Interviewing At Webconnex: What Dazzles Us And What Scares Us Away
As a fast-growing software company, we are always looking for bright and talented people to add to our support team. You might think that increasing our customer base by over 125% in the past year would cause us to hire faster, but actually, it made us hire more thoughtfully.
You see, there is a reason we’ve been able to accomplish so much with a team of less than 10 people. There are no weak links. We work and we win as one. Our interviewing process is long and detailed because we hire the best. How do we find such amazing talent?
Glad you asked.
We respond to applicants with an invitation for a fifteen-minute Zoom meeting. Yes, that’s it. Fifteen minutes to blow our minds and convince us we’ve found the person that’s been missing from our team all along!
If the applicant stands out, they’re then scheduled to come to the office for an in-person interview with the team. This typically takes an hour. If the applicant survives, I mean dazzles, us in that hour, the third and final step is an interview with our co-founders. Those combined impressions determine if we extend a job offer.
If you’re interested in how we found your favorite members of the support team, or in working for Webconnex, here are the things we look for during our interview process.
Can we get a sense of your personality?
Our customer support team stands out because we present ourselves as real life humans here to help. We’ve all had the horrible experience of talking with a customer service representative who was little more than a robot. Personality matters and we want to see it.
Do you have energy? A great smile? Quick wit? Bring it on.
Sometimes we purposefully do something unusual to see if the applicant will address it. One time I conducted four interviews wearing a WWF (back before it was WWE) Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson T-shirt, where he was less than decently dressed to say the least. Not one person said a word! Don’t believe me?
Did you plan ahead?
This is good advice for any interview, but especially when you’re interviewing for a tech company. Make sure you’re ready for the online meeting ahead of time.
You wouldn’t believe how many applicants were late for their time slot because they didn’t have the software downloaded in advance. It’s always good to make sure you can be seen and heard clearly.
In short, it communicated to us that you didn’t prepare for this meeting until right before it was scheduled. Not the best first impression. Monica, our latest hire, made an appearance in the interview that had the time slot before hers because she was determined to be early. Twice, actually. Needless to say, she had our attention.
Do you like customer service?
This is a unique factor we look for because most tech companies view the customer service position as entry level to bigger and better things. We don’t. We think it’s the heartbeat of our company. Great products don’t matter if you can’t get the support you need to use them.
We are listening closely to see if your goal is work with clients or just to “move up” in the company. The applicants who tried to dazzle us with skills that didn’t apply to working in customer service didn’t advance because it communicated to us they wouldn’t love the role we were looking to fill. In short, we want people who wanted the job we were offering.
Pro tip for future applicants… tell us that you love customer service.
So what do you look for when you’re hiring your customer service representatives? Is there a trait we’ve missed? Tell us about it in the comments below. Or, if you’re looking to be considered for the next round of interviews in the spring, you can apply here.
