I was introduced by an acquaintance to one of their senior recruiters, a very nice gentleman in SF. We had a general discussion about my background. He arranged for a phone "discussion" with the manager in Florida for the next morning. My free-flowing discussion went wonderfully with the guy in SF and I expected an equally engaging and in depth discussion about my background and how it could be leveraged at Hilti. Unfortunately, I had purchased tens of thousands of dollars of their anchors over the years and I felt relatively confident that I could relate to someone selling to the construction sector (I was a project manager for over a decade). Instead of another free-flowing conversation, it was practically a script and the manager in Florida was very rude. I wasn't sure if he was trying to see how I handled a difficult person, or if he simply had to follow the script and any deviation was incomprehensible. Needless to say, he made me feel stupid and I ended the phone conversation about ten minutes in and said I didn't think this was going to work. Seeing that he would have been my boss, I wasn't going to put myself into a job where I was miserable. I learned from this experience that despite what I knew about their products, their strategies, and how my skills could be used at the firm, it is best to do a refresher on the firm the night before. I also learned that if an interviewer is being a jerk, it is best to politely say this isn't for you. Of course the gentleman in SF asked what happened and I said apparently I wasn't prepared for a deep discussion on the firm. But I also let him know that I enjoyed the hour plus long conversation with him, but the interviewer was rude and really turned me off to their firm.

If you’re internal, the process is quite easy. CAR format with strategic questions. Mostly centered around execution of a sales territory. Not sure how the process looks from externally, but can’t imagine it would be that different.