8 Common Marketing Job Interview Questions and the Best Ways to Answer Them

 
8 Common Marketing Job Interview Questions and the Best Ways to Answer Them
 

Preparing for interviews can be difficult. There’s so much uncertainty — you’re wondering, what questions will the interviewer ask? Will I be able to answer them on the spot? How do I know what they’re looking for in my responses?

These kinds of anxieties are normal and understandable. You don’t want to go into the interview unprepared, but you might not know HOW to prepare.

The best thing you can do is practice responses to questions you will most likely be asked in the interview. 

To help you out with this, I’ve put together a list of common marketing interview questions and the best ways to respond to them.

I have personally used some of these questions in interviews with marketing candidates while recruiting, and know most hiring managers are using similar questions to look for qualified marketing candidates. 

Let’s take a look:

Q: How do you convince cross-functional teams to buy into your suggestions?

In most marketing job descriptions, companies are looking for marketers who can collaborate with cross-functional teams to complete marketing projects. It is important that you know how to use different communication strategies while collaborating with different functional teams.

Don’t give a hypothetical response; share a time you used relevant data or compelling stories to influence others.

I suggest using the S.T.A.R. interview method to organize your responses and help you get your point across clearly and concisely. You can learn more about the S.T.A.R. method in this blog post “Five Must-Have Skills that Can Turn You into a Successful Candidate.”

Q: How do you ensure the customer’s satisfaction?

Customer satisfaction is crucial to marketing. In this response, the interviewer wants to hear about the strategies you use and the results you’ve achieved with them. 

Share a story about a time you turned an angry customer into a happy one, and how that impacted your company — maybe you avoided losing a big client or generated more word-of-mouth with excellent customer service.

Be sure to mention what you learned from the experience and how it helped you become a better marketer.

Q: How do you build trust/relationships with new partners?

A marketing hiring manager once told me “It is easy to find a marketer who can do the job, but it is hard to find a marketer who knows how to build relationships with others.” 

In marketing, you will have chances to work with internal stakeholders and/or external vendors, and being able to build strong relationships will continue to benefit you throughout your career. 

Share an example of a professional relationship you built in your career, and be sure to mention what steps you took to build and maintain the relationship, as well as how you would bring this valuable skill to your new role.

Q: Why should we hire you for this marketing role?

With this question, interviewers are looking for genuine interest and enthusiasm for the role.  This is also an opportunity for you to reiterate the skills and experience you have that are most relevant to the position, in the context of what the interviewer is looking for.

Researching the company and thoroughly reviewing the job description will help you gain confidence while answering this question. 

Q: How do you ensure the quality of your work when you have a tight deadline?

Most companies have fast-paced work environments (especially in the tech industry), and they need marketers who can complete high-volume workloads AND deliver quality work. As a marketer, you will have to handle multiple projects simultaneously, and it is important to know how to prioritize these tasks.

Being detail-oriented is important in marketing because one small mistake could cause a large loss for the company. In your response, mention how you ensure the quality of work to generate better results and prevent losses for the company/team.

Q: How have you helped optimize a process for your company?

The interviewer wants to know three things: the problem, the solution, and the results. 

Make sure you are able to lay out the steps clearly and concisely, because the interviewer is testing out your thought process with this question. 

The results are the most crucial part of your response. You need to be able to tell the interviewer what you saved the company in time, money, or other resources.  For example, maybe you were able to help cross-functional teams work more efficiently with marketing departments, or you reduced unnecessary approval steps for asset creation.  

Q: How do you use data to identify marketing opportunities for the brand?

Knowing how to analyze data is crucial in every marketing role. It’s how you can improve future marketing campaigns or identify marketing opportunities.

You should have an example prepared of a time you used data to identify an opportunity for your previous brand or client, including how you used it, the opportunity you found, and the results. 

For example, if you are in social media marketing, you might talk about how you use impression or engagement rate to determine future marketing campaigns, or how you analyze trending posts to repurpose content for your own brand to help gain more brand exposure.

Q: How would you conduct deep-dive research to learn more about our products/customers?

For this question, you want to show the interviewer not only that you’ve done consumer research in the past, but that you’ve thought about how you might do it for their company. 

You should have already done some research on the company beforehand. You can use social media, the company website, and Google to learn more about the company’s products, customer base, and marketing strategies.

This question will allow you to show your research and present potential marketing opportunities you may have come across. If you can recommend markets the company hasn’t tapped into, you will put yourself ahead in the interviewer’s mind.

Additionally, this question is to test if you are a self-starter (how well you do your homework without much direction/guidance), so be sure you are properly demonstrating the research you have done.

With responses in hand for these marketing interview questions, you’ll be ready to ace your upcoming interview and land an offer! If you’d like more tips on marketing interview preparation and how you can best present yourself, be sure to check out these blog posts:

Ready to prepare for your upcoming marketing interviews and land your dream marketing job?

Job Search, Resume, Marketing CareerLydia HuangComment