Marketing Interview Questions & Answers

Interview was very informal and did not go by a structured set of questions. Interviewer was more interested in asking curve ball competency questions.
After interview was asked to do a simple maths test and then a personality questionnaire

Tell me about a time when you think you underperformed in a task and what you did after.

If applying for an analytical role, be prepared to give indepth details of previous quantitative projects you have done and how you did them.

There was no assessment centre.

Interview process was split into two interviews. First was a one to one with the training/personnel manager, second interview was with two other managers. I was asked generic interview questions about strengths/weaknesses. What area do I think I need most improvement on? How previous employers would describe me. How my friends would describe me. Both time we went through my CV and I was asked to talk about different points/aspects. What I enjoyed about what I had done. Then I was asked what I would expect from employers. Which personalities did I work best with. Time management questions e.g. if I had 12 hours of work to do in a 12 hour day what would I do?
The 2nd interview was concluded with an Excel test and a Literacy test. Each taking half an hour.

Questions about how others perceived me were the most difficult. In previous interviews feedback suggested that I did not let enough of my own personality into my answers. So I struggled to find a balance between giving answered that reflected well on me and being more myself.

Both times the interviewers said that the interview was informal. So there is a less stressful atmosphere.I would suggest researching the company as in the second interview they asked how I would describe the company to others and what my initial impressions were.

Excel Test: Checking Data, Data Entry, Analysis

Literacy Test: Grammar, Spelling, Writing, E-mail, Tone of voice between co-workers and clients

I had an initial telephone interview, which was with their recruitment team and lasted about 15 mins and was just about my experience and CV. Then I was invited to an interview in one of their centres. It was two interviewees, with basic questions about my experience and also scenario based questions like what I would do if someone complained of a colleague being racist or what I would do if the director was away and the teams performance started slipping. I also had to do a role play selling a gym membership, which they email information about previous to your interview. They then give you feedback and then you repeat the role play. Be sure to take their feedback on board for the second role play. Then I was just asked to chat with some children and they watched from a distance- this was the nicest part. Overall lasted about two hours. Was called the next day to be told I was through to the assessment centre round.

The role play was the most nerve racking

Also the question about the performance of the team slipping whilst the director is on holiday and how I would combat it

Definitely do you research and prepare because you need to be able to sell the product assertively in the role plays. Put across your assertive manner and confidence because that is what they are looking for, you need to show you also love the product. I'd say this is more a marketing role than teaching so be sure you know this before going in.

Again I was sent an email prior to the assessment day saying I had to prepare a presentation about marketing the explore product , and a role play with a primary school teacher who is interested in partnering with her school. This was done with two people watching. There was also another interview, one to one and maths and English tests which was pretty easy. There was then a lunch at Zizzi's in which they were definitely still assessing us! Finally there was a group session, one where we had to put items in priority from a shipwreck and where we all put words into a hat and had to talk about it for a minute.

We we invited to a graduate assessment day and were given a week to make a presentation on direct marketing of a particular shop. We were also told to prepare for a test, a group activity and an interview. The presentation was in front of all the candidates and staff. The test was mostly numerical based, which I found surprising. I had prepared mostly for verbal reasoning, and didn't expect about 90% of the test to be on maths for an admin/ marketing job. There was no group activity in the end and then there was an interview which was really short and informal, I asked them more questions than they asked me.

The 'name your strengths and weaknesses one' is the one I always dread.

Make sure you spend an equal amount of time preparing the presentation, revising tests and preparing interview techniques. I was so worried about the first two and it was the interview I ended up failing, though I thought it went well at the time because it was quite casual.

Test, presentation, interview

I had a Skype interview with an employee who had worked in the same position I was applying for. Most of the interview was spent on explaining what the position would entail, what sort of experience I'd had with these aspects (e.g. Sales and Finance)and what my hopes were of the job. He asked me about my experience and interests, and what type of career path I envisioned for myself, and how this position would contribute to that. He was very well prepared, very clear with his information, and very friendly with his questions.

The most difficult question for me was what I imagined the Sales aspect of the job would entail. He admitted that the job opening wasn't very specific about the tasks you would be taking on, but I hadn't had any relevant experience in Sales, and had difficulty imagining how I'd tackle that part of the job.

