Common Marketing Interview Questions & Process

So you have landed an interview as a marketer, congrats! Now it’s time to study and prepare. Here are some example questions to help get you ready for your interview…

Seeking a job in marketing means being adaptable. Each marketing company will have different hiring criteria and interviewing processes depending on the position and the company’s culture and goals.

Because of this, once you’ve submitted your application and you’ve been called in for an interview, don’t let your guard down. Instead, study hard and prepare answers for questions they may ask you beforehand. Doing so will increase your chance of landing a job offer.

In this article, we’ll show you some common interview questions in marketing interviews. Plus, there will also be a few marketing interview tips to help you ace your upcoming remote interview appointments!

Firstly, let’s cover the basics…

What Is Marketing?

Marketing consists of anything that a company use to attract and retain new customers in order to sell a company’s products and services.

A company’s marketing department is also responsible for:

• Demonstrating the product’s value to consumers
• Fostering brand loyalty
• Improving the company’s reputation

What are the Different Types of Marketing?

A modern digital marketer is expected to have at least some knowledge of a wide of topics, such as:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Pay per click advertising
• Email marketing
• Content marketing
• Affiliate marketing
• Influencer marketing
• And more

Typically a marketer’s skillset will be “T-shaped” i.e. they will specialise in one area (e.g. SEO) but have at least some knowledge of all types of marketing. So if you are unfamiliar with any of the topics above, it may be of use doing some research on these.

Given the wide range of topics, it would be difficult to cover all of them in this article. So instead we’ll focus on more generic situational, behavioural and communication style questions later in this article.

Things to Consider When Doing a Marketing Interview

During your interview, here are some things you can do to increase your chances of success:

1. Adopt the STAR Approach

STAR is a technique you can use during an interview to answer questions more effectively. It’s an acronym for:

• Situation: Set the scene and mention all of the details
• Task: Describe your role or responsibility in that situation
• Action: Explain in detail what you did
• Result: Elaborate on the outcomes and what you achieved

It’s best used for behavioral questions and any other questions requiring you to recount a story or experience. For example, you can use it to counter this very common interview question: “Tell me about a difficult problem that you had to solve recently. What did you do?”

2. Ensure you are in a quiet space

Before the remote interview session, pick a quiet place in your home with few distractions. It should also be bright, clean, and professional-looking.

If you have an office at home, then it’s the perfect place. If not, you can choose spaces around the house with plenty of light (like next to an open window) or beside a low-key piece of furniture (a bookshelf).

Avoid places that could be loud, distracting, or unprofessional-looking, like the kitchen or the bedroom.

You can use a virtual background if you don’t have a good space or don’t want to bother with choosing a nice spot.

That way, the interviewer can focus entirely on you instead of your surroundings. You also won’t be distracted by what’s happening around you in your home!

3. Prepare Your Device

A fast internet connection, a clear microphone, and a good webcam are must–haves. Lacking any of these will impact your chances of getting the job significantly.

A bad connection or a shoddy microphone can cut your answers and make it harder for the interviewer to understand you. And certain interviewers may take the bad quality of your webcam stream to be an indication that you’re not interested in being recruited.

So, always double-check your equipment before joining the session!

4. Research the company

Regardless of the type of marketing jobs you are interviewing for, it’s important to perform in-depth research on the company you’re applying to.

For example, go through their website and analyze their past marketing campaigns. See who works in the department you’re applying for. Make sure your resumé is relevant to the job listing specifications.

During your research, you can also get a closer look at the company’s culture on website such as Glassdoor to ensure you are approaching the interview the correct mindset (and dress code).

5. Leverage Your Experience

Your past working experience is something that every interviewer will be interested in hearing about. That’s why you should refresh your memory of your working experience before the interview. Re-read your resume and write down a list of key projects or experiences that you think would help you during the interview. Then, arrange the stories using the STAR approach outlined above.

6. Answer with Confidence

Confidence will help you greatly during an interview. It’ll allow you to answer quicker and more smoothly. Interviewers like confident candidates, too, since they’re likable and memorable.

There are many tricks that you can use to give yourself a confidence boost. Dressing appropriately and professionally can help, practicing deep breathing techniques, maintaining good eye contact, and having a positive mindset are all good tricks.

But above all, practicing interview questions and coming up with answers before the interview is the best method, bar none.

7. Ensure you are up to date with Current Trends

After researching the company and its industry, it’s important to stay up-to-date with the latest affairs and trends in their niche. Interviewers may ask industry-specific questions to gauge how well you know the company’s business and, by extension, your future working environment.

List of Marketing Interview Questions by Category

Here are some marketing questions to prepare you for your interview. We’ve split them in to 3 categories: behavioural, communication and technical.

Behavioral Questions

Behavioral questions assess how you react and perform in a certain situation. Interviewers use it to gauge your stress management ability, professional skills, and personality. To answer these questions well, you should use the STAR approach.

Here are some popular interview questions for marketing managers (and answers!)

Q: What has been your biggest challenge with a project or campaign in the past year, and how did you overcome it?

A: In my previous role, my marketing project manager left the company unexpectedly (Situation). High management appointed me as project leader because I was the second most senior person in the team (Task). Though my leadership experience was limited, I still managed to use it to re-organize the team and continue pushing the product (Action). The project was successful, and a complete product was delivered to the customer promptly (Result).

Q: Tell me about a time you failed. What did you learn? How did you deal with communicating the problem to your manager?

A: In a past role, I was assigned to design a marketing campaign for a client (Situation). Eager to please, I projected that finishing would only take a week. However, it turned out that the project needed three weeks, and the client was unhappy (Task). I became more conservative about time estimates later (Action) to improve upon my mistake. In the next project, I estimated that it would take three weeks to complete, only to complete it in two. The client was much happier (Result).

Communication Questions

Communication questions are designed to assess how well you can communicate in a certain situation, setting, or environment. It also allows the interviewer to see your communication style.

Here are some entry level marketing interview questions in this category.

Q: What are some of the most important skills that you think a marketing communication specialist should have?

A: I think it’s important for every marketing communication specialist to have organization skills and a high level of creativity. In previous roles, I learned how much easier it is to communicate with clients and team members when information is properly organized. And, being creative, I came up with novel marketing solutions to push products and services to consumers better than ever before!

Q: How do you manage your time to ensure you meet deadlines and deliver high-quality work?

A: I use the Calendar app on my computer to organize my day-to-day activities. To make it easier to concentrate on critical tasks, I sort them into categories based on the order of importance. I also set up reminders on my phone to help me remember tasks I need to start working on that day.

Technical Questions

Technical questions are those which test you on the specific job you are applying for. In some respects, these are the most important to prepare for. Here are some technical questions about marketing they may ask you during the interview.

Q: Are you better at B2C (Business to Consumer) or B2B (Business to Business) marketing?

A: I prefer to do B2C marketing campaigns since I can work directly with consumers on a more personal basis. I also have the skills necessary to handle B2B campaigns, but I don’t find it as satisfying as direct-to-consumer work.

Q: What are the 5 essential elements of a successful marketing campaign?

A: These 5 elements are:

• Target
• Value proposition
• Call-to-action message
• Delivery method
• Follow-up

Wrapping it up

So there you have it, those are our tips on how to nail your next marketing interview. As with all interviews, preparation is key — so make sure you’ve done your homework on the job speciality & the company you are interviewing for.

If you’re on the look out of other marketing opportunies (especially those that offer a 4 day work week), we can help. Our job board contains a ton of marketing jobs with a 4 day work week (that’s 32hrs at 100% salary).

This article was originally posted on 4 day week — jobs with a four day workweek 🎉