270+ Marketing Interview Questions for Agencies (19 Roles)

General Marketing Interview Questions

Before we jump on to the job-specific marketing interview questions, let’s go through the common questions that typically apply to any role in the marketing department.

Experts have favored these questions to understand candidates’ thought processes, work ethics, values, motivations, and self-awareness.

“I look for both – a strong skill set and a great attitude. So, I ask questions that help me unveil the candidate’s soft skills, mindset, and values. The idea is to see if the person fits in sync with our organization’s work ethics and culture. When interviewing potential marketers, I’m always on the lookout for people who can work within a team without losing their individual creativity and those who possess skills to ease the management processes.”

Olga Andreiko, VP of Brand Marketing at Semrush

1. What’s your favorite marketing strategy and why?
2. If you could pick one marketing technique or strategy that you consider ineffective, what would you choose and why?
3. What areas would you say you’re better than most?
4. How do you invest in yourself?
5. Why are you applying for this role?
6. How do you know you’re adding value to the company?
7. What is the difference between a good place to work and a bad one?
8. What was the last business book you have read, and when was it?
9. What will you do in your first months on the job?
10. What would you expect to happen if you underperform?
11. What would the definition of the “world-class employee” mean to you? Would you say you match this definition?
12. In what capacity was your team better with you being a part of it?
13. If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?
14. If you could build a team, what qualities and skills would you look for in candidates?

“Marketing careers can be personality-driven. The way people adapt and construe challenges is often more important than their skills since skills can be learned. Seeing how they’ve acted in the past is a good signal for future success.”

Zachary Hoffman, CEO, DigitalPR.com

1. What was the most successful campaign you worked on, and what was the least successful campaign?
2. What unique challenge have you faced in the past with improving customer engagement, and how did you overcome it?
3. Assume you’ve been assigned a tight deadline for a difficult project. What would you do if you were in this situation?
4. What was your most terrible professional blunder? What did you discover?

“Given most people will be working remotely and hybrid now and more over time, the skills I look for and questions I ask have shifted recently. While soft skills like charisma and confidence help you rise in the office environment, when it comes to remote work, group value, helpfulness, and reliability hold more significance. In a virtual/hybrid environment, you want people who are independent, self-motivated, and adaptable/flexible.”

Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder & CEO, Mavens & Moguls

1. How would you go about communicating a problem you’re encountering on a project?
2. Have you ever had to complete a task with a team member working in a different time zone or office, if yes, how did you do it?
3. Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a coworker or team member. What happened?

Marketing Manager Interview Questions

Marketing managers are the backbone of your marketing team. You are looking for a person with the qualities to coordinate with different team leaders and get the work done.

Hire the wrong one and see your team and organization being crumpled.

Here are a few Marketing Manager interview questions that CEOs use to choose the right fit for their agency or business. Here are a few marketing director interview questions CEOs use to choose the right managers for their agency or business.

“The marketing manager position carries a lot on its plate that can’t be chewed without having hands-on experience and skills. I try to understand if they have experience in the marketing channels that are strategic to my company. I’d also recommend asking questions that reveal the candidate’s familiarity with different marketing automation and SEO tools.”

Neal Schaffer, CEO, Nealschaffer.com

1. What industries have you worked for before?
2. What marketing channels do you have experience with?
3. Have you ever helped your company’s content rank higher in search engines? If so, how did you accomplish that?
4. Describe a marketing automation campaign that you set up.
5. Describe a successful social media marketing campaign that you were involved with.
6. What was your role, what were the results, and how did you accomplish those results?

“Too many marketers have only an arms-length relationship with customers. The best marketers talk to customers, meet in person (when possible), learn how buyers feel, and figure out what they need for each step in their journey. Apart from that, I like to know how well the candidate communicates with leadership and makes ends meet with little resources.”

George Stenitzer, Founder, Crystal Clear Communications

1. Tell me about a time you didn’t have sufficient resources (time, money, talent) to get the job done. What did you do?
2. Tell me about a time you gained insights into the buyers’ journey. What did you do?
3. Tell me about a time you got leadership on the same page about marketing strategy. How did you do that?

“The candidate should be able to give you an example and guide you through the campaign from beginning to end. They should discuss qualitative and quantitative outcomes, as well as their significance in achieving success. It’s a good sign if the candidate feels pleased with their accomplishment.”

Gerrid Smith, CMO, Joy Organics

1. Describe the most successful campaign you’ve ever run. What made it so successful, and what part did you play?
2. Tell me about a recent marketing tactic you tried?
3. Which metric do you consider the most important to track?
4. How do you measure success or failure on a specific marketing campaign?

“I mostly ask questions about data and the potential for moving the needle on our marketing strategies. I really believe that some marketers focus too much on the content and a continuous stream of material rather than the results. That’s all I want in terms of my marketing manager – results. And that can be tracked via data and analytics available online.”