Seeing as the actual job opening doesn't give too much information, I'd spent some time researching the company as well as looking at other job openings with a similar job title so see what tasks you'd be expected to take on. I personally didn't feel the job was for me after the interview, because I didn't expect how big a part Sales and Finance would be of the job, but I was grateful the interview did give me a clear picture of the job. I'd say to make a list of exactly what you want from a job, where you see this job taking you in terms of your ideal career, and what tasks you wouldn't see yourself doing. A list of strengths and weaknesses is also essential.

So far I've only had a Skype interview as I live abroad for the moment.

My initial video interview was recorded by myself to random questions accumulated by the computer. there was not a graduate recruitment team on the other side of the camera, rather they reviewed the video interview after it was submitted. The video interview lasted around 20 minutes and asked about previous work experience and your suitable to their competency skills as outlined on the job specification.

After this, I was invited to an assessment centre to complete various tasks. The day was 5 hours long and consisted of individual interviews, group work, presentation and a buddy system. This appeared to be the overall format for all the graduate assessment days Morrisons ran. On the day we had to perform a task to choose between two new products to be implemented, deciding which one to run with based on budget, profit, losses and Morrisons ethics and values. This was presented to the graduate recruitment team through a Pechi Kuca format of PowerPoint. where slides last for 20 seconds and then switch, this although sounded easy was probably the most challenging part of the day.

In addition, the individual face to face interview asked about previous work experience and degree qualifications in relation to key competencies such as teamwork, communication skills, ethical practice, literacy and numeracy, marketing and events experience. This was followed by questions which referred to different scenarios you may be in as an employer and how you would go about challenging these, Overall the interview was fairly relaxed in its format.

One question was to test how well you met the criteria of marketing and Morrisons and stated describe yourself in 10 nouns.

You must be confident, professional and meet there ethos. Do alto of research about the company before you go because this is one of the main standards they mark you against. Also be very confident in using complicated language and presentation. You need to act professional like you would in a meeting with seniors. Furthermore, always use he star technique of situation, task, action and result to show your competency to their chosen interview skills. This really helps you structure you answers and allows the interviewer to easily mark you against their criteria. The easier you make it for them the more likely they are to like you and most of all understand what you could bring to the company. Furthermore, body language in communication style is important. Make sure you dress smart for the interview, blazer and pencil skirt or a suit for boys. Smile, be confident but not too relaxed. This is something I got marked down for and I know others on the day would have been too. It is really important to stay professional throughout the whole interview process and day. In doing so you will be able to give off a good impression. Although, I wouldn't go overboard as the graduate recruitment team would probably see this as false impressions and behaviour, just act very outgoing, confident and interested in Morrisons.

As described above: We were split into four groups of three where we worked for most of the day planning our presentation on the subject of which product to introduce into Morrisons stores.

Uploaded my cv and application. After few days, I got the invitation to the test. After 2 days, I got the email told me that I failed the test. I still have absolutely no idea why I failed. The test includes almost 60 questions in a hour. Except technical jobs, other job applicants all got the same test.

A drawer has 10 red socks, 10 black socks. In dark, how many socks A should get out the drawer to make sure A will get the right pair of socks?

I don't actually have any practical advice since the questions in the test are quite tricky. some of them includes math calculation(but you can't use calculator) and some logic questions, like the socks one(the right answer is 3).

Quite empty and quiet but big company

I was contacted by a member of the graduate recruitment team who left me a message to arrange a time for the interview. When I called back she conducted the interview then rather than arranging another time so be prepared for this. When calling back I was not given a direct line to contact the person so had to go through the switchboard and be transferred several times before someone was able to put me through to the right place.
The interview lasted about 15-20 minutes and she started by explaining a bit more about the role and then asked some questions about the company and about the specific role. Then some competency questions about how I have demonstrated certain skills that they value at ovo.
Finally she finished with some more general questions eg. What's the most adventurous thing you've ever done and why?
Following this she told me that I would hear back from her within a week but it ended up taking about 3 weeks to hear anything back and I hadn't reached the assessment centre unfortunately.

Explain how you demonstrate the characteristics that we value eg bright, intuitive etc. she named about 5 traits and I panicked and started to answer and then forgot what all the characteristics were that she mentioned so didn't give a very relevant answer.

