Deirdre Sommerkamp (VP, Solutions Consulting, Operations & Enablement at Upland Software) shares her experience hiring two graduates from PreSales Academy’s Cohort #4.
What benefits have you experienced from hiring PSA Graduates?
Access to diverse candidates
Candidates have been successful in previous roles
Consistently trained and vetted specifically for a Solutions Consulting role
New perspectives they bring to the team
Faster ramp v.s. non-PSA graduates
Hiring from PreSales Academy is invaluable! These graduates have been thoroughly vetted and consistently trained in conducting research, discovery, presenting, value messaging, and working with sales. Such skill sets significantly accelerate our time to onboard new Solutions Consultants. It has been a pleasure to see PSA graduates jump in and are ready to hit the ground running.
What I have found is the whole Solutions Consulting team benefits from the new perspectives that junior/associate-level Solutions Consultants bring to the team. Not taking a traditional path is a plus as it provides us with insight from someone who has been on the outside looking in.
Why are you interested in hiring junior/associate-level talent?
Possess soft skills we desire
Coachable, learn quickly and act on feedback
Lower cost and salary verifications already conducted
Higher loyalty, better retention
Hiring from PSA saves us time and reduces our hiring risk. We don’t have to do a salary verification with each candidate because those sent over to us are already within our desired range.
What has been your experience working with PreSales Academy?
Phenomenal, qualified candidates personalized to our needs
Polished, professional presentations during the interview process
PSA graduates learn quickly
Huge time savings for hiring managers
Working with the PSA team was an easy and delightful experience. We simply outlined what we were looking for (specific functional experience), and we received a short list of quality candidates tailored to our needs which saved us a tremendous amount of time. All candidates did their research on our company and came to their interviews with great questions and made a wonderful impression during their presentations. We could have hired most of the candidates we interviewed, and we just had to pick the best one!
PSA graduates learn new technology quickly, and they understand the importance of value messaging and framing their presentations around the needs of buying groups. We couldn’t be happier with our decision to hire PSA graduates.
Interested in hiring candidates from PreSales Academy?
Get access to the graduate database here. And see Graduates Spotlight videos of a few recent graduates who a currently available!
Deirdre Sommerkamp is the VP, Solutions Consulting, Operations & Enablement at Upland Software. She has served as a mentor for PreSales Academy and is currently an Ambassador for PreSales Collective.