Tudor Armand Ciuleanu, Founder, RebelDot

1. How comfortable are you in using large amounts of data to guide decision-making?
2. What numbers/ data would you track that we can analyze in relation to our marketing strategies?
3. How do you move the needle as a marketer?
4. What’s one tactic you used that significantly increased leads?

Account Manager Interview Questions

An account manager is a necessary bridge to maintain your agency’s long-lasting relationship with the clients. You are looking for someone who can handle the crucial task of fostering new client relationships while keeping the existing clients happy to upsell.

Here are a few account manager interview questions as a part of marketing interview questions you can use to find the right fit.

“Besides technical prowess, I like to see a bit of fast/ critical thinking. I give them a situation and ask them a way out. If someone can give me at least a half-decent answer while being under pressure in an interview, that’s usually a good sign. Other than that, I try to understand their communication approach and previous experience.”

Taylor Ryan, CEO, KlintMarketing.com

1. Do you have previous experience with account managing for smaller agencies?
2. Are you familiar with the industry in which we operate?
3. Can you give a suggestion to improve a company’s X situation with a Y client?
4. Have you ever made a mistake that cost you a customer? What did you learn from that experience?
5. What steps do you take to ensure you build strong relationships with key clients?
6. Do you prefer in-person, email, or phone communication? Why?

“Some of the skills necessary for the job are those relating to leadership, organization, sales, and communication. In asking these questions, we’re seeking to gain insight into a candidate’s experience with customer management, particularly regarding their overall record, success, and response to customer management challenges. Organizational competencies must be high, and expertise with CRM software is important to that end.”

Tina Hawk, SVP Human Resources, GoodHire

1. What is your approach to building customer relationships?
2. What steps do you take when you’re behind on your revenue targets?
3. What experience do you have with CRMs such as Salesforce and Gainsight?
4. Tell me about an experience where you made a mistake that led to losing a customer. What was your reaction, and what did you learn?
5. How do you manage multiple client accounts concurrently?

Brand Manager Interview Questions

Brand managers should have a keen eye to analyze consumer insights and use them to create branding strategies.

They manage consumer perception towards a product or service and maintain brand integrity across all company marketing initiatives and communications.

You are looking for a person who is ambitious, analytical and has strong relationship-management skills.

Here are a few marketing interview questions for Brand Managers you can use.

“I ask about the importance of brand management to ensure candidates know the value of the position and how a business’s success depends on them. Also, I try to discover how candidates can express themselves clearly and effectively if put in an on-spot situation. It shows how some are better at thinking on their feet than others, which is a much-appreciated quality in the branding world.”

Daniel Carter, Director, Assertive media UK

1. Discuss the importance of brand management and why you believe it is significant?
2. How would you create an on-spot marketing strategy for a new customer?
3. Can you describe a well-marketed product, and what do you like about it the most?
4. How would you educate and train new marketing personnel on our brand identity?
5. What elements of our organization would you use while encouraging the brand?

“I want to know that they can be objective and honest, knowing that I am looking for someone to help evolve my brand. I want to see how they can take something that exists and move forward. Then I try to understand their awareness of the current market trends and tools and how they use the metrics to define their future steps to improve my brand value.”

Ouriel Lemmel, CEO and founder of Winit

1. What do you think of our company’s brand, and how would you improve, if you’re hired?
2. Where should a firm include its brand to encourage uniformity?
3. Can you describe a time when you utilized market research to assist brand awareness initiatives?
4. What have been some of the most effective marketing campaigns you’ve seen, and why?

“I ask questions to get a general sense of a candidate’s approach to their profession. As a result, I know their understanding of current market conditions and their approach to leading projects. It also helps me gauge whether we are on the same page. Secondly, I wonder how they handle team management, as an effective brand manager must be a leader who can inspire the whole team.”

Natalia Brzezinska, Marketing & Outreach Manager, PhotoAiD

1. Which marketing campaigns are your favorite and why?
2. What are the signs that a branding strategy isn’t working?
3. During the last month, what did you learn about brand management?
4. Please describe a current go-to-market strategy you developed.
5. Your team disagrees with your direction. What do you do?

Product Marketing Interview Questions

Aiming for a shorter sales cycle and higher revenue? A Product marketer is your key to cracking the code.

You need a person who can follow the market trends and customer behavior to position and promote the product. The job comes with the task to interact with cross-functional teams and manage the customer funnel.

“I specifically ask these questions to go beyond the surface and know the candidate at a deeper level. Past work is also crucial, as product managers take jobs that they are passionate about My questions target their passions, interests, and work ethics. They allow me to understand their point of view and why they do what they do. I try to develop context regarding their profession; knowing what drives the candidate is essential.”

