MA
RKETING PRACTICE INTERVIEW
Try a practice interview for marketing, answering typical questions and also getting tips on how you should answer. There are also other questions students have been asked at marketing interviews.
MARKETING BRAND MANAGERS need to be good at WRITTEN COMMUNICATION to write promotional briefs, PERSUASIVE to persuade colleagues to pursue a particular line of action, good at ANALYSING the pricing and key features of products, good INVESTIGATORS to be able to research the market, consumers and competitors, and well ORGANISED to manage stock levels and to plan withdrawal of products from the market.
Other skills and attributes include dynamism, verbal communication, an ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines, numerical ability, flexibility, drive, creativity, imagination, presentation skills, team work, and, perhaps above all, the ability to influence others.
Employers will be looking to see how you can talk about and demonstrate marketing skills at your interview. The sort of evidence you could offer includes:
- Persuading: telesales vacation job
- Writing: for the university newspaper
- Organising: stage manager for a school or university play
- Analysing: constructing and analysing a questionnaire for a course project
- Making decisions: deciding how much of the student loan to take in your final year!
Before you arrive ...
Do lots of research on marketing: see our Marketing Careers Page See our Interview Reports for marketing many of the questions asked in these are listed at the end.
There follows some of the questions that might be asked of students at interviews for marketing jobs. General interview questions are not asked here, so you might also like to try the general or multiple choice interviews as well for standard interview questions that can be thrown at any candidate, also our answers to 150 common interview questions. Click on "First Question" to begin. Think carefully about how you would answer, then click on "Show Answer Tips" to get an idea of how you should be answering.
Other questions students have been asked at marketing interviews:
About your study, work experience and skills
- Why did you choose your degree subject? What do you like about it. What do you find difficult? (Taylor Nelson Sofres)
- Why I had chosen to study at Kent?
- Why did you choose your ‘A' levels?
- How important do you think it is to be right? (Cable & Wireless)
- Detail a current affairs story about which you feel particularly strongly. (Cable & Wireless)
- How confident did you feel in your own ability before starting a job? (Cable & Wireless)
- How do you convince someone you are right even if they are adamant that they are right?
- How confident are you in dealing with numbers?
- How do you feel at the start of the term about the work and pressure that you face?- and at the end? how do you manage your work? (Cable & Wireless)
- How do you manage your time? (Taylor Nelson Sofres)
- Do you ever have more than one piece of work on the go at any time? (Cable & Wireless)
- Have you got customer service experience? How I dealt with problems such as irate customers?
- How do you cope under pressure? (Orange)
- What is your greatest strength? (3M & MORI)
- What are your weaknesses? (MORI)
- Describe yourself in 5 words. (MORI)
- How would your friends describe you? (3M)
- See our Answers to 150 common interview questions page
Questions about the organisation. Make sure you do LOTS of research! See our Commercial Awareness page for help with answering these questions
- Why do you want to work for us? (3M, MORI & Taylor Nelson Sofres)
- Why do you want to enter marketing? (3M)
- Why do you want market research? What area are you interested in and why. (MORI)
- Why do you want to go into market research? (Taylor Nelson Sofres)
- Who else have you applied to. (Taylor Nelson Sofres & MORI)
- What do you know about us?
- What do you think you would do when you begin to work for us? (MORI)
- What would you like to get out of working with us? (MORI)
- Why do you think you are particularly suited to/what appeals to you about marketing? (Cable & Wireless)
- What do you look for in choosing a company/job to apply to? (Cable & Wireless)
- Tell us about a recent marketing campaign of our company and how it contributed to our brand identity? (Orange)
- What relevant skills for market research has your degree subject provided you with. ? (Taylor Nelson Sofres & MORI)
Competency Questions. See our competency applications and interviews page for help with these.
- Give an example of when you were a leader in a group.
- Give an example of when you have had to motivate people.
- Give an example of when you worked effectively in a team.
- Give an example of when you have met resistance to your opinion. how was it resolved?
- Tell us about a circumstance when you adapted to a changing situation?
GROUP EXERCISES AND OTHER COMPONENTS
- Numerical test lasted 21 mins. Verbal test lasted 15 mins. Numerical test consisted of interest rates, exchange rates, GDP. Verbal test were short business related passages. Had to answer from true, false and cannot say.
- Verbal test: multiple choice questions asking the individual to read a press release about a company then highlight the points which were correct.
- Numerical test – issued by a company called SHL. Get 3 example questions which are gone over with you for mistakes. 40 mins. long. Taken with two other candidates. 35 questions. Based on analysing data from groups. Calculators provided.
- Numerical, statistical, attention to detail, personality and report writing tests. Each between 15-25 minutes. (Market Research Interview)
- Case study and presentation: we had to read a case study and results from a survey and present the results to 5 members of staff as a group. (market research)
- See our teamworking page for help with these
TIPS FROM KENT GRADUATES
- Take your time. Keep your answers to a reasonable length. Each competency question was covering a key area.
- Make sure you have a copy of your application form in front of you - and notes! (telephone interview)
- Make sure you read through your application answers beforehand. Interview was entirely on soft skills.
- Make sure your CV and covering letter is good: they interviewed only 15 from 400 applications for 6 jobs but I was offered a job! (Mori)
- Very friendly, very organised, nice company to work for. (Mori)
- They do not expect you to know which area of research you wish to go into: got the feeling it decreased employability if you were specific. (Taylor Nelson Sofres)
- Numerical test – 35 mins. Mainly questions from graphs and tables i.e. percentages. If maths is not your strong point then do practise numerical tests as it was very difficult. See our practice aptitude tests. However they do not expect you to answer them all. Most people answer about 10-15. They did state that it depended on your strengths i.e. if you had strong qualitative skills but performed poorly in maths test – not to worry. (market research)
Back to the practice interviews menu or Answers to 150 common interview questions