I applied online. The process took 5 days. I interviewed at Pitney Bowes in May 2008
Interview
The hiring manager called me in for a face to face and it went very well. After meeting with the hiring manager. I did a ride day with a rep in the field for about 2 hours. Afterwards I met with the Director of Sales and was offerd the position.
I applied through other source. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Pitney Bowes (Darmstadt)
Interview
The intro to the sales organization how it is and where they wanna go was from the beginning very buzzy described and spongy, especially when talking about the business apart of key accounts.
When trying to understand how exactly the internal sales teams' territories and goals are interwoven with each other in order to understand the success factor and product scope might lead to compensation accorded to the to be assigned role, the sales area leader pictured a non-explaining structure- but this was exactly the point, the compensation wasn't for the whole portfolio and the territory (??). The only component which was clearly excluded was Location Intelligence.
When asked for key sucess drivers with Customer Engagement (bunch of single tools) at existing local customers or new wins, there was no clear answer on the pitch, but existing "historic" key accounts where repeated mainly. Finally, I wanted to know the relevance of the flagship tool "Interactive Video" (which is nice, no question) as I still didn"t understand the proven entry point for a prospect to purchase neccessarely any product mix then to realize a type of Customer Engagement suite (which overlaps regularly somehow with components of existing core systems from other vendors) - again no answer explains a strategy. Btw, selling such suites is neccessary to hit quota.
The guy left the room for approx. 15min in order to let me watch the marketing video (!?) at youtube. When he came back, we've been finished soon with the interview...
Summary: Employer, it would be great if you appreciate concrete questions from candidates and their motivation to qualify the job very well as they have to carry a quota and need to be experts in qualification of prospects in daily business as well. If you want a CO-WORK, please be prepared to answer basic questions concretely as well and don't expect dumb jerks as interview partner. If you cant explain the USP within three sentences and how often you've been able to position sweet spots of your shop to install any CE suite...
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Experiences with complex sales and wins at big enterprises, verticals, go to market in details, motivation for the job. Nothing unusual. The meeting partner didn't have lots of questions as the dialogue started to struggle when I wanted to know their concrete structure, proven sales pitch, compensation rules.
The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Pitney Bowes in May 2011
Interview
After the initial phone interview I was asked to meet three individuals from the company, at my arrival in a large but empty office space! I met with two individuals, one from HR and other I assume sales since he did not specify his function.
The interview was very simple and easy, basic questions about resume, back ground, skills, etc......The HR individual seemed satisfied and started talking about benefits, hiring time and precedures...Then I was asked if I had any questions; to which I replied by pointing out falling sales and company performance in general, my questions were more an inquiry to better underestand what the weak points are and how as a sales person I should address them, by no means sarcastic or offensive.
Instead of addressing any of my questions the assumed sales manager ended the meeting, stood up and thanked me for coming!!!
I assume that the interview was a reflection of a corporate culture that demands a "put up and shut up attitude".
I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Pitney Bowes (San Francisco, CA) in Oct 2013
Interview
I replied to an online posting. Contacted by HR person who did just about all the interface. It was almost exclusively by email and phone. Very little human interaction until all the "hurdles were jumped" and then had an in-person interview with frontline manager. Very cursory, but then this is a very low level job.