Scott Keever, Founder, Scott Keever SEO

1. What was the last product you launched?
2. What’s an essential aspect of product management?
3. What are you passionate about being a product manager?
4. Why do you ask those specific questions?
5. Mention one good product that is poorly marketed. How would you sell it differently?

“When interviewing product marketers, I like to pull up a random popular site and ask the candidate what they think about it. There are no right or wrong answers, but you learn how they think.”

Shawn Siegel, Chief Product Officer, The Lifetime Value Co.

1. What are your thoughts on (the random popular site)? What would you do differently here?
2. What do you like about it? What surprises you?
3. What would you do if you had to focus more on a certain feature?
4. How would you position the same product to a millennial and a baby boomer audience differently?

Content Strategist Interview Questions

Content is the king, they say. And content that solves the problem of your target audience and drives sales can only be derived from a well-researched strategy.

Hence, you need a content strategist who can understand your audience and the buyer’s journey to revamp the overall content strategy of the company.

“I look for content strategists who are nimble, agile, and resourceful. A content strategy is never cast in stone. A thorough understanding of the buyer persona and the buyer journey is an indispensable quality that a content strategist needs to create meaningful content ideas (in suitable formats) for the various stages of the funnel. Also, a content strategist needs to have a good view of the various emerging themes that the brand can leverage. This means reading a lot, asking relevant questions, and converting trends into talking points.”

Khamir Purohit, Founder, LexiConn

1. What is the difference between content strategy and digital marketing strategy?
2. Where do you get your content ideas from?
3. What are the critical components of a content calendar? What kind of tools do you use to create a content calendar?
4. How is the content strategy for a B2B brand different from a B2C brand?
5. How do you measure the success of content strategy?
6. What are some of the emerging tools and trends in content technologies, and how do you plan to imbibe them into your plans?

“I believe a great experience in planning, creating strategies, and delivering the result for each campaign are the main factors a content strategist must possess. In addition to that, they should also be great communicators and problem-solvers with excellent organizational skills.”

Will Cannon, Founder, Signaturely, UpLead

1. What content do you think our industry lacks?
2. What do you like about our business’ content and why?
3. How do you make content that will be more engaging to our audience?
4. How will you make boring content a good and interesting one?
5. Tell me about a content project that misfired and how you recovered from the experience?

“When hiring for a content strategist role, I look for someone who’s able to translate complex ideas into an easy-to-understand and compelling story. A content strategist needs to be able to understand the needs of the audience and communicate our value to them in a way they can relate to and understand.”

Emma Cimolini, Director of Marketing, Routific

1. How do you approach the research part while devising a content strategy?
2. How do you tailor your content to the needs of your audience?
3. How do you organize and stay on top of the editorial calendar?
4. What’s your process of generating new content ideas?
5. Which types of content are you most experienced and comfortable in making (websites, blog posts, video, social media, etc.)?

Content Writer Interview Questions

The content writing job demands more than just grammatical-error-free writing.

You need a person who has good research skills and an understanding of your niche to write quality blogs. The role also demands skills, such as proofreading, content editing, SEO writing, and an eye to understanding human psychology.

Besides the assignment, here are a few marketing interview questions to find the right profile from the pool of content writing candidates.

“Look for people who have experience writing for businesses or professionally-edited publications. Many content writers are generalists. This is fine, but exceptional content is almost always written by someone with expertise in the subject. This doesn’t mean a smart generalist writer can’t go out and do a lot of research on a subject, but that will take them more time and they still won’t have the depth of knowledge a more experienced writer will have. Another thing i will recommend is getting examples of their work in different formats to understand their skill level and work process.”

Pam Neely, Founder, Content Wonk

1. Tell me about your experience with content writing.
2. What do you know about (your industry)?
3. What pieces of content do you think we should create for the X client?
4. According to you, what are the characteristics of a well crafted blog piece?
5. What’s your typical writing process?

“A good content writer must have the ability to project a unique voice that can be adapted to the company’s voice as needed, have a fluid writing style, and the capacity to grasp the logic and argue reasonably well.”

Glenn Carroll, Head of Product at Civica

1. What do you think are the integral components of good content?
2. What are the ways to decide the tone of a certain content?
3. How can you make your information credible?
4. What are the things you enjoy most about content writing?
5. What is your work ethic like?
6. How do you conceptualize or plan when you are tasked to create content, and how long does it take you to do the task?

“I ask basic specialization questions and then move on to test the candidate’s SEO knowledge, creativity, and research skills. A writer who is experienced, loves researching, is not afraid of having a strong-view point (of course, backed by data), and is versatile to learn and adapt to the client’s style of writing – works best for my agency.”

