Preparing for a digital marketing interview involves understanding the company and the job description, as well as being ready to answer general, background, and skills-based questions. By doing the necessary research and practicing answers to common questions, digital marketers can effectively showcase their skills and experience to potential employers.
Key Insights
- It is important to review the job description before going into a digital marketing interview as it provides crucial information about the company and potential interview questions.
- General interview questions often help the interviewer to get to know the candidate better, providing opportunities for candidates to highlight their strengths.
- Background and experience questions provide a chance for candidates to expand on their resume and cover letter, highlighting their skills and explaining any gaps in their employment history.
- Skill-specific questions are used to assess a candidate's knowledge and experience in digital marketing. It's a good idea for candidates to review their coursework or past experience before the interview, particularly in areas mentioned in the job description.
- Candidates should be prepared to discuss digital marketing tools and software that they have used, as well as their successes and failures in previous roles.
- Noble Desktop offers a variety of digital marketing courses and bootcamps to help individuals prepare for a career in digital marketing, including training in areas such as Facebook marketing, email marketing, social media content marketing, and video marketing.
You’ve created a portfolio website, filled the pages with examples of your best work, polished up your resume, and applied for many jobs online. Now, you’ve finally got an interview, and it is time to prepare. At this point, it is a good idea to review the job description in the advertisement. This will tell you many things about the company, the job, and what questions an interviewer might ask. Here is what to expect when you go into a Digital Marketer interview.
What to Expect in a Digital Marketer Interview
When you receive an invitation to interview for one of the Digital Marketer jobs you applied for, first take a moment to pat yourself on the back. It’s likely that yours was one of thousands of applications and you were one of the chosen ones. Good for you!
Now it is time to get ready for your interview. The first thing to do is to go back and look at the job advertisement. Read through it closely to get an idea of what is most important to the company and what they are looking for. The ad will include a job description that will give you clues as to what questions the interviewer might ask. The job title is also an indicator of what you might be asked. If the company is looking for a social media manager, you may not be asked about website optimization, although there are no guarantees.
While you are preparing for your interview, don’t forget to do some research on the company. You probably looked them up when you applied, but refresh your memory and try to come up with some questions you might want to ask. LinkedIn.com and the company website are good places to start.
Top Interview Questions for Digital Marketers
Interviews usually ask three different types of questions in a Digital Marketer job interview. These are general questions, background and experience questions, and inquiries regarding marketing skills.
Getting to Know You
General questions help an interviewer get to know you a little better. These usually aren’t directly related to digital marketing, but they are a good opportunity for you to showcase your strengths.
Why Do You Want to Work Here?
Interviewers ask this question to find out if you did your company research and read the job description closely.
How to answer
Explain your career goals and describe how they fit with the company’s mission, values, and culture. Prepare a list of criteria that describe your expectations and explain how the company scores well.
What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?
Most people are uncomfortable talking about themselves and have trouble with this question. Interviewers are trying to see how you balance humility and confidence.
How to answer
LinkedIn recommends building your answer using this formula: strength + context + story. Highlight a strength that is listed in the job description, then provide a context and story that describes how you used that strength and what happened. When you address weaknesses, choose areas where you need to improve and use the formula: weakness + context + improvement measures. By describing the weakness, how you discovered it, and what you did about it, you are showing an interviewer that you are dedicated to improvement.
Why should we hire you?
Interviewers ask this to see if you understand the job description and can present evidence of how you used your skills to improve performance at past jobs.
How to answer
Go through the job description and pull out skills you possess. Use numbers when you can, like “My SEO increased website traffic by 50% and conversions by 30%.” Also, refer to your strengths and how they would benefit the company.
Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?
Companies use this question to find out what your long-term career goals are and decide whether or not they fit in with the company.
How to answer
Take the opportunity to talk about your planned career path and what you would like to accomplish in the future. If you can tie this into the company culture, so much the better.
Background and Experience Questions
These questions give you an opportunity to expand on the information in your resume and cover letter and highlight your strengths. You may also need to explain any holes in your resume.
What Digital Marketing Tools and Software Have You Used?
The interviewer is trying to get an idea of how well your background fits with the company’s needs.
How to answer
Before the interview, create a list of tools and software you have used. Pay particular attention to any mentioned in the job posting. If you don’t have experience with some of those, mention some tools you have used that do similar things. Maybe the job description says they are looking for someone who knows SEMRush, but you have used Moz which does similar things. Some employers expect to do on-the-job training, so be honest here.
What Do You Like Most and Least About Digital Marketing?
This is another question to find out about your planned career path.
How to answer
If you plan to specialize in a particular area of digital marketing, this is a good place to mention that. Also describe areas you don’t enjoy as much, but remember to end on a positive note.
What were your Biggest Successes and Failures and What Did You Learn from Them?
This is similar to the strengths and weaknesses question, but requires more specific examples. You can rely on the formula above to put together your answer. Describe your successes in quantifiable terms and talk about the lessons you learned in detail.
Describe a Situation Where You Had a Conflict with a Co-Worker and How You Handled it
This is a question about conflict resolution.
How to answer
This is another situation where a story would work. Give sufficient detail and don’t try to minimize the conflict. Give an example of how you successfully resolved an issue with a colleague.
What Do You Think Are the Most Important Qualities for a Digital Marketer?
This is another attempt to determine if you are a good fit for the company and this job.
How to answer
Turn to the job description again. The ad will tell you what the company thinks is most important. Before the interview, make a list of the qualities in the job description, but describe them in your own words and how they relate to you.
Skills Questions
These questions are specific to digital marketing. The interviewer is trying to find out how much you know about the field. Answer these questions based on your experience as Digital Marketer. If you are applying for your first digital marketing job, spend some time reviewing your course materials, paying closer attention to the areas the job description mentions. Here are a few common possibilities, but this is by no means an exclusive list. Again, follow the job description.
- Which do you think is more effective, inbound or outbound digital marketing?
- Describe a successful sales funnel you built.
- How do you approach search engine optimization?
- How do you know when a campaign is not successful?
- How do you address negative feedback regarding your company or client?
- Do you have experience with marketing automation?
- What social media platforms would you choose for our brand and why?
Learn the Skills to Become a Digital Marketer at Noble Desktop
Noble Desktop offers many digital marketing courses that teach skills to help you switch to a career in digital marketing. Small class sizes and expert instructors help you learn digital marketing in in-person or live online classes. Plus, you can take a course over again for free at any time during the following year.
Noble Desktop offers many bootcamps in digital marketing like Facebook Marketing, email marketing, Social Media Content Marketing: Blogs & Twitter, and Video Marketing: TikTok & YouTube. You can also choose the Digital Marketing Certificate or a Social Media Marketing Certificate course. Other Noble Desktop resources that can help prepare for a career in digital marketing include the digital marketing blog with valuable articles about social media marketing, SEO, and other essential tools for digital marketers.