I was originally contacted by a recruiter through LinkedIn. The first stage was that I had a screening call with the recruiter after I had sent them my CV. This screening call was really just to qualify my background and suitability and focused on my past experience and future aspirations. The next stage was a 30-min technical interview conducted over the phone. This did not go into any great technical detail, but did include questions covering a wide range of architectural topics. After this, there was a 30-min non-technical interview with the hiring manager. This was very open and felt more like a discussion than an interview. It was focused on my previous customer-facing and consulting experience, together with whether I would be a good cultural fit for Salesforce. The final step was the panel interview. This was really a role-play; about a week before the interview, I was given a scenario and had to prepare a presentation to a hypothetical customer introducing Salesforce and proposing how Salesforce could be used to fulfill their requirements. I also had to give a demo of Salesforce. I was given advice on a separate call on how to prepare for the interview, and what the panel would be looking for. On the day, I had a panel of about five people who all assumed customer roles, such as VP of Sales. The key to this interview was to prepare well. I had no prior experience of Salesforce, but was easily able to configure the product to be able to demo what was asked. I was expecting to be given a really rough time, but in reality, this was not the case. After this step, I received my offer, but at my request, I also had an additional 1:1 interview with the hiring manager to go through some more questions. At all stages, I had the opportunity to ask as many questions as I wanted, and the recruiter kept me informed of progress. The whole process took about four weeks, mainly due to difficulties in aligning people's calendars. Originally, I was contacted out of the blue and was not interested in changing jobs, but the professionalism and enthusiasm of the recruiting team convinced me, and 3 months in to my new job, I'm very glad they did.

About my previous consulting experience.