Priyanka Desai, Founder of iScribblers

1. What are your areas of expertise? Are you comfortable in writing long-form content or short-form copies?
2. What are the tools you use in content ideation/ creation/ editing?
3. How do you break the monotony while writing long-form pieces?
4. How much time do you take to write and edit a content piece of X words?

“You need to ensure that the content writer’s work vision aligns with your business strategy, personal approach to content writing, and company values. I ask questions to understand their writing style, SEO knowledge, and receptiveness to constructive feedback from the editor.”

Maciej Duszyński, Content Team Leader, Tidio

1. How do you define quality content?
2. How would you portray our company’s voice in your writing?
3. How do you make your writing SEO-optimized?
4. How do you integrate feedback and edits into your writing?
5. What resources or means would you need when creating content?

Copywriter Interview Questions

What separates a copywriter from other writing designations is their motivation to make readers take action. Below are the few questions our experts ask to filter out people who can drive sales through their words from the ones who write to inform.

“Most good copywriters know *what* to say, I want to know *how* they will say it. I don’t want my copy to sound like every other website, but rather it should reflect my brand and be specific to my business. Also, I look for a person who has SEO knowledge and takes constructive criticism.”

Ouriel Lemmel, CEO and founder of WinIt

1. How comfortable are you writing in my brand voice?
2. What is your style of copywriting? Do you have a particular manner of copywriting which you think could attract customers?
3. How do you deal with feedback?
4. Do you think website copies need to be SEO-optimized?
5. How do you optimize content for SEO?
6. What’s more important for you – creativity or driving sales?

“I ask questions to ensure that the candidate has done their homework about our firm and understands the specifics of what we do. Asking them how they would improve our content also helps me in understanding their critical thinking skills and creativity.”

Karl Hughes, Founder of Draft.dev

1. Tell me about one of the biggest mistakes you’ve made as a copywriter and how you recovered?
2. What changes would you like to implement in our current content and why?
3. Explain your process, style, and research procedure to develop compelling content?

Email Marketing Specialist Interview Questions

Email marketing goes beyond promoting holiday sales and offers. It is a medium that aids your content strategy and builds a real connection with your audience.

Email nurtures your existing and potential clients and greatly impacts your overall sales. That’s why you can’t risk the medium in unfit hands.

“I try to look for candidates who are knowledgeable of the elements that influence deliverability and demonstrate how they have resolved deliverability issues in the past. Also, familiarity with email marketing tools and tactics and having collaborative skills to interact with other departments makes my checklist.”

Nikita Agrawal, Head of Growth, Milestone Localization

1. How do you ensure email deliverability?
2. How will you work with the sales team? What support do you need from them?
3. What is your favorite email marketing tool, and why?
4. Have you used A/B testing in your campaigns? If so, how did it affect your email marketing results?
5. How would you expand the database of clients subscribed to our content?

“A good candidate should be able to demonstrate that they understand the importance of building a tone, knowing the audience, and the positive and negative qualities of email marketing.”

Mark Daoust, CEO, Quiet Light

1. What’s the best email campaign you’ve created? What was the subject line, the tone, and intended audience for the email?
2. What steps do you take to create the brand voice for every email campaign you set up?
3. What are the disadvantages of email marketing?
4. How do you measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns?
5. How would you improve our current email marketing?

“I look for a person who has good creativity, writing skills, and hands-on experience to see through an email marketing campaign. You may also ask the candidate to give you samples/ideas of a campaign on the spot to understand their vision and strategies.”

Tristan Harris, Marketing Manager, Thrive

1. Do you have email marketing experience? How did you handle it?
2. What was your biggest challenge when writing the campaign? How did you overcome it?
3. What was your lowest-performing email campaign written? How did you recover from it?
4. How do you plan, strategize, and execute your mail campaign?

Paid Marketing Specialist Interview Questions

With the decline in organic reach, paid marketing has become a necessary tactic for both B2B and B2C brands to get exposure.

Businesses need people who can create, lead and measure paid advertising campaigns on social media and search engines.

If you are looking for the same, the below paid marketing interview questions will be helpful to find the right match for your marketing team.

“I ask questions that effectively gauge the candidate’s holistic understanding of AdWords. An AdWords manager needs to have an in-depth knowledge of how the platform works, rather than just a rudimentary understanding of some concepts. You try to understand whether the applicant is competent and experienced enough to handle the AdWords manager role by themselves. You try to ascertain whether they have what it takes to lead different campaigns and oversee their execution.”

Steve Anevski, Co-Founder, Upshift

1. What is Google AdWords, and how does it work?
2. Mention some of the Google AdWord Ad Extensions.
3. What is the quality score in Google AdWords?
4. What are the targeting options available in Google Display Network Ads?
5. What are the different types of keywords?
6. How can you track conversions in Google AdWords?

“Besides the basic requirements, I want to know if the candidate has hands-on experience and understands the nitty-gritty of creating an advertising campaign from scratch.”

