Consumer packaged goods interview questions

Suggested format to respond to an interview question:

I.                     Answer the question asked.

Listen and ask clarifying questions

Confirm that you are answering the question

II.                   Describe the situation

III.                  Describe what steps were taken.  Be specific about your role (where you made a difference)

IV.                Relate what the result was.  When at all possible, quantify the results

Typical Marketing Interview Questions

The most frequently asked questions …

What are your goals (short, medium and long term)?  How does our firm fit within these goals?

Why did you choose to attend XYZ school?  What are your concentrations?  Why did you choose them?  What have you learned so far?

Why are you interested in marketing?  What do you know about marketing?  How are you currently preparing for a career in marketing?  How do you know you will excel at it?

Why are you interested in our organization?  What do you know about our organization?

What would you contribute to our organization?  What unique skills and experiences can you bring to us?  Why should we hire you?

What personal or professional qualities are you proudest of?  How have they helped you achieve your goals?

Discuss your career progress to date?  How do you feel about it?

In your most recent position, what were your most significant accomplishments?  What skills did you employ to arrive at those goals?

Describe one or two of your most important personal accomplishments?  Discuss the hurdles that made them challenging?

How do your co-workers describe you?  What about members of your school teams?  What about your friends?

How would you add to the diversity of our organization?

Communication and persuasion

Discuss examples of situations when you had to persuade a person of a different point of view to agree with you on an issue.

What are some of the best ideas you ever sold to a superior or peer?  What were your approaches?

Describe a time when you had to use several approaches because your initial approach failed to persuade others.

Describe your most satisfying experience in attempting to gain upper management’s support of an idea or proposal.  What was the situation and how did it turn out?

What oral presentations have you made?  Which were the most successful and why?

Have you ever done any public speaking?  Tell me about one of these events.

Give me an example of when you made a presentation to an uninterested or hostile audience.

What are examples of the most difficult writing assignments you’ve ever had?  Why?

Describe a time when you had to convince someone, who didn’t directly report to you, to do something they didn’t want to do.

Please compare your verbal communication skills to your writing skills.  Which skill has most strongly enhanced your career progress and why?  What are specific strengths and weaknesses of your verbal and written skills?

Decision-making

What’s the worst professional decision you have ever made?  What were the consequences?  What did you learn from it?

What types of decisions are easy for you to make and what types are difficult?

What was the most difficult professional decision you have ever made and why?  What were the consequences?

Describe a situation in which you had to make a very unpopular decision and live with the results.

Describe a situation in which you had to make an important decision without having all the information at hand.

Give me an example of a good decision you have made recently.  What alternatives did you consider?  Why was it a good decision?

Integrity

Describe an ethical dilemma which you had to face during your career.  How did you resolve the issue?

Describe your character.

Have you ever been involved in a situation in which a co-worker showed dishonesty on the job?  If so, how did you deal with that situation?

Sometimes strict company rules make it very difficult to get our work done.  Can you think of a time when you had to bend a rule to get your work done more efficiently?

Have you ever been asked to do something that you didn’t think was right?  What did you do?

Have you ever been in a meeting when your boss said something to make him/her or you “look good” and you thought the statement was inaccurate?  What did you do?

The Organization

What are our brands? (or services, etc.)

What have you learned about our organization?

What is the worst thing you have heard about our organization?

What’s the most important thing you would look for in an employer?

How did you structure your research about our organization?

What was your first impression about our company?

What did you think about our corporate presentation?

Creativity

What ideas have you developed that were creative or innovative?

Sell me this pen (or plant, pencil, chair, whatever).

Describe a situation in which you developed a unique and resourceful solution to a difficult problem.

In your last job what did you do differently from your predecessors and why?

How important is creativity in your personal life?  How do you express this?

Did you express any new ideas to your boss in the last 6 months of work?  What were these ideas and how did your boss respond to them?

Analytical thinking

Discuss a project which best demonstrates your analytical thinking skills.

Which type of thinking is more important in marketing – analytical or creative thinking?

Describe a situation in which you identified key problems early on in a project and were able to avert a crisis.

