Tips for a Sales Engineering Interview

If you are considering a move from consulting or development into the world of pre-sales consulting/engineering, and you are not certain of how to prepare for your interview and you are looking for some tips, hopefully this post can help you out. A logical starting point is to figure out how have you positioned or upsold additional functional in the past, such modules, consulting time, or training etc in your past engagements... A sales engineering manager is less concerned with if you delivered your projects on time and budget (although those are important attributes) or if you know 50 different developments languages and design patterns. Instead they are more concerned if you are able to 'position' (ie: sell) your unique value to an organization during pre-sales cycles based on your technical/solution crafting skills.

So here are my basic SE interviewing tips for folks considering entering into the sales consulting world for the first time, so that you can be better prepared before you jump into the line of fire of a bunch of Sales Engineering interview questions. So be prepared to discuss:

-Real life client examples of how you solved a business problem using technology solutions
-The business value that your technical/software solution has solved in business terms
-Your most complex solution/implementation and how you were able to grow future business based on your relationship with your customer
-Examples of how you were able to successful convey a technical process to a standard business user
-Examples of when you had to effectively present to C-level executives/business decision makers to successfully position your solution
-How you have been able to solve a business problem by thinking outside-of-the-box
-Details of how you were able to come up with a solution to a business problem quickly off-the-cuff

If you are already a Sales Engineer, the tips I provide would vary significantly, so stay tuned for a follow-up post on that...Good luck on the interview!