Need interview advice

[paulney]

Here's the situation: I am interviewing for a Professional Services position. I successfully passed the first few rounds, and now I have one last interview left with the CTO of the company. In my previous round I interviewed with the Sales Director, and he liked me a lot.

I learned from a recruiter that it's currently between me and some other guy. The other guy is coming from a sales engineering position in telecom, but he has not been coding for 2 years, no hands-on recent experience.

I come from engineering. I am good at coding, and have some experience with PS. Position asked for a very hands-on person who wants to move into PS.

Recruiter tells me that now it will be decided by who the CTO likes better.

Question: would it be appropriate for me to call the Sales Director and ask for pointers in talking to the CTO? Let him know I am aware it's between the other candidate and me, and show that I am ready to go an extra mile to get this position? Sales Director gave me his card, so I won't need to sneak around to get his number.

Thanks.

 

[paulney]

Well, I did call, and it was a good thing I did. Sales Dir is definitely on my side, and gave me quite a few valuable things to bring up in the upcoming talk.

 

[LemonHead]

Best of luck to ya' Hope you get the job.

 

[RichUK]

Assless chaps. :thumbsup:

 

[paulney]

Originally posted by: RichUK
Assless chaps. :thumbsup:

I :heart: ATOT

 

[hoihtah]

i'd say it is always better to be proactive.
so way to go!

 

[Paperdoc]

Yes, that is reasonable, will demonstrate sincere interest and a style of researching your "sales prospects" before the actual meeting. But be sensitive to whether the Sales Director thinks this appropriate. Maybe ASK at the outset whether he is willing to provide you an outline of the CTO's priorities to help you present your own assets clearly. If he / she sounds reluctant, back off and accept easily.

 

[paulney]

Originally posted by: Paperdoc
Yes, that is reasonable, will demonstrate sincere interest and a style of researching your "sales prospects" before the actual meeting. But be sensitive to whether the Sales Director thinks this appropriate. Maybe ASK at the outset whether he is willing to provide you an outline of the CTO's priorities to help you present your own assets clearly. If he / she sounds reluctant, back off and accept easily.

Thanks!

That's what I did. He was very candid. Reiterated again, that his ideal person would be an engineer from a startup willing to roll up the sleeves and code up POCs for the customer, as opposed to a sales eng from a big company who's got other goals ahead of him rather than coding and stuff.