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Partner Operations Written Take-Home

Sales & GTM

What it tests

Operational rigor, process-building instincts, and ability to turn partner program chaos into repeatable systems under real constraints

Format

  1. 1Candidate receives a written brief describing a messy state: 60 reseller partners tracked in a spreadsheet, no standardized onboarding, inconsistent reporting, and a new CFO asking for ROI data
  2. 2They have 3–4 days to write a structured plan: what they would fix first, how they'd build the reporting infrastructure, what partner-facing processes they'd standardize, and how they'd resource it
  3. 3Submission: a 2–4 page written plan (no slides required)
  4. 460-minute live review call: candidate walks through the plan, panel probes cross-functional dependencies — 'How do you get Finance to build you the attribution model?', 'What do you deprioritize if you only have 6 weeks?'

What to look for

  • Do they sequence priorities correctly — what's blocking revenue vs. what's nice-to-have?
  • Is their plan realistic for the resource constraints given, or are they designing for a team of 10?
  • Can they identify cross-functional dependencies (RevOps, Legal, Finance) without being prompted?
  • Do they treat partner experience as a first-class concern, or purely an internal ops problem?

Adaptation guide

Use a real mess from your own partner program history — redacted. The more believable the scenario, the sharper the signal. Works especially well for Program Manager and Partner Ops roles.

Full description

Format:

  1. Candidate receives a written brief describing a messy state: 60 reseller partners tracked in a spreadsheet, no standardized onboarding, inconsistent reporting, and a new CFO asking for ROI data
  2. They have 3–4 days to write a structured plan: what they would fix first, how they'd build the reporting infrastructure, what partner-facing processes they'd standardize, and how they'd resource it
  3. Submission: a 2–4 page written plan (no slides required)
  4. 60-minute live review call: candidate walks through the plan, panel probes cross-functional dependencies — "How do you get Finance to build you the attribution model?", "What do you deprioritize if you only have 6 weeks?"

Time: 75 minutes

What to look for:

  • Do they sequence priorities correctly — what's blocking revenue vs. what's nice-to-have?
  • Is their plan realistic for the resource constraints given, or are they designing for a team of 10?
  • Can they identify cross-functional dependencies (RevOps, Legal, Finance) without being prompted?
  • Do they treat partner experience as a first-class concern, or purely an internal ops problem?

Adaptation: Use a real mess from your own partner program history — redacted. The more believable the scenario, the sharper the signal. Works especially well for Program Manager and Partner Ops roles.