Last week LaunchSource held our second annual Sales Career Combine at Suffolk University’s Center for Entrepreneurship in Boston. Over the past year LaunchSource has received over 3000 applications from 2016 graduates looking to start a career in sales at one of Boston’s many high growth technology startups. After screening through those applicants, LaunchSource narrowed the field to the top 28 candidates in the area, who were invited to attend the combine.

Modelled after a sports combine, the Career Combine allowed candidates to interview with four LaunchSource client companies in attendance in one afternoon. In short presentations plus time for questions and answers, our clients and our candidates were able to get to know each other and, through LaunchSource, set up a time for more formal interviews.

“The combine was a really efficient way to talk to a large group of entry-level candidates all at once. I was able to get quick exposure to their demeanor, ask a few questions to assess how they would do in  our environment.  I can generally conduct 4 phone screens in the time that it took to talk to all 28 candidates”, said Scott Noll at ThriveHive, one of LaunchSource’s client companies in attendance. “Overall this was a really valuable use of my time. Usually I know within 5 minutes of talking to someone, whether or not it’s going to be a fit, so the format of the combine was helpful in that respect.”

The Combine was essentially a larger version of what LaunchSource calls “Interview Day,” where we invite a much smaller group of candidates to attend a rigorous interview with one client company over the course of an afternoon.

Overall we were able to make a number of connections that hopefully result in successful new hires for our clients, and the beginnings of stellar careers for our candidates.

Thanks to all the candidates for attending as well as our client partners which included, Acquia, ClearCompany, Fuze, and ThriveHive.

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