Whether you’re blessed with the confidence of Jonathan Ross or suffer with acute nervousness, job interviews can be a daunting experience. It’s easy to slip up at a marketing job interview by saying the wrong things, forgetting to showcase your strong points, or misinterpreting questions entirely. “When recruiting for marketing roles the interview panel will, first and foremost, be looking for strong communication skills and a quick, inventive mind,” says one HR manager. “Someone who comes across as ill-prepared and short of things to say probably won’t be selected for a second interview.”
Well what’s the answer? Preparation of course, and that means planning answers to popular interview questions and thinking well before you slip on your smartest interview suit.
So SimplyMarketingJobs has compiled the ultimate guide. We take a look at the different types of interview question you can expect to have thrown at you, and provide ideas for answers that will help you land the job.
Preparation
So you have landed an interview for your dream marketing job? That’s a great achievement in itself. The golden rule of being interviewed is be prepared! It sounds simple but so many jobseekers make the mistake of arriving for interviews without preparing properly in advance, expecting their past experience to help them walk into the job.
Some useful hints and tips
Do all the research on the company that you can. Spend time going through the company website and if possible ensure you get a copy of their latest published accounts (normally these are available to download from a companies’ corporate website). Google is of course a fantastic tool for finding out some interesting facts about the marketing company you’re hoping to work for.
“What do you know about our company?” is one of the most commonly asked interview questions, so having to scrape around for something to say instantly looks bad. If the information is on their website, there is no excuse for not knowing about it, and having pre-perpared opinions about recent business activities and marketing campaigns.
Key facts you must know
• What the company does
• Its products and services
• Current marketing strategy
• Growth plans for the future
• Main competitors
• Financial performance
• Recent published trade news
Presentation
First impressions really do count. Ensure that you are dressed for the job you want, rather than the job you already have. Always overdress rather than risk being underdressed.
Studies show that often the average length of time between a candidate entering the interview room and a decision being made is just under four minutes. After this time, recruiters are often looking for evidence to support the decision that (perhaps subconsciously) they have already made. If you are at all unsure about the dress code ask the recruiter.
Punctuality
As a professional, you don’t need to be told to arrive on time, but if you have interviewed extensively yourself you’ll know just how many job seekers still arrive late.
Make sure you find out where you are going and plan how you are going to get there. If you are unsure of the exact location of the interview print, out a map, again often found on the company’s corporate website or available online from one of the many online map providers.
Allow plenty of extra time in case of travel delays, particularly if you are heading into central London, or any other major city for the job interview. If you arrive very early find a nearby café and collect your thoughts and make any final preparations e.g. ensuring you have your mobile phone turned off before you go into the interview etc.
It’s good practice to show up 5-10 minutes early, as this shows you are keen and ensures you don’t hold proceedings up. Also remember it can take up to 10 minutes to get signed in as a visitor in some buildings. Try not to arrive more than 10 minutes early as most managers have busy diaries and may be uncomfortable about leaving you waiting for too long.
The marketing interview
When you first meet the interviewer, greet him or her with a firm handshake and try to smile. Break the ice by asking them how they are or how their weekend was etc, some interviewers are better than others and making job seekers feel at ease. Don’t wait to be asked a question to demonstrate your ability to communicate and build rapport. If the interviewer doesn’t make small talk, take the initiative.
Sit where the interviewer indicates. If he or she sits down without directing you to a specific seat, take one that is close enough for you to converse comfortably and at a normal volume without being so close you are breathing down their neck and making them uncomfortable while they are taking notes. It’s always best to sit upright looking alert and giving the interviewer your full attention.
Marketing Job Interview: The Questions:
Many people fall down here, simply because they haven’t spent sufficient time thinking through answers to fairly straightforward questions. Here are a few classics that will remind you of what to expect at a marketing job interview and what kinds of answers to give.
Why do you want to work for us?
The interviewers want to know you are genuinely interested in the company and the opportunities this job provides. So it will be necessary to demonstrate that you understand what makes this company different from its competitors, and what you think will be the interesting/challenging/rewarding things about working there. Think carefully about what really appeals to you about this job and company and how you can stand out from the other people who are applying for this job, and come up with at least three points – e.g. the brands are powerful and widely admired in the marketplace; it’s an award-winning company; you’ve read fantastic client testimonials on the company website.
How would you describe yourself?
This is where the interviewer wants to get an idea about you as a person. Although you can mention your career strengths it is better to use this to talk about your personality. Whatever you say you need to be honest and genuine. You want the interviewer to feel confident that they are seeing your true personality rather than telling them what you think they want to hear. Remember to give plenty of evidence to back up statements or claims about yourself. Rather than telling the interviewer you are ‘target driven’, give live examples of when you have hit or exceeded targets and describe the steps you took to ensure targets were never missed.