Andrei Kurtuy, Co-Founder & CCO, Novorésumé

1. In each ad group, how many ads should I have?
2. When do you call an ad test a success?
3. Which bidding method do you prefer? Why?
4. What campaigns would you prioritize if we had to cut our budget?

“I want to see their passion for their craft and that they’re really obsessed with for becoming better at PPC. I’m looking for a positive mindset and an “I’m not giving up” attitude. I also want to learn if the candidate can manage expectations and understands the inside-outs of performance campaigns and important metrics.”

Carsten Pleiser, Co-Founder, Paperless.io

1. What’s your favorite blog, podcast, or book on marketing & PPC?
2. What do you do if your campaigns are not performing?
3. How can negative keywords be leveraged?
4. What was your most successful campaign, and why?

“I want to see that the PPC Specialist has the required knowledge to understand the client’s needs. They understand sales psychology if they know how to get the necessary information from clients. I also ask questions to confirm if they regularly continue their education to stay up to date on best practices or not. Finally, I go into technicals to see if the candidate knows the different levers to pull to get a conversion.”

Tanner Rankin, CEO, Referazon

1. When taking on a new client, what does your intake questionnaire look like before ampaigns?
2. What YouTube Channels or Blogs do you follow in your industry?
3. What are some typical adjustments you make when a particular ad isn’t working before abandoning it?
4. Tell me about a time when you’ve implemented Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) techniques to improve a campaign’s performance.

Social Media Manager Interview Questions

Social media is more than just posting about new blogs and mentioning people.

You need a person who can keep abreast with the social trends, lead campaigns, understand your community, and use the data to build informed social media marketing strategies.

Use the below-listed questions to find the right social media manager for your agency.

“Generally, whether it’s paid, organic, or a mix of both, I’m looking to understand how this person has been able to connect their work on social media to broader business objectives. I’m less interested in virality, follower count, etc., and much more interested in telling growth stories, strategic decision-making, and data-driven insights.”

Myasia Stephens, Director Communications and belongings, LaunchSquad

1. What skills help you be an effective social media manager?
2. Which KPI/ metric/ goal is most important for a brand to go after on social media?
3. Tell me about your experience reviewing/ revising social media content.
4. Define your process of creating a social media calendar?

“A good approach to understanding whether a social media marketing manager would be appropriate is to ask the candidate about their hands-on experiences. This can give you valuable insight into their expertise and what they can actually bring to your business.”

SOJY SN, Content Marketer and Growth Strategist, Stan Ventures

1. What is the most important social marketing metric a business should monitor regularly?
2. Do you think a smaller and more engaged audience offers you more value?
3. What’s the most important thing a social media manager should be doing?
4. Have you ever had to handle a social media crisis?
5. Tell us a story about a successful campaign that got frequent bid adjustments?
6. How involved are you in reactive marketing in Social Media?

Social Media Marketing Intern Interview Questions

Interns are necessary assets who can give your agency or business a fresh perspective, fill the talent pipeline, or become a set of extra hands to mince the workload.

Indeed, a social media marketing intern candidate should check the basic knowledge box, but it’s important to look for interns who have the hunger for learning and zeal to grow.

“For an intern, you don’t want to go too in-depth about strategy. It’s more about ensuring they have the skills and familiarity with doing good work. Enjoying using social media isn’t a pre-requisite for the job, but it might help to understand the kinds of content that do well. I want to see if they can come up with creative ideas. I ask the good for society question just to make sure they are aware of the wider social context of SM and the debate around it.”

Jacob Wedderburn-Day, CEO & Co-Founder at Stasher

1. Which platforms do you personally use?
2. Do you have any prior experience in using social media marketing tools?
3. What do you understand by the term engagement?
4. Why do things go viral?
5. Do you think social media is good for society? How should we mitigate its harms?
6. Which design software/ tools are you proficient at using?
7. How do you build an audience on social media?
8. If you were given this role, can you give me an example campaign you could run for us?

“An ideal candidate should demonstrate knowledge of social media and have a creative mindset. I look for a person who is aware of the trends and the need for social media and demonstrates preparedness, creativity, presentation, and communication skills.”

Leanne Beesley, GM Europe, Giggster

1. Why are certain social media platforms best for our business?
2. Is there anything you would change about our current social media activities?
3. How would you sell your idea for a new campaign proposal?

Community Manager Interview Questions

Community is your key to tap into the hidden engagement your brand needs to increase awareness, build reputation, and skyrocket growth.

It’s not an easy job, and you won’t find a suitable candidate easily.

Though, asking the below-listed questions will make a huge difference.

