Digital India by Digital India

April 19, 2017 DIGITAL INDIA #097 : 2017 DIGITAL MARKETING JOB INTERVIEW TIPS FROM JD

The 97th episode of Digital India Podcast on FIR Podcast Network is brought to you by staff and students of Web Marketing Academy

How to Prepare for an Ideal Digital Marketing Job Interview in 2017 (Resources Included)

Insights from the job description

I run an academy in Bangalore. We get requirements for digital marketing, social media marketing from organizations. Every week we send each requirements to our alumni/current students. Here is an example:

Job Description

The Digital Media Marketing will implement the company’s Social Media marketing. Administration includes content strategy, develop brand awareness, generate inbound traffic and cultivate leads and sales. The Social Media manager is a highly motivated individual with experience and a passion for designing and implementing the Company’s content strategy, creating relevant content, blogging, community participation and leadership.

So how to prepare for a job interview like this:

Understanding the Job description:

The job description can tell a lot about the job and you can get some insights from a JD. Take some time understanding the need. Let me break it down for you.

The Social Media manager is a motivated individual with experience and a passion for designing and implementing the Company’s content strategy, creating relevant content, blogging, community participation and leadership

What they look for:

Experience, and they expect you to prove that experience

Be prepared to show relevant experience, examples, statistics

How you solved some of the customer’s problem

Made some mistakes during the campaigns? Great you must have learned from the mistakes, keep them handy

How will you work under pressure? Had any experience during a crisis situation? Great and be ready to explain how you handled it

Creativity, basic designing skills, technical skills are part of your job in 2017

Do not apply for the job if you don’t have a passion for content

Content strategy includes: Writing blog post, Images/GIF’s, videos, animations, Infographics, ebooks, Ad copies, Facebook ad copies, descriptions and creative text

Be prepared to show some of the content you created and the results. If you don’t have those skills, this is the time to learn those skills. Good news! there are great apps today.

Resources: Canva, Quickapp, Adobe spark, Muse mage

Buffers Complete Guide to Content Calendar.Template,Tips and Tools

WMA’s ebook on Step by step guide to become a modern marketer

Motivated Individual: What they expect is for you to take initiatives. Take initiatives & instead of just giving ideas, give a detailed plan for executing those ideas. How to get things done. This is a great opportunity to become the go-to person in the organization.

Need some motivation? watch some of the GaryVee’s Videos:

2. Research the Company & Culture:

Any organization hiring you will want to know are you fit for their culture. After all you are going to be part of their culture. Understanding the company, culture that you are applying for will take you a long way. This JD is for ABC company.

Do your research. Look at their websites, social channels, blogs.

Here are few ideas:

Look at their website page load time, Usability/design improvements. Take a note

You can take a step forward and if you are going to handle their content and social media how would you go about? Prepare a detailed digital/social/content plan. During the interview you can give the plan

When you click on the newsletter, you can see the last newsletter published in Jan 2016. Before that they were publishing newsletter on a regular basis. You can ask them why they stopped?

You should know the importance of email marketing/lead generation through valuable content.

In the about us section you get a sense of the people, the team. Learn more about the team.

If you know the interviewer, do some research on their LinkedIn profile

Sample questions

Why do you want to work for our company?

Why do you like digital/social/content?

Where can you find the answers? Their about us section, blog, social media channels, events. Read the latest blog post, tweets, comments

3. Do you have the expertise and are you a good fit?

Companies like to know how well you know your subject and how your knowledge will help the company.

From the JD:

“Exhibits the ability to jump from the creative side of marketing to analytical side, able to prove why their ideas are sound. Displays in-depth knowledge and understanding of Social Media platforms, their respective participants (Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Google+Local, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest etc.) and how each platform in different scenarios ”

They expect you to be both “creative & analytically sound”

Be prepared

Numbers, reasonings, scenario based answers and case studies

What social media tools you use? Why, how often?

What metrics matters according to you and why?

Read this book: Analytical Marketer: How to Transform Your Marketing Organization:

Fast Company’s article: Three Questions I Ask Every Job Candidate To Test Their Soft Skills:

From the JD:

“Is a Team player with the confidence to take the lead and guide other employees when necessary. (ie: content development, creation and editing of content, and online reputation management)”

Questions:

Are you a good team player?

Have you trained your team in the past? In what areas have you trained them? Do you have a reference.

Answers:

Team player: Do you have any awards, recognitions from your organization?

Have some comments for your blog post, videos. Get some screen shot. If you are a #digitalmarketer and don’t have a blog, video or no presence in social media channels, You are NOT a good fit. These are basics

Training: Have you trained anyone under your guidance. An example: you hired an intern who has no idea about video, you trained him/her and now he/she is a pro. Give that example backed with stats and analytics. You can show that video to them

From the JD:

“ Makes evident good technical understanding and can pick up new tools ”

In 2017, you have to be technical if not it’s time to pick up some technical skills.

SEO is getting technical, learn how to use AMP in your website

Do you know how to integrate custom conversion tracking to a website

A/B testing, custom landing page for ads, Google tag manager are all needed for a digital marketer.

Have resources in this ebook, Download it Now: Step by step guide to become a modern marketer

Resources:

Google AMP project

Google Tag Manager

Google Conversion Tracking

KissMetrics Guide to Landing pages