Tennant: Chronological interviews reveal a candidate's true underlying motivations
AJ Tennant · AJ Tennant: How to Build a Sales Machine and Where Most Go Wrong | E2118 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Oct 23, 2024 · at 36:30
AJ Tennant is VP of Sales at Glean and former sales executive at Slack. He explains the chronological interview methodology he uses to recruit high-performing sales talent.
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“Understand the deep history of the individual Over a chronological period of time. I didn't realize that that was a hiring methodology until Bob Fratty taught me that at Slack, which is kind of this who hiring, the who hiring method is what we call a chronological interview. Like, I ask people, what did you do in high school? Like, what were you proud of in high school? Not because, I don't care, and then I say, why did you go to the college you went to? What was your proudest accomplishment in college? And I do that through every Why did you leave the first job you did? Why did you go to the next job? And I go, really try to understand, because what you can build is an understanding of, like, the deep motivations that people have.”
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