“The candidate’s level of expertise, work ethos, accountability, and advanced skillset ensure that our brand will be flying high on all channels of communication. Being a leader, qualities like emotional intelligence, accountability, adaptability, and resilience are important personal attributes we need in our team. I ask questions to hire a senior manager with great knowledge, experience, and leadership expertise to improve the overall visibility of our brand and take strategy to a new level of delivery.”

Thomas Mirmotahari, Founder, PerkUp

1. What sparked your interest to take the role of a Community Manager in the past?
2. What are some of the most innovative marketing solutions you have come up with to date for your clients/ previous employers?
3. Is there anything you don’t like about your job as a community manager?
4. What experience do you have in leading conversations in online forums?
5. Give us a sense of how you spend your day as a Community Manager?
6. How big a budget have you worked with in the past, and how have you fared to convert social media advertising costs into real gains for the company?
7. How important is the brand in your communication strategy?
8. How do you respond to nasty social media comments?
9. Due to unforeseen social media or business brand disasters, how can you ensure an effective turnaround strategy?
10. What do you like about our company, and what is your understanding of our strengths?
11. Given that this position involves supervising and mentoring junior staff in marketing our brand, how would you describe yourself as a leader?
12. What would be the best social media platforms for our brand?

“The ideal candidate for me would be the one who knows how to create and track growth and success of the community. Metrics such as community engagement rates and increasing memberships give you a correct picture if it is feasible to continue the project and if the company receives a clear return on their investment.”

Elizabeth Henson, Community Builder

1. How do you track the success of the community?
2. What is the best way to show or track the ROI of your position?
3. How do you know if the community is happy or not?
4. How do you spot a leader in a group?
5. What are some great questions to ask when onboarding a new community member?
6. What qualities are essential in a community leader?

PR Manager Interview Questions

The PR role demands a resourceful and exuberant personality with excellent interpersonal skills.

Not everyone can handle the role of PR; you need to hire someone who has experience and connections to put forward your agency via media outlets to create and maintain a positive public image.

“I ask broad questions to gain a better understanding of the applicants and allow them to elaborate on their personalities and work habits. My aim is to understand how much they have gathered from their previous experience. It’s an important value indicator for me to gauge a candidate.”

Adam Crossling, Partner & Marketing manager, Zenzero

1. Could you tell us about a digital campaign you were a part of?
2. Could you tell us about a print campaign you were a part of?
3. Which public relations accomplishment are you most proud of?
4. Which abilities did you acquire in your former position that you may apply to this one?
5. Do you have prior experience working on radio public relations campaigns?

“A PR agent should have the following qualities, dedication, tenacity, intrapersonal skills, and a willingness to achieve results. ‘NO’ is a word that PR agents hear repeatedly from media outlets and journalists. I want to understand how a candidate handles the rejection situation and turn it into a win.”

Jessica Armstrong, Marketing Associate, TeamUp

1. How would you respond to a top-tier media outlet that has rejected your pitch?
2. How will you work with other members of the marketing team (social, content, performance) to support your PR efforts and prioritize what you need to make sure an outlet picks up our stories?
3. Tell me about your best achievements as a PR agent.
4. What strengths do you think a PR agent must have, and tell us about the time when you have shown those qualities?

“I try to dig deep into their past experiences to get insights into the verticals where they’ve had the most success, the inherent media relationships they’ve fomented, and the niches they are more comfortable to work with. I want to see if there’s a spark of passion for their clients, or if they are just drones who will smile-and-dial and do the bare minimum of what’s expected without any intellectual curiosity about their clients.”

Denise Dorman, Media Relations Director, WhiteBrain Media

1. Tell me about your PR career to date – campaigns you’ve created from scratch, highlights, any awards, and the projects you’re most proud of.
2. Which industries are you most familiar with or comfortable pitching?
3. Tell me how you approach understanding your client and telling their stories?
4. Tell me which project management tools, social platforms, and media databases you’re comfortable using.
5. Finally, I will ask them; I have a client with a memoir. On which social platforms would you emphasize publicizing them?

SEO/ SEM Manager Interview Questions

SEO is an ever-changing game. Besides technical excellence, you need a candidate who keeps an eye on the industry and has managerial skills to lead and manage the SEO team.

“In an interview situation, I prioritize attitude over aptitude. An interviewee with a lesser skillset who is candid and can demonstrate willingness to learn will always turn out to be a better pick than a candidate who comes across as difficult to work with.”

Ben Major, Head of Tech & Content SEO, Skale

1. What has been your biggest challenge in SEO and how did you overcome it?
2. Can you provide me with a top-level overview of how you approach keyword research?
3. Talk me through the current gaps in your SEO knowledge. If you joined us, how can we help you fill them?
4. How have your SEO processes changed in the last 12 months? And how different do you think they will be in 3 years?

“The four key qualities I try to check in every SEO manager candidate are work knowledge, relevant experience, ability to solve problems and creative thinking, and resourcefulness. An SEO manager should have a vision, a knack for creating strategy, and oversee its execution.”

