A Guide to Interviewing Marketers
Based on research by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, an industry body for the recruitment profession, a bad hire can cost a business more than 3 times the employee’s annual salary, not to mention the disruptive impact it can have on the wider team. Effective interviewing is a crucial part of the hiring process, and marketing professionals can be particularly difficult to interview. The roles tend to be very diverse, with the same job title meaning something completely different from one industry to the next. Skills are constantly evolving with the growth of new technologies and it can be extremely difficult for non-marketers to keep up.
If you're looking for a handy list of questions to help you plan an interview, jump to the end of this article.
For more insight and advice, read on;
Tarsh & Partners have been successfully placing candidates in a wide variety of roles for over 17 years, and backed up by our own career experience, we’ve had plenty of practice evaluating the skills and strengths of marketers and their suitability for our clients’ vacancies. You can be confident that we have screened everyone we shortlist for your role, but we’ve put together a practical interviewing guide for our clients to help them to find the perfect match and avoid the costs involved in a bad hire.
Before the interview
To make sure you’re getting the best from the candidate and to understand whether they’re a good fit for your role, asking the right questions is key. Putting some time into creating a structure for your interview will not only help you to cover off all the areas required, it will ensure that you can compare different candidates effectively against the same criteria. Here are some suggestions:
Define your objectives
The job description may have been written some time ago, so start by reviewing the responsibilities of the role, and the skills and experience required. Highlight the areas you want to focus on, thinking specifically about what you expect a candidate to achieve in the role. Talk to line managers and peers to get a broader perspective on the ideal candidate. Look at how previous incumbents have performed – what did they do that was good and what could have been better? How do the top performers in your organisation work – are there behaviours that you would want to replicate in this job?
Choose your interview questions
Once you know what your ideal candidate looks like, think about the questions you want to ask to establish fit and suitability for the role. Some people are naturally more confident and better at interviewing than others, but may not necessarily be exactly the right person for the role. Choosing your questions in advance can help you to draw out whether an interviewee really knows their stuff or whether they can just talk a good race!
Selecting your interview questions in advance doesn’t necessarily mean you have to stick to a rigid script; you can always flex things during the session to spend more or less time on certain areas. However, having a list of questions that you ask every candidate, and a structure for scoring responses will also help you to keep any bias to a minimum, as well as protecting you, should an unsuccessful candidate challenge your decision.
Decide who will be at the interview
It can be a good idea to have more than one person interview candidates at the same time to get a more balanced perspective and to save time further down the line. Perhaps someone from HR or Talent Acquisition, or a peer from another function could join for all or part of the interview. Two people is ideal - any more could be intimidating. Share the CV in advance, so everyone involved can read it prior to the interview, and keep some time free immediately afterwards to compare opinions while the interview is still fresh in everyone’s mind.
Interview questions
There are different types of interview questions which can be useful depending on your personal style and what you want to find out, but it’s always good to start with some kind of icebreaker rather than launching straight into questions. You’ll generally get the best from a candidate if they feel at ease, so ask about their journey, or how their day is going if it’s a video interview. You could then ask them to give a brief overview of their career in an open-ended way to get the ball rolling before moving on to ask more detailed questions.
Traditional interview questions
Using the candidate’s CV as a basis to start, you could ask some of the typical interview questions around previous roles, key learnings and achievements. These types of questions are almost always asked, so a candidate should have prepared their answers, again helping them to feel at ease. This is also a good time to find out what they understand about the role, the company and the wider market to set the scene for your questions. It's fine to interrupt and move things on if the candidate is going into too much detail, and then focus on the specific skills required for the role, which should form the main part of the discussion.
Situational Questions
Situational questions are used to find out what actions a candidate would take in a scenario relevant to the role. This could be a real or hypothetical situation where the candidate is asked to explain the steps they would go through, and why. Mix it up with everyday elements of the role as well as more challenging questions around managing stressful situations, challenges and conflicts. This is where it can be useful to ask every candidate the same questions so you can evaluate and compare them based on their approach and responses.
Behavioural questions
Behaviour-based questions are similar to situational questions, but with a focus on specific examples from their past experience. The theory behind these questions is that past behaviour can help to predict future performance, so asking someone about how they handled previous situations can tell you about how well they might do so in the future. An ideal answer might take the form of a STAR response (Situation, Task, Action, Result) where the candidate describes the scenario, what happened, what they did, and the outcome. If they skip any of these steps, they should be prompted for the missing information. It can be very interesting to see what a candidate considers important enough to include or exclude.
Cultural fit questions
Your organisation’s culture is made up of the values, beliefs and attitudes that characterise a company and its employees and guide their behaviour. There is no right or wrong corporate culture, but hiring new employees who fit well with your current way of working tends to result in better productivity, engagement and retention rates. However, hiring for cultural fit does not necessarily involve hiring people you like or who have a similar background to your current employees; it simply means recruiting people who will work well in your environment, without being discriminatory. Cultural fit questions are designed to assess a candidate’s values, working practices and character; how they like working, how they work with others, what motivates them how they like to be managed.
Quirky interview questions
Many companies like to end interviews with a ‘wild card’ question; something completely unexpected that makes the candidate think on their feet and can give a bit more of an insight into their character. There are typically no ‘correct’ answers to these types of questions - it’s more about whether a candidate can come up with an interesting or logical answer and then explain their reasoning.
Questions to avoid
It is very important to avoid certain lines of questioning when interviewing, or you might expose the company to accusations of discrimination. The 2010 Equality Act covers nine protected characteristics against which you cannot discriminate. These are:
Age, Disability, Gender reassignment, Marriage or civil partnership, Pregnancy and maternity, Race, Religion or belief, Sex, Sexual orientation.
You should steer clear of any questions that touch on these areas. It sounds obvious, but it can be easy to stray into grey areas when you’re trying to make conversation or find out more about a candidate’s ability to work. Here are some examples;
Don’t ask: Do you have childcare arrangements in place if we need you to work out of hours?
Do ask: This job may require some overtime work on short notice. Is this a problem for you? What days/hours are you available to work?
Don’t ask: What country are you from? Where were you born?
Do ask: Are you eligible to work in the UK? Will you need sponsorship at any point?
Selling the opportunity
Competition can be fierce for the best candidates, so don’t assume anyone who attends an interview will accept the job if offered. Think about what's in it for them, and what your organisation can offer that will be of benefit. Not just salary and benefits, but the brands, company culture and opportunities for progression. Is the team friendly and sociable? Are you in a great location? Do you offer flexible working? Support for professional development? There are many non-monetary benefits that can swing a deal in your favour.
Sample interview questions
Traditional
Situational questions
Behavioural
Cultural Fit
Quirky Interview Questions
