Top 13 Marketing Interview Questions and Answers

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October 13, 2019

13 Must-Know Marketing Interview Questions and Answers

1. Why did you choose a career in marketing?

Employers will want to know how you got started with a career in marketing, and why it interests you. So be ready to answer, “why did you choose this career?” in a first- or second-round marketing interview.

And more importantly than why you started, be ready to conclude your answer by explaining why you like doing this work and why it excites you, interests you, or challenges you.

That’s something employers definitely want to see – evidence that you’ll be motivated and excited about their job after they hire you.

2. Describe your marketing experience

After the interviewer has gotten a sense of your general interest in this field and how you got started in marketing, they’ll want to hear about your direct experience.

To prepare for your interview, review your past work and be ready to talk about specific accomplishments, projects, and results. Don’t just name duties/responsibilities. That’s what every other job seeker is doing, and they’ll all blend together in the interviewer’s mind. Whereas, if you take this results-driven approach to answering their interview questions about your past work, you’ll stand out.

They may also simply say, “what can you tell me about yourself?” – and in this case, you should still keep your answer work-focused and share past results and accomplishments. When employers ask this, they don’t want your personal life story.

As a final note, they might also ask, “what is your greatest professional achievement?” so be ready for that, too!

3. What were you responsible for in your most recent role?

This is a variation of the marketing interview question above. At times, the employer will ask specifically about your most recent role.

So make sure you’re extra familiar with your most recent position. Brush up on what it is you did and accomplished, any promotions you received, any leadership tasks you held (especially important for a marketing manager interview), etc.

If you didn’t work in marketing in the past, think about what’s most similar or relevant about what you DID do. Your goal is to prove you can come in and succeed in this next job, based on your past experience.

This isn’t a question where you want to hesitate when answering. You should be confident and ready to dive into exactly what you did and how you helped your company succeed, grow, make money, etc. The more you talk about real results here, the more you’ll get them excited to hire you for their job.

4. Do you have a marketing degree?

Not every job requires this, but some still do. If you have a degree in marketing, you can give a very brief answer and just say, “Yes, I graduated from Duke University”.

If not, be prepared to explain the other reasons you can succeed in their position. At the end of the day, that’s really what the interviewer is concerned with.

Don’t lose confidence here. If they invited you to interview, they liked your resume. They wouldn’t have invited you to interview if your educational background was a deal-breaker, so be clear and direct that you don’t have a marketing degree, and then just explain confidently why you’re qualified.

I’d start my answer with, “No… but…”

That’s a good way to address this interview question and then transition back into selling them on your other qualifications.

5. Why did you apply for this position?

After they’ve learned a bit about your background and past work, they’ll want to know why you applied to their job.

Be ready to show you’ve researched the company, read the job description, and have specific reasons why this role is a good next step in your career! This is an important step in interview preparation…

Being unemployed or just needing a job is not good enough. You aren’t going to get hired if you can’t show employers why their job caught your attention.

6. Where do you see your marketing career in 5 years?

Don’t stress if they ask an interview question about where you see yourself in a few years.

Nobody expects you to know exactly, and nobody’s going to check up on you in the future!

But employers DO want to see that you’re goal-oriented and have a general idea of where you’d like your career to go.

Try to sound slightly ambitious (but realistic) when answering this marketing interview question, and show you’ve thought about how you’d ideally like to advance your career. For example, if you’re a marketing coordinator right now, you could talk about having an interest in becoming a marketing manager.

Or, maybe you’d like to stay in an individual contributor marketing role and not manage anyone. That’s completely fine. You could talk about how you hope to advance from a marketing coordinator to a marketing specialist, a marketing consultant, or the go-to person for one certain aspect of marketing (like digital marketing, paid media/advertising, social media marketing, content marketing, etc.)

7. Have you led a marketing team before?

If you’re interviewing for any type of leadership role like marketing manager, marketing team lead, etc., expect questions about your past leadership experiences.

Be ready to give specific examples and details – like how many people you led, and for how long. Plus, be ready to talk about what your team accomplished under your leadership.

If you’ve been an individual contributor and are now looking to step into a manager role for the first time, prepare to address why you feel you’re ready and qualified for this next step up.

