Behavioral marketing interview questions are one of the most popular and common job interview methodologies businesses consider when evaluating how to interview marketers today.
The best behavioral interview questions ask a candidate to describe a scenario they’ve encountered in the past and how they managed an often challenging situation. The idea is that if you understand how a candidate has approached challenges in the past, you get an idea of how they’ll perform when faced with similar responsibilities and obstacles in the future. It also creates a marketing interview environment that encourages the candidate to do the majority of talking. That’s valuable when you’re trying to figure out how to hire great marketing talent.
The behavioral method isn’t the only answer for how to interview marketers, especially when it comes to interviewing marketing executives. It’s a valuable part of an in-depth interviewing process that must be masterfully executed to quickly and efficiently identify top marketing talent for your organization.
If you’re preparing for a behavioral marketing interview, you should make sure you’re asking pointed marketing interview questions that lead to valuable insights on how your marketing candidate might act once they join your business. To begin with, consider what situations are likely to be most prominent given the role and your workplace environment, then choose the questions most relevant to the job. If the role is more senior, consider searching for interview questions for a digital marketing manager. The more specific your questions are, the more prepared you are during your interview.
Tip: If there are multiple interviewers involved, it’s crucial to keep the interviewing process well organized. Consider using an interview feedback form to ensure you are evaluating your candidates as thoroughly as possible. Download a simple interview evaluation form now!
A well-prepared candidate will approach behavioral interview questions with the STAR method methodically explaining their Situation, Task, Actions, and Results. This should provide enough context and information for you to understand how the candidate behaves. But sometimes candidates don’t come in perfectly prepared, or they give a good answer but don’t provide the information you were looking for. If you need more information to evaluate a candidate’s ability to effectively address business challenges, make sure to position your questions in such a way that will prompt your candidate to recall specific scenarios and adequately tell their story. Below are the best behavioral interview questions for marketers you might find helpful.
29 Behavioral Interview Questions to Ask Your Next Marketing Candidate
- Marketing is changing faster than ever–what have you done to make sure you haven’t fallen behind?
- Talk about a time you were put under an enormous amount of pressure and what you did to remain effective.
- Give me an example of how you’ve approached setting your own goals in the past.
- Describe a time when your team or company was undergoing some change. How did that impact you, and how did you adapt?
- What’s an example of a marketing-related goal you achieved, and what steps were involved with your accomplishment?
- How about a time when you fell short of a goal? What happened, and how did you cope with failure?
- Tell me about a time you were on a tight deadline to complete a campaign or project.
- How have you managed a difficult situation with an agency partner or other important vendor?
- What do you do when a supervisor assigns work or strategy to you that you think is suboptimal or counterproductive?
- Talk about a time when you had to work closely with someone whose personality was very different from yours.
- Describe a time when you struggled to build a relationship with someone important. How did you eventually overcome that?
- Tell me about a time you needed to get information from someone who wasn’t very responsive. What did you do?
- Describe a time when it was especially important to make a good impression on a client. How did you go about doing so?
- Give me an example of a time when you did not meet a client’s expectations. What happened, and how did you attempt to rectify the situation?
- Share a time when you made a big mistake and how you handled it.
- Talk about a time you took a marketing risk.
- Marketing often needs buy-in and cooperation from other departments like IT or Sales. How have you collaborated with other departments in the past?
- Tell me about a situation where you worked as a part of a team to execute a mission-critical marketing project and the role you played.
- Marketers have a lot of responsibilities and expectations put on them–how do you prioritize when you have multiple demands on your plate?
- How have you handled getting negative feedback on your work from a peer, client, or supervisor in the past?
- Tell me about a time you had to start a new marketing project or an initiative without a lot of data or experience to develop a strategy with.
- Have you ever had to market a product or brand you weren’t passionate about?
- What was an instance where you chose to put off making an important decision, and why?
- How have you mediated differences in opinion or strategy among your peers, managers, or direct reports?
- Tell me about a major change you made to an old marketing process or strategy and the effects it had.
- Talk about your process for allocating budget and determining where to invest your resources.
- Talk about a time when you had to choose an expensive and important new technology or vendor for your marketing team.
- Describe a situation at work that was stressful for a long period of time, and how you handled it.
- What was a time you combined creativity and analytical thought to overcome a problem?
Bonus Tip: Watch Your Time
If you have a limited interview time, you need to keep in mind that you might not be able to ask as many questions as you expect. Choose your questions wisely, and make them count!
