What could put a marketing candidate off during the interview process?

With competition for the top talent hot right now, it isn’t unusual to find marketing candidates with more than one offer on the table.

With this in mind, it is easy to make a candidate think twice about working for you or your company. If your interview questions are a little edgy, or an overly direct manner can put people off.

To avoid this, think about the topics you want to cover in interview and the manner in which the questions are couched. No one sticks purely to competency questions; (you don’t cover the full process if you do) and it is often this other line of questioning where you can trip up. It’s not usually the case that your questions aren’t valid, it is more about their presentation.

Let’s look at some examples which have been posed to candidates or marketing colleagues in the past; what they really meant to ask and how it could have been rephrased.

YOUR QUESTION: I HAVE EXTREMELY HIGH STANDARDS AND AM VERY DEMANDING OF MY STAFF. HOW WILL YOU COPE WITH THIS?

YOUR QUESTION: OUR MARKETING BUDGET FOR THE YEAR HAS JUST BEEN SLASHED AND WE NEED SOMEONE WHO CAN RUN CAMPAIGNS ON THE CHEAP

YOUR QUESTION: THE LAST PERSON WHO DID THIS JOB WASN’T SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T ABLE TO MANAGE THE WORKLOAD AND MANAGE PARALLEL CAMPAIGNS. WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY?

YOUR QUESTION: IN RESPONSE TO AN ANSWER WHY THE CANDIDATE IS LEAVING THEIR CURRENT ROLE: “THAT’S BULLS**T - WHY ARE YOU ACTUALLY LEAVING?“

(and yes, this was a question actually asked to a marketing colleague!)