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It's quite common for AE roles, especially in competitive fields, to require candidates to create presentations as part of the interview process. This step helps employers assess vital skills such as presenting, researching, and building rapport. While creating an hour-long presentation can indeed feel demanding, it's a valuable way for potential employers to gauge your credibility and capacity to handle similar tasks on the job. It's understandable to feel hesitant about this level of effort, but it's a standard practice in many organizations to ensure they find the most capable candidates.
I agree with your comment. However, in my experience, I've been asked to demo my current product or to take a stab at presenting theirs. If I were handed a blank deck and said good luck, I'd likely have passed too.
It all comes down to your interest in the role/job. If it was your ultimate place to be, you’d would probably jump over hoops. All good! Don’t waste your time. Lots of waste of time jobs out there. Worst place to be is in one of those places you know has no future and working your butt off.
…and to answer your question directly, it’s 200% normal to not be excited for a role and forgo putting work into a job you don’t want. You get hired…then what?! Been there. Don’t even jump in. It will hurt your career to be moving around a lot.
It is relatively common to present or go through a discovery call presenting at the same time. Easy and effective for them to ask this of you. It will eliminate the competition for the role. For a SMB role I think it’s a bigger request than for a larger AE role.
It’s common to make a sales presentation now or a 30 - 60 - 90 day plan at work
Or both…
I’m interviewing now and I will say it’s common to put together a presentation but 1 hour long is a bit much. Mine have all been mock calls (20-30 mins), short demos (5-10 mins), presentations (account mapping and research), prospecting exercises, and 30/60/90 plans. The majority are about 30-45. 1 hour would be with feedback and questions.
I am interviewing for mid-market roles for reference. Some small enterprise.
Pro
For any AE roles I interview for, I almost always expect a demo/presentation type round in the end now…and shocked when there isn’t.
Yeah an hour seems a long time for that type of role. I went for an interview which asked for a 30 minute presentation on a "customer challenge" I had previously had. I chose an event sponsorship package I sold to a company in Poland, In phone interviews I would explain this process in about 5 minutes. I had to drag it out to 10 sides over 30 minutes and used the STAR formula and they still said it wasn't detailed enough...Ordinarily I would have expected to do a sales presentation on either a product I had previously sold or their product, as they already had a sales process in place.
Really simply a question of: “Do you want the job, or not?”
If you want it, you’ll jump thru just about any hoops I reckon.
Yep that's totally normal but indeed more for Enterprise roles, I've had 3 like this in the last Month.
But starting from scratch is uncommon: I would ask for some guidelines.
Now filling in an entire hour of presentation is too long for them and cumbersome for you.
So in your shoes, I would do a counter proposal to take control - after all you're a sales. Suggest which company you're pitching to that they're representing, what challenge they have, and how what you sell solve their company needs.
It has no interest for them to look at you pitching fakely a lengthy unless there are interactions.
Fill the time with asking them questions and allowing for theirs. In the end they want to see how good and structured you are as a sales and how you can deal with these interactions.