Kateryna Reshetilo, Head of Marketing, Greenice.net

1. What are the key ingredients of a successful SEO strategy? What can make or break an SEO strategy?
2. How do you develop an SEO strategy for a company? Please, explain it step-by-step.
3. What problems do you see with our website? How would you go about solving them?
4. Who do you need on an SEO team?
5. How do you plan and organize SEO work?
6. What KPIs do you track? Why?
7. Share cases of how you helped to grow traffic from 0; helped to break through the plateau; helped to recover lost positions?
8. Name the latest Google updates and their impact?
9. Which SEO budgets are you used to working with? How do they compare to what competitors from your niche are working with?

“I try to understand how much the person is into SEO, have they worked on many projects and have they seen success and failure and what causes them in SEO. So ask questions that unveil their hands-on experience and curiosity for the trade.“

Filip Šilobod, Founder, Honest Marketing

1. What did you most focus on in SEO in your previous role? Off-page, on page SEO, content, technical?
2. How often do you read about news in SEO? Which SEO ‘gurus’ or influencers do you follow and why?
3. Name a few of your SEO successes and what you did to get there?
4. Name some of your SEO failures, why did they happen and is it ok to fail with SEO?

Digital Marketing Executive Interview Questions

The position and responsibilities of digital marketing executives vary from company to company. The skills and work of a digital marketing executive span from creating, managing, and leading a team of people to achieving the inbound marketing goals of the company.

“It’s essential to understand that the candidate is aware of the ups and downs of their campaigns, what they achieved and where they failed. Besides the basic knowledge, I would like to know if the candidate has the skills and mindfulness to reset their focus and allocate the resources somewhere else if something is not providing a good ROI.”

Carsten Schaefer, Founder, Trust

1. Tell me about your best and worst campaigns and how they performed.
2. What, according to you, is the best metric to track for an inbound marketing campaign?
3. What is your biggest achievement as a digital marketing professional?
4. How do you see SEO in the years to come? What will be the biggest challenges?
5. Have you ever managed other people? What is your preferred style of leadership?

“I ask a few preliminary questions to see if the person is knowledgeable about marketing. I am trying to understand their knowledge of digital marketing. If they can answer those questions, I would probe deeper into their knowledge.”

Derek Morgen, Co-founder, Growthster

1. What are some best practices for website optimization?
2. Do you prefer an in-house marketing strategy or hiring an agency?
3. How do you decide on an SEO strategy for a website?
4. What is your favorite social media platform, and why?
5. Why does it make sense to invest in video content nowadays?
6. How do you repurpose content for each type of platform?
7. What are examples of great brand marketing strategies that are most similar to our company, and what makes them so great?
8. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see marketers make when developing marketing strategies?
9. What current trends do you think will be popular in the upcoming year?

“It’s crucial to recruit incredibly versatile candidates that are comfortable operating in extreme uncertainty; that are self-starters and lifelong learners. I want to make sure the candidate is used to working in early-stage companies.”

Joshua Feinberg, CEO, SP Home Run Inc.

1. How do you create and refine your digital marketing strategy?
2. What kinds of goals do you build your digital strategy around?
3. Is most of your experience in B2B, B2C, or other contexts?
4. What kinds of sales teams and sales processes have you supported?
5. Who is the most and least favorite buyer persona you’ve ever marketed to? Why?
6. What kinds of content strategies have you used to achieve your business goals?
7. How do you approach traffic generation, lead generation, and sales cycle acceleration?
8. What particularly challenging sales and marketing alignment (smarketing) have you had to overcome?

Marketing Research Analyst Interview Questions

Creating strategies that are not backed by data is a recipe for disaster. You need a trustful objective eye that loves data, understands trends and patterns, and can interpret it for the marketing team to draw goals and needs.

“Marketing analysts are likely to deliver their findings in team meetings with technical and non-technical individuals present; therefore, they must ensure that they know how to communicate their message so that everyone understands it. We also want to know the work process of candidates and how they stay motivated to deliver the expected outcomes regularly.”

David Bitton, Co-founder & CMO, DoorLoop

1. What skills make you qualified to be our next marketing analyst?
2. What does “big data” mean to you?
3. How would you explain your job profile to a non-technical person?
4. How do you maintain focus while dealing with large volumes of data or when the work becomes repetitive?
5. Define the steps you would take when analyzing our competitors?

“I look for candidates who stay updated with the latest trends and demonstrate great technical, communication, organizational, and out-of-the-box skills.”

Lynda Fairly, CEO, Numlooker

1. What avenue of marketing do you prefer to stay updated on?
2. What experience do you have with using CRMs?
3. Have you ever built a predictive model? Describe the model and the process you went through.
4. Tell me about a discovery you had that surprised you and what you learned from it?
5. How would you answer the needs of a Sales Manager in terms of marketing?
6. What changes would you make to the marketing department if you were hired?

