Interview Questions / Marketing Operations - Campaign Manager level positions

[Anonymous]

Hi There-
I'm doing a lot of interviews right now for a marketing ops/ campaign manager position. I feel like I could be asking better questions. What are some questions you ask while interview for this type of position? Or if you've recently gotten a new job in this field, what were some of the questions asked of you.

[Anonymous]

For fresh graduates, I like to explain the concept of root cause analysis and then probe for examples where they've resolved issues this way.  

[Anonymous]

Ask them "Other than work, what is something you're passionate about?" It doesn't matter what they say - just watch their body language as they talk about something they love. Then as you ask them what they think about work-related topics you may have a better gauge of where their interests truly lie.

[Michelle_Tizian]

Hi Adam,

I got asked the following questions below by different companies when I was just starting out. 

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
What is your career goal?
What tool do you use for project management or for managing your time. How do you determine what tasks need to be handled first?
Why are you interested in this position and why this company?
Why should we hire you? 

[Anonymous]

- If you have a lot of different projects and tasks coming your way, how do you go about prioritizing?
- Strengths/ Weaknesses?
- Do you prefer to collarborate and work in a team environment or do you work best alone?
- What would your ideal boss be like?

[Anonymous]

Oh, and who can forget the tried-and-true: What are your 3 biggest flaws?

I was reading an interview with SFDC COO George Hu and he had 2 great ones I'll be using in the future:

“I also spend a lot of time forcing people to prioritize things. I’ll ask people what they think are the most important traits to be successful in the role they’re interviewing for, and then prioritize them for me. And I’ll ask them why they prioritize them that way.”

"How would you describe who you are, in the core of your DNA, in one word?"

[Anonymous]

Justin's answer's pretty spot on. Unfortuantely we're in Europe, where the marketing automation talent base is much smaller. And we're in a rather small city in Holland. So I won't be able to get anyone with any marketing ops experience, instead I will get someone with enthusiasm & youth who's ready to learn about Online Marketing. So A/B testing questions are much over their head. 

I need more, "What things do you not like to do?" type questions as those will really help me determine if this fresh out of college recruit is a good fit for us.

[Anonymous]

I recently got a new job and asked several different questions about:

- A/B Testing (in both emails and nurturing campaigns)
- List loads and taking in new contacts after tradeshows
- If any experience with admin tasks & Insight
- HTML experience
- Landing page experience

Hope that helps!

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

We just went through the process of hiring someone here who, as part of their job description, will have similar responsibilities. My 3 biggest pieces of blanket advice are:

1. Never ask a question that gives away the answer.
2. Follow open ended questions with pointed, direct questions about the details of the answer they just gave.
3. As much as you can, decipher what they know by asking them what they've done. (Applied knowledge.) And contrary to what many will tell you, this SHOULDN'T be limited to work experience. Everyone has unlocked career potential.

A lot of our questions aren't necessarily direct, but rather reveal personality traits and thought processes that will either align or go against the task-type they'll be doing every day. A smattering of some favorites that should apply to the position above:

• What things do you not like to do?
• In your own words, what’s the difference between strategic & tactical planning? Follow-up: Which are you better at and why?
• Describe a time when you developed a creative solution to a problem.
• Tell me how you typically schedule your work week.
• What new technologies are available that you would like to use in your career and why?
• Describe a time when you had to communicate something unpleasant to a supervisor.

I hope the sorts of insights you'd get from these questions are apparent. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I'd also ask questions about their understanding of

• SEM and SEO
• social media
• A/B testing
• Funnel metrics, conversions and addressing leaky funnel issues

[Anonymous]

Hi Adam,

As the person heading up Marketing Operations globally within my company I'd want to talk about the big stuff.

What's their understanding and experience of;

- Managing database health
- Sender reputation management
- Lead scoring
- Multi-touch nurturing campaigns
- Reporting
- Lead life cycle managment
- CRM integration

Best of luck!

Victoria

[Anonymous]

I like those difficult business case questions, though those seem more geared to a medior Marketing manager than for a junior Campaign managers. Great link.

[Anonymous]

Hi Adam

I got asked a while back in an interview "what emails do you receive from other companies - what companies and what do you like about them?

This is also a good website...

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34000/7-Real-Marketing-Interview-Questions-From-HubSpot-s-CMO.aspx

Hope that helps!

Hannah