What are your strengths?
The interviewer wants to know what your key strengths are in relation to this particular job. Make sure you choose examples that are relevant to this job but also examples that set you apart from other applicants. Try to have four or five strengths available in case the interviewer asks for some further examples. Remember that for most jobs you will want to include an example of working well as part of a team, and fitting in well with others.
What is your greatest weakness?
Of course, be careful not to say anything too negative about yourself – such as you struggle to concentrate, or are badly organized. You can talk about a weakness that you have overcome – for instance, your time management skills have improved in recent years. “I used to accept too much work in an effort to please everybody, but soon discovered that I was diluting my focus and not performing as I should…. Today I try not to be superwoman, but explain carefully to colleagues why I must prioritise my workload.”
How would you deal with criticism?
It’s useful to say you try to look for the positive inside any criticism that comes your way. For instance: “I find constructive criticism a way of analysing my work, with a view to finding and correcting any problem.”
Name your skills which would benefit this company?
Have a least five examples of marketing skills you can bring – have you experience of interpreting business performance data, can you use social media for marketing purposes, do you have people management skills, have you project-managed before, are you particularly good at giving presentations, or winning clients with great pitches? You might want to talk about your ability to manage, focus and motivate staff. For example in a previous role you may have managed a team, setting clear staff goals which gave them a new focus and enabled a major brand launch project to be completed on time with strong results.
Where do you want to be in five years time?
The interviewer wants to know that, if they hire you, you will stay with the company. After all, nobody wants to hire someone who will flit off to a competitor in a couple of months.
Although you want to show ambition, your answer must be realistic, so don’t say you plan to be running the company in five years. A useful interview technique here is to describe how you want to make a great contribution to the company as you develop experience. You can emphasise specific goals you would like to achieve such as to lead a major project or help a brand reach a new audience.
Interviewees for a marketing executive role should have answers prepared for the following questions:
Tell us what do you know about strategic marketing?
Give an example of a marketing brief you developed for a recent brand building project?
What factors do you consider the most important when attempting to influence consumer behaviour?
Outline the steps you would take for a marketing research project?
What are the biggest challenges a Marketing Manager faces today?
Which digital channels have you worked with, and what degree of success have you had?
Tell us what do you think are the major stages in new product development?
Are you a good cultural fit for the company?
Cultural fit can be seen to be as important as skills or experience if not more so, particularly in the world of marketing where brand values and mission statements are the order of the day. The interviewer will be trying to assess how well you might ‘gel’ with the current team and how easily you would adapt to the organisation’s working practices.
Some companies will perform several rounds of interviews across a mix of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ situations to ensure the ‘fit’ is right. Later stages of an interview process may be labelled as ‘informal’ or just a chat; however if the person or people you are meeting has a say in who gets hired, these should always also be treated as formal (regardless of how they are described) and you should prepare for these ‘informal’ interviews or chats as though still proper interviews.
Whatever you do – ask questions!
Asking insightful, pre-prepared questions when given the opportunity is as important as any of the answers you will have already given during the interview, this is well worth remembering. Not having relevant questions or squirming uncomfortably as you try to think up an intelligent question on the spot will make you look badly prepared and disorganised.
Spend time before the interview reviewing the job profile and review any notes you have taken during any briefing discussions with the recruiter before the interview. Pick out anything about the role, team or company you are unsure about. It might be worth going through the corporate website before the interview, noting down any questions that are not answered by the information available.
Have 10 questions prepared before you go into the interview. As the interview progresses several of these will no doubt be answered as part of the general interview dialogue. However, when it is your turn to ask questions, pick the 3 to 5 questions that seem most relevant at the time.
Good questions to ask might include:
• What is the company’s approach to training and development?
• How would you describe the company culture?
• What is currently the biggest challenge facing your team/department/company?
• How will my success in this role be measured over the next 12 months?
• How long would you expect someone to stay in this position before being considered for an internal promotion?
At the end of the interview
When the interviewer has indicated that the interview is about to end ask the interviewer about additional stages the interview process, ask for an indication of time scale for feedback (rather than asking them for direct feedback on the spot).
Finally ensure that you thank the interviewer for their time.
Following the Interview
If you are working with an external recruiter, it’s important that you provide timely and frank feedback about how the interview went. They will be able to help you build on this, if not successful this time. The recruiter will also give you some insights from the interview panel.
You can also ask for feedback direct from the HR department, which is particularly useful if you failed to reach the next stage of the recruitment process. Regardless of whether the feedback is positive or negative try to view it objectively and think about how you can improve your interview technique in the future.
For any marketing job interview, be prepared, speak clearly and remain positive and upbeat throughout. Good luck!
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