Walk me through a situation in which you had to research and analyze the results for one of your projects.

We’ve all had occasions when we were asked for ideas in solving work issues in which we didn’t have much knowledge or experience.  What have you done when this has happened?

Tell me about a time when you had to analyze or interpret numerical or financial information.

What information did you use in choosing your MBA program?  How did you decide to eventually go to this program?

“Marketing” Questions

What is the best commercial you’ve seen in the last few months and why?  Do you believe that it is effective?

Briefly describe a marketing plan for yourself.

Name some of the most recent new products launched by a consumer products company in the last 6 months?  Which of these impressed you and why?  Do you believe that it will be successful in the marketplace?

Let’s pretend that today is your first day at work as a brand manager on Brand X.  What are the ten most important questions you would ask to find out most about the brand?

If you had your choice among all the brands/products in the United States, which would you want to market and why?  Which would you not want to market?

How would you describe the brand personality of Brand X?  Of Brand Y?

And finally some general questions …

What do you do in your free time?

What has been the most useful criticism you have ever received?

Describe the biggest crisis in your life or in your career.

What is your biggest disappointment in your life?

What is your greatest weakness?

What motivates you best?

What kind of boss gets the best work out of you?

Do you feel your grades at school accurately reflect your abilities?

How well do you take criticism?  What’s the most painful criticism you have ever received?

Tell me about your most spectacular failure.

Tell me about some times when you weren’t pleased with your performance.

What are the highest-pressure situations you have been under in recent years?  How did you cope with them?

Leadership

Describe your leadership style?

Describe a situation in which you had a conflict with another person in a corporate or school setting and how you resolved it.

Everyone has some weaknesses with his/her leadership style.  What are your?  What have you done to overcome them?

Discuss some situations in which you successfully supervised a diverse group of people towards a difficult goal.  What skills did you employ in supervising them?  What did you learn?

How would your subordinates describe you as a leader?  How would they describe your weaknesses?

Describe your leadership style.  Do you believe in giving others a free rein or do you prefer close supervision?

Describe a situation in which you had to lead a group towards a goal despite difficult opposition from others.

Describe a situation in which you had to provide negative feedback to a co-worker or team member.

Have you held leadership roles in extracurricular activities?  How did you lead?  Give me an example.

All of us have been in situations where we assigned work to other people and they didn’t follow through.  Can you tell me about some of those?  Why did it happen?  What did you learn from that experience?

We’ve all tried different ways of showing consideration for others.  In what ways have you shown consideration?  Give me an example.

When have you inspired someone to work hard to do a better job?  How did you do that?

Teamwork

Are you a team leader or follower?  Give me examples of your teamwork style.

Discuss examples of how you effectively dealt with difficult individuals in your workplace.

Discuss an incident at work where you were angry at someone or at a situation.  How did you handle it?

Describe a situation in which you were able to build team spirit during a time of low morale.

When making decisions, how much consideration do you give to the needs/feelings of team members?  Give examples.

Describe a time when you intervened to get your team back on track because they couldn’t resolve or decide on an issue.

Describe some situations in which you wished you’d acted differently with someone in your work group.  What happened?

Have you ever had difficulty in getting along with co-workers?  How did you handle the situation?

Tell me about some of the toughest groups with which you’ve had to work.  What made the group tough?  What did you do?

Have you ever been in a group with an unproductive person?  How did you handle the situation?

Smart questions to ask of the interviewer

What is the one thing you would change about the company you work for today?

What is your biggest disappointment with this company?

What distinguishes your organization from the other packaged goods companies?

Is your organization growing in just a few areas or just a few select categories?

What would you do differently if you were going through the recruitment process out of school again?

Among your company’s marketing managers, what is the balance between internally developed and outside hires?

In two years with a good track record, where do you see me in the company?

What types of people do well here?  Which don’t?

Describe the training process and the skills the company wants every manager to have.  Is there a process in place to ensure that those skills are taught?  How often is that process reviewed?

What unexpected things have happened to you here at this company?

Why did you decide to join this company?  Have your expectations been met?  Why or why not?

Tell me about a typical day here.

What is the most exciting thing about your job?