Five tips to prepare for your marketing interview

You've filled out all the forms and sent off your CV – now it’s time for that first interview, congratulations! So how do you prepare and promote your best self? We’ve compiled 5 tips to get you in tip-top shape for your interviews.

  1. Do your research

When you’re doing your background research on a company, your first port of call should be their website. Understand their business, their products or services, their industry, what type of content they produce and what events they host or sponsor. Take a quick look at their careers page for company values, the leadership page for the executive team and the locations page to see where they have offices. You can also check their news page to see any recent announcements of acquisitions, new product launches or key appointments.

Next, head over to LinkedIn and check how many employees they have and the type of content they post on social. Do look up the person who is interviewing you to better understand their background so you can adapt your conversation accordingly. LinkedIn is also great to figure out your reporting lines and peers, so that you can benchmark yourself and negotiate accordingly.

Google the company’s annual revenue and share price to better understand their size and success. Check the ‘News’ tab of Google to see if they’ve been in the press recently and note down anything worthwhile to weave into your conversation. You should also look at the wider trends or news in the industry, showing your knowledge of the business's wider market will demonstrate your commercial understanding. Whilst on Google, you can also check the company’s paid search presence and competitive strategy.

Finally, study the job description. Understand the role requirements and draw parallels between your own experience so you are ready to share and highlight relevant examples during the interview.

2. Prepare for questions

Hopefully your interview will be a friendly discussion where you can showcase your expertise and experience. However, your interviewer may use a more formal approach so it’s important to prepare for competency-based questions. Search online for ‘marketing interview questions’ or ‘competency-based interview questions’ and match them against the skills needed for the role. Be prepared to answer questions like ‘What was your biggest achievement and how did you ensure it was a success’ or ‘Tell me about a time when things didn’t go to plan and how did you handle it’? Collate possible questions and write up your answers. It’s impossible to have an answer for everything but you may be able to adapt the same answers or scenarios for multiple questions.

3. Prepare your questions

Interviews are a two-way street and it’s as much about the company wooing you as it is about you convincing them that you’re the right person for the role. Have your own questions prepared about the structure of the business, your responsibilities and the future marketing vision, but also ask about things that are genuinely important to you like culture, training opportunities, career progression and benefits.

4. Practice

Everyone learns differently but we all have one thing in common, practice makes perfect! You don’t need to remember every detail but making notes or bullet-pointing possible answers makes it easier to recall them. Run through the questions with someone ahead of time or record yourself answering possible questions and listen to it. If possible, schedule companies that you are less interested in first, so you get real-life practice for the interviews that really matter.

5. Finishing touches:

- Update and optimise your LinkedIn profile and ensure it is consistent with your CV

- Dress appropriately for the company and the role

- If the interview is in person, map the location and journey time and arrive early

- If the interview is virtual, test that the conferencing software is installed/compatible with your computer ahead of time and log on early. Optimise your environment, lighting and audio and use video. Be sure to have a backup device and hotspot

 

You should now be ready to nail the interview – good luck! Join our LinkedIn group and let us know if these tips were helpful, or indeed if you have any others to add!