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Summary. Candidates for marketing managers need to be able to show data to back up their accomplishments when answering interview questions. At the same time, interviewers need to be familiar with the job description they're filling so they can ask candidates relevant questions.
Marketing is a company’s main mechanism for communicating with its potential customer base. It’s how brands build awareness, and eventually, long-term relationships with buyers. Since an organization’s success hinges greatly on these communication efforts, they pay extra attention when hiring a candidate to handle the responsibilities of being a marketing manager.
To decide whether an applicant has the chops to succeed as a marketing manager, they’ll be invited in for an interview. During this meeting, a recruiter will assess the candidate’s experience and skills by asking questions that are relevant to the job of a marketing manager.
Below are the top ten questions that are asked during a marketing manager interview.
Key Takeaways:
If you're interviewing for a marketing manager position, refresh your memory of your recent projects and accomplishments, complete with numbers that show the impact of your work.
If you're an interviewer for a marketing manager position, familiarize yourself with both the job description and the candidate's resume, and use that information to create your interview questions.
As a Candidate:
Practice answering common marketing job interview questions. Getting familiar with some of the most commonly asked interview questions will boost your confidence and help you have information and anecdotes ready for your real interview.
Look at the numbers for your most recent and most impressive projects. Refresh yourself on what you did so you can be ready to talk about them in your interview.
You should also write down the numbers that demonstrate the scope of your success, whether that's the amount of engagement an ad campaign achieved or increased sales from your marketing strategy.
Research the company's marketing efforts. You should always know the basics about a company's structure and culture before an interview, but take that a step further and look into their marketing. Scan social media, Google them and read up on their press releases, and peruse their site.
You'll come into your interview with a better idea of what the company is working for and how you align with that.
As an Interviewer:
Reread the job description. Even if you wrote the job description yourself, make sure you're familiar with it before starting the interview. Write down any key requirements or skills so they're top-of-mind when talking with your candidates, and use them to inform which questions you ask.
Create your list of questions. Your marketing interview questions should be a mix of general questions like, "Tell me about yourself," and technical questions about marketing and management. Lists of questions like the one in this article can be helpful with this.
Familiarize yourself with the candidate's resume. If you're interviewing a lot of candidates, you likely won't be able to do an in-depth assessment of everyone's resume, but you should at least look over each one again before you start your meeting. It's also a good idea to peruse each candidate's portfolio if you can.
What types of responsibilities did you handle in your most recent marketing role? A big part of interviewing candidates for a marketing manager position is forming an understanding of what work they’ve done in the past.
Every marketing manager role is different in its specific responsibilities, and a recruiter wants to know if the tasks of this particular job will be familiar or new to the candidate.
Try to focus on the responsibilities of your last marketing manager role that have been identified in the job posting as crucial for this position.
Example Answer:
“In my last marketing role, I was overseeing a team of ten other marketing associates. I was responsible for creating the trajectory and schedule for a marketing campaign worth an estimated two million dollars. During this time, I developed targeted strategies to communicate with our audience using market research.
I also used various platforms, including social media copywriting and content curation, to boost our engagement. I decided to apply for this role because I noticed that it would require a lot of similar responsibilities.”
Why are you passionate about your career as a marketing manager? The goal of a marketing manager is to get people excited about their company’s product or service on a grand scale.
That can only happen if they’re passionate about their work themselves. An interviewer will usually ask a question about a candidate’s motivations for getting into the field or the reasons for their passion in the field.
When responding, be honest about your perspective on the field and your role in it, but still remember that you’re marketing yourself during your answer.
Example Answer:
“I’m passionate about my career as a marketing manager because I’m fascinated by the psychology behind the field, and I greatly enjoy coordinating on a team.
I was first attracted to the field because I found the motivations of the buying process and strategy of the marketing procedures very interesting. This blossomed into a love of the working environment when I officially entered the field.
A given of my position is that I can’t do it alone. I need the support, input, and work of my team to head towards a common goal. I find it extremely rewarding to be in an industry that requires me to work towards objectives with other people.”
Do you have experience in content creation? The modern world of marketing often relies heavily on content creation. A hiring manager asks if candidates have experience in this department during an interview to figure out whether they’d need extra training for this responsibility.
Since there are many different types of content creation outlets, be specific with your answer and mention which kinds you’re most familiar with.
Example Answer:
“Yes, I do have experience in content creation. Specifically, I’m familiar with long-form content and white pages.”
Why did you leave your last job? While many candidates expect a marketing manager interview to focus exclusively on the future of their employment, a prospective company is also curious to know about their past.
To understand what type of employee you are and gauge your professionalism, a hiring manager might ask why you’re leaving your last or current position.
It’s of the utmost importance to be tactful when responding to this question. Even if you’re leaving your current position on iffy terms, you want to describe the situation positively and focus on your goals for the future.
Example Answer:
“I have been working in my current position as a marketing manager with a major retail brand for five years. When I was offered the job, I was thrilled to be working for such a well-known company. However, as the years went on, I became attracted to the idea of working with a closer-knit community.
I began looking for jobs out of curiosity and stumbled across this role which seemed like it was exactly what I was looking for.”
What do you think sets our brand apart from our competitors? This is a great example of a question that tests the interviewee’s knowledge of the company that they’re hoping to work for.
While every job candidate should conduct a little research on a company that they’re interviewing with, this is especially crucial when you’re hoping to land a marketing manager position.
Being a marketing manager requires extensive knowledge of the company and an ability to translate this information to customers. You’ll demonstrate your familiarity with the organization and your marketing skills when answering this question.
Example Answer:
“There are few things that I believe make your brand stand apart from your competitors. First of all, I’ve noticed that your business accounts are extremely active with posting and responding to customers on social media.
