Perfect Interview Questions to Fill Empty Marketing Roles
Hiring a new candidate for a marketing role can be challenging. Sourcing qualified candidates and then assessing both their capabilities and compatibility with the team can be difficult. It is imperative to ask the right questions to ensure that the person is the best fit.
While some questions should be asked of any potential marketer, there are some unique attributes for each role:
Vice President of Marketing
Chief Marketing Officer
The VP of Marketing (VPM) is the bridge between director level marketers and the C-Suite. They work with and manage multiple marketing disciplines/departments to ensure the success of a project. VPMs must exhibit most of the attributes of the CMO in addition to a keen sense of responsibility and nobility, excellent communication skills, understanding of the multiple marketing departments and facets, decision making, and people skills.
Forbes listed Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) as the most “extreme” executives since they are ultimately in charge of driving marketing for the entire organization. CMOs need to be imaginative, innovative, unconventional, engaging, agile, outgoing, and have an extremely high emotional intelligence.
Read Related - The Importance of Communicating the CMO Role to the C-suite
Director of Marketing
The Director of Marketing evaluates the consumer’s needs and caters the products/services and marketing strategy to the target audiences. Marketing Directors need to be as creative as the CMO/VPM, but require an eye for strategy and direction. The Director of Marketing must be results driven, a strategic thinker, and calm under pressure.
The top three roles will most likely hire roles for the categories below. Use the following marketing interview questions to form a solid marketing team.
Read Related - Bridging the Gap in Marketing Talent
Market Researcher
Brand Marketer
The data and marketing analysts must be skeptical, analytical, methodical, and synthetical. A skilled market researcher must communicate findings, connect data points, have the empathy to relate work to customers, and keep an open mind to eliminate any confirmation bias during research.
The brand marketers represent the brand’s image. They are the product and brand managers and brand strategists who have a strong voice, understanding of, and passion for the brand. Brand marketers are organized and informed about the latest marketing trends and industry news. Their actions and strategies are led and supported by a blend of qualitative and quantitative data.
eCommerce/Email Marketer
Content Marketer
eCommerce marketers are data-driven but also have the creativity to message appropriately to prospective and current customers. They need to show their eagerness to learn and adapt.
Content marketers are the representatives of the brand who create the copy seen by the public. These digital, content, and social media marketers must exhibit creative, strategic, and analytical thinking in addition to witty/humorous and strong writing skills.
Despite the different responsibilities of the marketing roles, there are some common questions that should be asked of any potential candidate. The goal is to assess emotional intelligence, agility, creativity, strategic thought, and communication skills for all marketing candidates.
Marketing Interview Questions
Why do you love marketing?
How hands on have you been with your past companies’ marketing initiatives?
How would you describe our company’s brand voice? What aspects would you change?
What is your approach for building a brand?
What KPIs do you always include in a marketing dashboard?
How do you keep your skills sharp?
What are your personal values and how would you apply them to our company?
What brand has been inspirational to you from a marketing perspective and why?
Describe how you leveraged data in a past role to inform marketing?
Knowing what you know already about our company, where would you begin to make changes in our marketing approach?
What role within your marketing team is most crucial to you and why?
What creative in a previous role are you most proud of and why?
Describe a marketing “blunder” you made and how you made up for it.
How do you see content creation fitting into your strategy here?
How do you go about mentoring your team?
How would you do this job? Where would you begin? What are your priorities?
Which marketing channel do you think is most important to our company and why?
When was a time you solved a problem using an unorthodox method. What was the problem, what was your approach, and how did it work out?
What is a potential yet unexpected threat to the marketing industry? What would you do about the threat?
How would you explain a complex issue or change in process to a client or colleague?
What is the benefit of having a strong social media presence for a brand? Would you ever advise against having a social media strategy? Why?
How do you think you can use the current advances in the marketing industry to impact our business?
Tell me a little bit about yourself. Now tell me about yourself using our brand’s voice.
Tell me about a time you had to get super creative to solve a big problem.
During the interviews, ask yourself if the candidate has:
A strong sense of self and an ability to pinpoint personal strengths and weaknesses
A thorough understanding of your business and exhibits the business’ values
Excellent people skills, consideration for others, and communicates efficiently
From the highest level at CMO to the entry-level content creator, all marketers should be curious and driven, have a strong sense of emotional intelligence, pay attention to detail, and extremely collaborative. When conducting a marketing job interview, make sure the candidate has these fundamental traits to ensure a successful, goal-oriented marketing team.
Candidates can impress their interviewers by asking questions such as:
What metrics will be used to measure my success?
How do you envision my role contributing to the success of the organization?
What have been the most successful recent marketing programs and were there any that flopped?
What are the biggest recent marketing challenges that the team has faced?
What roadblocks do you see me having to tackle in the role, should I get it?
How does a marketer at an entry level nail the interview? Practice these questions, study the company, and have a strong sense of your personal brand. Are you currently a marketer at an entry-level position and want to climb the ladder to become a CMO or marketing director? Check out the Marketing Career Path.
Need help finding qualified candidates to fill marketing roles?
Lucky enough, Setup now offers a recruiting service to help senior marketers who are looking to fill empty roles as well as find their next gig! Learn more about how we can help you here!
While the number of jobs in the marketing field will continue to increase over time, today’s marketing landscape does not guarantee that a recent marketing graduate will obtain an entry-level job in marketing. To say that there is a “conventional career path” to become a marketing executive would be a stretch, but there is a rough outline of what one could expect when climbing the career ladder.