8. Tell me about your experience in social media marketing?

If your next potential job has any work involving social media, you can expect to be asked about it. This is a popular area within digital marketing and employers are going to want to ensure that you’re up-to-date and comfortable with the topic.

So brush up on your knowledge and review any past work you’ve done in social media marketing so you can quickly and confidently address interview questions on the topic.

9. Tell me about your experience in paid advertising?

This is another common area within digital marketing, and a topic you’re likely to hear interview questions about.

If you haven’t worked with media buying or paid ads, it’s okay. Just be upfront and say no, and then express an interest in learning this if it’s required. However, if you have, be ready to go into detail and share some highlights of what you’ve done – what type of ad budgets have you managed, what results have you gotten, etc.

As always – detailed and specific beats vague and general.

10. What types of products have you worked with?

You can expect them to want to know the specific types of products you’ve worked with in any product marketing job interview.

It’s usually not a deal-breaker if you haven’t worked with the exact type of products or services they sell, but the closer, the better!

So when you prepare for your interview, think about what products you’ve marketed, and then think about this employer’s product offering. What have you done in your past work that’s most similar? That’s what to talk about.

Here are some things you can look for as you consider what’s most similar:

Is this employer’s product highly-technical? If so, what have you done in the past with a somewhat technical product
What type of demographic is their product made for? (parents, college students, young professionals, homeowners, teenagers, pet owners, etc.) And what have you done to market products for that demographic in the past
Does this employer market primarily to other businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C)?

11. What type of work environment do you prefer?

Different organizations will have VERY different marketing departments, so they may ask about what type of work environment you prefer in a marketing job interview.

Try to get a sense of what environment they offer, so you can give an answer that shows them you’ll fit well into their group.

You can research the company before the interview on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube to get a sense of their work culture. Try to observe the office as you go in for an in-person interview too – is it calm and quiet? or loud and energetic?

That way, you can deliver an answer that shows you’ll be a good fit for their environment, which will make them feel more confident about hiring you.

12. What other companies are you interviewing with?

This isn’t a trick question (usually) – employers just want to see you’re being targeted and specific in your job search. They want someone who KNOWS they want this particular job, and isn’t just applying randomly online.

So ideally, they want to hear that you’re applying for similar marketing jobs, and/or in similar types of companies. You don’t want to appear too scattered when you answer this interview question. You don’t want it to sound like you’re applying all over the place – one HR job, one sales job, one marketing position, etc.

If you’re a marketing coordinator who’s applying to a digital marketing agency, it’s ideal if you can tell them you’ve applied for other similar roles at other marketing agencies.

Or, if you’re a product marketing manager interviewing at a large clothing brand, you’d ideally want to be able to tell them you’re interviewing for a number of marketing manager positions in companies similar to theirs… like clothing companies other consumer goods companies, etc.

However, you don’t need to tell them specific company names, either. The best way to answer, “what other companies are you interviewing with?” is to just explain the general type of company. Show them there’s a pattern/logic to your job search, and that their job fits the overall theme of what you want.

13. What questions do you have for us?

Finally, employers are going to ask what questions you have about their job and company.

The interviewer always wants to hire someone who’s targeting something specific in their job search and who knows what they want.

If you seem desperate or just don’t care what type of job you get, they’ll be worried you won’t work hard, or will leave quickly after joining.

And asking questions at the end of the interview is one way you demonstrate that you’re being selective in your job hunt! So if you’re not asking questions in the interview, it’s a big reason you haven’t been able to find a job.

Don’t worry, though – it’s not too late to start. Here are 105 good questions to ask employers.

You can ask about the role, the team, and the company overall. You can also ask opinion-based questions like, “Why did you join the company? and what have you enjoyed most about being here since coming over?” Questions like this are great because you can ask multiple people the same thing, and you’ll never run out of questions in a long day of interviewing.

Also, ask the interviewer when you can expect to hear feedback. That way, you can follow up if you don’t hear a response.

I also recommend getting business cards from the people you met (just ask at the end of each conversation before they leave the interview room). This makes following up easier, especially if you’re interviewing with a lot of companies and finding yourself with a lot of names/emails to keep track of in your job hunt.

If you prepare for the marketing interview questions we’ve covered and follow the steps above, you’ll be ready to impress your future employer and secure the job offer! Just remember to practice everything before the interview so that you sound confident and relaxed when answering.

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