This type of engagement goes a long way to establish a relationship with a customer base, and I think this sets you apart from other competitors who put in less effort in this department.
Additionally, your brand has an extremely direct and clear image. You’re a technology company that’s completely focused and driven by innovation. This type of focused brand image translates as reliability to customers, and I believe this is also a big factor that makes your brand stand out from others in the industry.”
Why do you want to work for our company? In addition to wanting to know how much background information a candidate has on them, a hiring company also wants to find out why exactly they want to work for them.
Asking about what aspects of the company that they’re attracted to is a more personal way of understanding what a candidate knows about the organization.
When responding, try to highlight the previous research you’ve done into their organizations. Make it specific to the company you’re interviewing for by bringing up their products, values, or trajectory.
Example Answer:
“I’ve been working as a marketing manager for over ten years. In that time, I’ve worked with many different types of companies and found out what types of work environments I thrive in. So, when I decided to start looking for a new position, I knew exactly what I was looking for.
I like a healthy combination of teamwork and individual freedom. I don’t want to work for an organization that’s going to put me in a box. I got into marketing because I want to be creative in my career, so that’s the type of role I was looking for.
When I found your company’s job posting for this marketing manager position, I was excited to find that these desires match the majority of qualities associated with your organization.
As I looked deeper into the company, I found that the brand was known for its unique creative edge and cooperative teams. This is exactly what I’m looking for in an employer, which is why I want to work for your company.”
Tell me about a time that you successfully marketed a project. What was your overall strategy? Since a big part of a marketing manager’s job is obviously marketing a company or its services and products, it’s natural for the interviewer to ask few questions about a candidate’s success in this endeavor.
The interviewer will be looking for a comprehensive answer that clearly explains the candidate’s position, goals, and the outcome of the situation.
Example Answer:
“In my last position as a marketing manager, I was in charge of designing and launching a new product’s advertising campaign for a luxury clothing line. I was acting as a supervisor to twenty associate marketers during the entire process of concept design, objectives, and identifying a target audience.
My overall strategy for this particular project was to market the brand’s extremely high-quality products specifically to an audience with a high-income bracket. The goal was to push large sales to a lower amount of total customers.
After the initial product launch, the strategy worked, and the line made just over four million dollars in sales during the first quarter.”
How would you describe a highly effective marketing manager? During a marketing manager interview, the recruiter might ask this question to see which qualities a candidate dubs as important for the role.
The description that the candidate presents shows the type of manager that they intend to be for the company’s marketing team. In turn, it helps the company decide if the candidate’s description is what they’re looking for in a marketing manager.
Example Answer:
“I would describe a highly effective marketing manager as a leader who is completely open to collaboration from their team. They need to have master delegation skills and be able to communicate specific tasks effectively to other people.
Additionally, it helps to be creative and driven when tackling a marketing manager role because this often leads to better results for the projects.”
How would you measure the success of a marketing campaign? While a marketing manager has to plan and oversee the campaigns that they’re running, they also have to figure out how to effectively measure its success.
Deciphering whether a marketing campaign was effective isn’t cut and dry. There are many ways to evaluate and measure success in marketing.
Before hiring a marketing manager, an interviewer wants to make sure that they’ve devised a strong method of analyzing a campaign’s success.
Example Answer:
“The way I measure successes depends greatly on the marketing campaign that I’m working on. For example, when I was the marketing manager for a retail brand’s product launch, I measured success by the number of sales generated.
However, when I was working for a social media app, I defined the campaign’s success through the brand awareness raised and users generated. It all depends on the project’s objectives.”
How would you approach branding a previously unsuccessful product? Marketing managers don’t exclusively handle thriving or new products and services. Oftentimes, a marketing manager is brought into a company when a product is failing and needs to be brought back to life.
When this is the case, a recruiter will ask a few questions about a candidate’s techniques for handling this situation.
If you’ve worked under these conditions before, mention a time that you’ve successfully accomplished this feat and how you did it. If this is a professional situation that is new to you, then stick with theoretical.
Example Answer:
“The first step I would take when approaching branding for a product that’s been previously unsuccessful is by evaluating why it failed in the first place.
For example, in a previous marketing manager position, I was working for a ride share service that was failing to beat out its larger competition. I evaluated the original marketing strategies and realized that the reason they weren’t working is that it wasn’t bringing anything new to the table.
There were already five dominant rideshare brands in the United States, and my employee wasn’t offering anything that these brands didn’t to their customers or drivers.
I decided to alter the strategy by focusing on benefits to the driver and advertising spontaneous discounts on times that other companies were raising their prices, like when a basketball game was happening in town.
I think that taking stock of why a product is unsuccessful objectively is the best way to start heading down a more effective path.”
Tell me about yourself. This is a common question interviewers ask to break the ice. When you answer, it's okay to share one or two personal details about yourself, but you should mainly focus on your work history and skills.
Example Answer:
I'm a marketing professional with six years of experience marketing for companies in a variety of industries. In my last position, I was able to be the team lead for our digital marketing team, and during my time there our team saw a 20% increase in customer engagement -- and we stayed within our budget.
That experience gave me a passion for helping others succeed as well as rekindling my original love of marketing. I wanted to do more with both of those passions, so I decided to apply for this job.
Tell me about your experience in the marketing field.
Walk me through your process for developing a marketing strategy.
Tell me about a successful marketing campaign you've led.
What metrics do you typically use to measure the success of a marketing campaign?
How do you stay up-to-date with trends and changes in the marketing industry?
Tell me about a time when you had to adapt your marketing strategy to unexpected changes or obstacles.
How do you prioritize and manage multiple marketing projects at once?
Tell me about a time you worked cross-functionally with another department.
How do you make sure your team is aligned with the company's overall goals and objectives?
How do you approach managing and motivating a team of marketers?