Top 12 Interview Questions to Ask Marketing Candidates - Job Seekers | Recruiters | Offboarding | vCandidates.com (2023)

What interview questions you should ask a marketing candidate?

To help you ask the right questions when interviewing marketing candidates, we asked experienced marketing professionals and hiring managers this question for their best insights. From finding out if the candidate has visited the company website to asking them to pitch their personal brand, there are several interview questions that may help you get a good sense of the qualities a candidate may bring to your marketing team when hired.

Here are 12 top interview questions to ask marketing candidates:

• Find Out if They Have Visited The Company Website
• Ask About Their Most Successful Marketing Campaign
• Ask How They Measure Their Work Quality Against Productivity Goals
• Ask How Familiar They Are With Organic SEO Strategy
• Find Out What They Think About Your Most Recent Marketing Campaign
• Let Them Tell You About The Skills They Have Learned that They Can Utilize Now
• Ask if They Have Any Innovative Ideas to Share
• Ask if They Could Identify Your Target Markets
• Find Out How The Candidate Measures The Success of a Marketing Campaign
• Find Out if They Have Experience Aligning Social Media Goals With Overall Business Objectives
• Ask How They Choose Marketing Channels for Campaigns
• Ask Them to Pitch Their Personal Brand

Find Out if They Have Visited The Company Website

My standard question that I will ask all employees is if they went to our website to look at the business. If they say no I am most likely not going to hire them and they aren’t that interested in the position. If you are going on an interview the potential employee should have done some research on the company they want to work for. If I was going to an interview at a company I would check out the business’s website and read any news articles or press releases about that company before going to the interview. This can be used just to bring up as a conversion piece that I read about this new project or product they are coming out with.

Evan McCarthy, SportingSmiles

Ask About Their Most Successful Marketing Campaign

“What was your most successful marketing campaign to date?” Most marketing candidates are going to show up with examples of their best marketing work. But it’s not enough to see that they can make clever copy and catchy slogans — you need someone with a proven track record of results.

When someone can execute an idea with truly meaningful results, that raises their value well above someone who has shown up with ideas only, even if those ideas are great. The proof is in the execution, and the success that follows.

Marcus Hutsen, Patriot Coolers

Ask How They Measure Their Work Quality Against Productivity Goals

How do you measure the quality of your work versus productivity goals? can be used to interview candidates in all aspects of marketing regardless of the role. Understanding how they perceive and execute quality work in proportion to balancing other aspects of the job helps guide the discussion and clarify expectations for both parties. We all have a certain degree of limitations for our various roles, be it time or other resources; exploring how a candidate might navigate competing priorities and tasks while pursuing quality results helps us determine if they are a good fit.

Tommy Chang, Homelister

Ask How Familiar They Are With Organic SEO Strategy

For SEO agencies like ours, we ask marketing candidates how familiar they are with organic SEO marketing. Understanding how relevant keywords relate to web traffic, website optimization, and strategic digital content is essential for entry-level marketers in this role.

The best candidates can cite recent projects or content that facilitated their growing traffic for a client or their business. Whether they have experience in backlink acquisition, content writing, digital PR, or advertising, each role offers specific insights and exposure that inform SEO expertise and strategy. These skills and backgrounds allow us to facilitate our clients’ business growth. Having a solid marketing background is essential, but more so is diving into the technical aspects of marketing and understanding how significant an impact SEO can make on a business’s scale.

Kevin Miller, kevinmiller.com

Find Out What They Think About Your Most Recent Marketing Campaign

By asking them the question, what did you think of our most recent marketing campaign? It will open up many responses that will help you determine whether they are the right candidate for you. For example, asking them this will help you see if they have been paying attention to your brand as a whole and if they have done their research about your marketing campaign precisely. Also, it will allow you to test their marketing expertise. Suppose they offer excellent advice and even offer up improvements that could be made. In that case, they will display a conscious effort of initiative and planning, which are great attributes to have as a marketing candidate.

Tracey Beveridge, Personnel Checks

Let Them Tell You About The Skills They Have Learned that They Can Utilize Now

The world of marketing is constantly changing and this is a critical question you can ask when interviewing a candidate. You will be able to learn about their past experiences and skills and see how they could translate to the new role. For example, what led to their success with social media marketing could also be helpful with email or content marketing – or not. This question will help you answer these types of questions. Even if they don’t specifically have marketing skills from past experiences, their answer will give you insight into skills they have that could make them a strong marketing candidate.

Lev Berlin, Recipal

Ask if They Have Any Innovative Ideas to Share

When you’re searching for new members for your marketing team, you’ll need to know that they’re ready to think outside of the box and be of great value during brainstorming sessions. That’s why one important interview question is: Do you have any innovative ideas you’d like to share now?

Forward-thinking candidates will share a strategy or two that they’ve been pondering, and this will give you a peek into their style of creative thinking.

Mark Sider, Greater Than

Ask if They Could Identify Your Target Markets

I would ask marketing candidates if they could identify our target markets. Answering this question successfully is predicated on foresight, good research skills, and serious interest in the role – all things we want in a marketing hire. It goes without saying that candidates should best prepare themselves for the interview by researching their employer. A marketer who thinks quickly on their toes can guess a company’s target markets, but it doesn’t compare to candidates who do their research and give pointed, polished answers.

Identifying a business’s target market is a bread and butter marketing strategy. Experienced marketing professionals can answer this question from multiple angles, citing businesses’ campaigns, social strategies, or niche audiences inferred from a product’s value proposition.

Jason Panzer, Hexclad

Find Out How The Candidate Measures The Success of a Marketing Campaign

How are you measuring the success of a marketing campaign? This is essential to determine whether or not the campaign was successful. By asking this question, you can gain insight into how well the candidate understands how to track and measure results.

Aside from all soft skills, the mathematical regime in marketing is often a matter of survival. Suppose a candidate can count percentages and know concepts such as weighted average or standard deviation. In that case, you can assume with a high degree of probability that this is the man you are looking for. Sit the candidate in front of an Excel and see how they work. Open Google Analytics or Google Search Console and ask them to produce a short live report of the last three months with commentary. You’ll have a clear answer whether this is your dream candidate.

Lukasz Zelezny, SEO Consultant London

Find Out if They Have Experience Aligning Social Media Goals With Overall Business Objectives

Social media marketing is more than increasing follower count and boosting likes. A marketer must understand how to align social media goals with your overall business goals. So, I like to find out if candidates have experience setting SMART goals – meaning goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, and realistic, and time-based. And whether it’s expanding brand awareness, boosting online sales, or increasing customer loyalty, setting the right social media goals can help lead the way for growth in all areas of your business.

Maria Shriver, MOSH

Ask How They Choose Marketing Channels for Campaigns

How do you choose which channels to use in a marketing campaign to reach a specific target audience? One of the most important things to assess in a potential marketing hire is their ability to identify and reach your customers. This question helps decipher whether the candidate knows how to effectively target different audiences or if their experience is less fine-tuned. A great applicant will be able to demonstrate knowledge of different channels and explain previous campaigns they’ve worked on.

Rachel Reid, Subtl Beauty

Ask Them to Pitch Their Personal Brand

The one question you should always ask a marketing candidate is to describe their personal brand and how they would pitch themselves to a target audience. Having a firm grasp on one’s individual identity is highly necessary when working in the marketing field. Being able to delineate what you would personally want from what the clients target demographic would want is even more important when working with an array of companies. Asking this question helps ensure the hired candidate will know how to understand their client and put their needs first when working on a campaign.

Scott Annan, MyCube

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