Read up on the role and how you'd be suited for it. Read up on the company and their values and think how you can demonstrate these.

N/a

I was received by two women who did say their names, but not their function.
One mainly asked the questions and the other took notes, although the other also had some clarifying questions. We had a small chat at the beginning and soon we moved on to discuss my CV.
What they wanted me to do was to describe my education. Since I'm not from the UK I couldn't talk about A levels or anything, so I basically started at the age of 4 explaining what I had done. They would ask me things about what modules I liked in high school, and why.

Because I have done lots of internships and projects, they wondered if I had any gap years and when I said no, they wondered how I combined it all. They were also interested in my Bachelor dissertation, what topic it was on and what the company did with my advice.

They asked me what I look for in a company, and where I would see myself in 5, 10 and 20 years from now. They also wanted to know what brands I favour and why and which I dislike. The same was asked about people/ leaders.

They asked me what kind of job I'm looking for and why I like marketing. They also wanted to know how I feel about moving to other countries.

The phone interview lasted for about 20 minutes and the face to face for about an hour.

Bot interviews so far were really nice, everyone was very kind to me and made me feel very comfortable.

I think this depends on how much you know yourself and your wishes and if you want to please the recruiter by giving perfect answers.
For me personally I though the questions about where do you see yourself in 5, 10 and 20 years. Can you say you see yourself in another profession? I want to do a PhD. in the future, which means I will possibly need to quit my Job. But I chose to tell them that I aspire a academic career and that I for now would like to experience how it is to work for a big company. I believe honesty in these questions is most important. If you want to make an impression anyway ;)

Practical advise is to not over prepare. I even went unprepared! Before I practiced questions and things I wanted to say, only to sound like a robot during my interview! Now I was completely relaxed, not stressing about what I was SUPPOSED to say, but really having a conversation rather than answering questions perfectly. I felt like I was more in the moment, paying more attention to what the women were saying and also enjoying it more, making me smile and look like a nice and confident candidate. They asked me what I knew about the company though, couldn't really answer that one, but I just turned it around and said thats why I'm here, to learn more about you.

No Tasks.

The initial stage was a phone interview that lasted about 30 minutes with a member of Ochre House - the company responsible for the recruitment for Kimberly Clark (KC). The phone interview was really relaxed and was competency based. At the end we went through availability for the assessment centre which would be the following week.

Questions were generally easy and straightforward. I was asked, "What are your 3 main strengths?", "Describe a time when you had to deal with a difficult team member and how did you adapt to this?" and finally, "What makes you a suitable candidate for the Kimberly Clark graduate scheme?"

After my case study preparation I kind of had an inkling i wouldn't be offered the job. But i would advise anyone applying to be good with numbers (my weakness), research KC's core values, at the assessment centre really speak out and don't let others take control. Ensure everyone in your group is involved. I'd also say you need to be very confident and prepared for a long, intense day. I did loads of research on the company but to be honest, most of it wasn't required on the day. It was more about your skills.

The assessment centre was intense. We were put up in a hotel for the previous night and all expenses were paid for. The day began quite early, about 8.30am and we first had an icebreaker task. There was about 12 other candidates and around 20 members of staff from KC in the room which made it extra daunting. We had to describe ourself as a brand and say why we would be that brand. After we were split into groups. The first task was to prepare for a case study interview later on in the afternoon. We worked in silence for an hour and the case study was about launching a new product in Boots. After, we had the group presentation which was to make an advert for a KC product. This part was quite enjoyable, but as to be expected there were some people who were quite overbearing and took control. We had to present to the KC staff and after answer some questions. There was also a networking lunch where we got the chance to speak to some graduates currently on the scheme and other members of staff. Everyone was really nice and relaxed. The first task after lunch was the case study presentation. This was the scariest and most intense part of the day. I presented alone to two members of the sales team, and it was a role play where they were acting as members of the buying team from Boots. They really got into it and picked holes in my presentation and threw out random numbers to throw me off. It was really intense, but a glimpse of how buyers in the industry could be. The final part of the day was an interview with a member of HR, Marketing and Sales. I was asked 5 questions based on KC's core values and then asked about my CV. At the end of the day we were given a goody-bag which was a nice touch.