“Besides technical and communication skills, I look for the presentation skills of the candidates. If their data is displayed in a way where metrics are clear to everyone on the team, we can work and scale in a direction that works for each department more effectively. It’s important to see if the candidate already has a plan of action or not when the data is not so easily obtainable.”

Chet Flanagan, Co-Founder & COO, VINN

1. Do you have a portfolio that you can show us?
2. What data visualization tools have you used in the past?
3. What tools do you use to collect, manage and report data?
4. Where do you see the Analyst role/ industry in the next five years?
5. How do you stay current with up-and-coming trends in the industry?

Graphic Designer Interview Questions

Your marketing collateral needs more than a design that comes out popping.

Hire someone who can incorporate the messaging of your clients with design sensibilities to send out clear visual messages on different marketing channels.

“The interview generally would revolve around a person’s experience with software and area of specific interest. It depends on the level of the hire; a top-level designer is expected to express their interest in branding and design. So most of my questions are targeted towards their energy and interest in brands and communication. If it’s a base-level person who is just a graphic design resource, I’m primarily looking at their toolkit.”

Shaun D’sa, Creative Head / Co-founder, Whoa Mama

1. Describe your design process for a new project.
2. Name any three brands you adore and how they influence your work?
3. What would you want to be known for if you built your reputation within the industry?
4. According to you, what are the main characteristics of a quality design collateral?
5. Which is your favorite niche within the design industry (illustration, branding, animation, etc.)?
6. Are you familiar with the design tools you would be expected to use in this position?

“It would be productive to compare and contrast what a graphic designer has done for their old company and what projects they have done as a hobby or passion. Sometimes the strength of a graphic designer is not where they expect it to be, so it’s important to examine all the sides of the candidate’s portfolio. This doesn’t only give you a chance to see the graphic designer’s range, but where they can improve as well.”

Sam Shepler, CEO, TestimonialHero

1. Tell me about the time when you were under pressure to fulfill a deadline and how you dealt with it?
2. Tell me about a time when the scope changed significantly halfway through a project. How did you react and adapt?
3. How do you handle a client who is not agreeing with your designs?
4. Do you prefer cross-functional collaboration or working alone?

Campaign Manager Interview Questions

Campaign managers are responsible for realizing clients’ goals through organic and advertising campaigns and events.

The person on the spot should have the vision to understand the client’s goals and the ability to work hand-in-hand with external agencies, freelancers, and other resources.

“Hiring a campaign manager is one of the trickiest hiring decisions because in essence, I’m relying on them to have the same vision as I do and to plan the face of the organization/ client with their campaigns. This means that beyond the standard questions I’d ask about their competencies for the role, which I treat as a minimum requirement, I want to ascertain how their own thoughts align on the mission we’re trying to deliver.”

Dragos Badea, CEO, Yarooms

1. Do you have the experience of running multiple campaigns at the same time?
2. What was the best campaign you saw last month?
3. What is the biggest obstacle you have encountered on a campaign, and how did you overcome it?
4. Which automation and analytics tools do you use to run a marketing campaign?
5. What marketing analytic tools do you have experience using?
6. What is your ideal work environment and why?
7. What is your main motivation for this role?
8. How familiar are you with our past work and online presence?

“Some of the qualities that make a candidate perfect for the role of campaign manager include effective communication skills, the ability to motivate the team members for successful campaigns, discipline, and the capability to work within a given budget. The hiring team can ask about the successful campaign run by the candidate in the past.”

Nathan Hughes, Marketing Director, Diggity Marketing

1. Tell me about a successful campaign you have run in the past?
2. What steps do you take to build a campaign budget?
3. If the budget was cut, what would you prioritize in the campaign?
4. How do you deal with clients who disagree with your methods?
5. How do you divide up the campaign tasks between your team?
6. Have you ever implemented a trendy marketing strategy to attract customers to a product or service?

Wrapping it Up

Of course, there is someone perfect out there for your marketing team.

All you need is the right set of interview questions to ask at the skill and culture assessment stage in your interview process.

The marketing industry demands a mind of creativity, strategy, analytical ability, and responsibility.

When on the interview desk with the questions above, remember to pay close attention to how the candidate responds.

Does the candidate have enthusiasm for the job? Do they have the necessary hands-on experience?

Also, make sure that you don’t delay the process of recruiting from your end. Remember that you are not the only agency or business looking for the best talent.

Make your recruiting process fast and the onboarding process faster.

Speaking of faster, SocialPilot makes the life of your best-assembled marketing team effortless in managing the social marketing of your clients.

Its automation feature enables you to create, schedule, and analyze social media posts for every major social platform.

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