director of Business Development. Our conversation lasted about 20 minutes, and we got along great. I told her that I was in the area of the office (I was planning on relocating) so she said she would try to get me into the office to meet another Director of BD.
I met with this Director of Business Development in person. The office was small, with about 12 people working there. This process was pretty informal, and it was spent with me explaining my past internships, why I wanted to work there, and then she asked me if I had any questions for her. This was only after 10 minutes, so I asked her a bunch of questions to learn more about her and the company.
I then moved on to the next round and had another phone interview, this time with a VP of BD. This lasted about 20 minutes, and went well. She referred me on to the next round of interview.
This was the last step of the interview process that I reached. I had a phone interview with a higher VP executive. He told me that he wanted to spend 5 minutes with me on the phone, and when he said 5 minutes, he really meant 5 minutes. I felt like this phone call was more of an interrogation, and it didn't seem like he wanted to take any time to talk to me. His tone of voice was somewhat condescending, and only made me think that I didn't want to work for someone like him. Well, as it turned out anyways, the recruiter contacted me the next day via email to tell me that they decided to go along with other candidates. Through such a long drawn out process, I expected to receive a little more respect that far along in the process. To have spent 2 weeks of phone interviews and 1 in-person interview, and then to be turned away in 5 minutes, is a little unfair.
The only highlight of this process was the recruiter, who was very nice and understanding. Otherwise, don't waste your time here unless you are POSITIVE you want to be treated like a sales person who has no emotions.
