February 2018

1. “Why do you love marketing?”

Or, “Which aspects of our business are you passionate about?” You want to hire someone who’s both qualified and has the desire to do the work. Otherwise, why would they work for you instead of the company next door?

Part of their answer will lie in their body language and enthusiasm. The other part will lie in how concrete their answer is. Get at the details by asking a follow-up question, like: “Let’s say you’re at home, kicking around, and doing something related to marketing. What is it that you’re doing?” Perhaps they’re reading their five favorite marketing sites, or analyzing traffic patterns of websites for fun, or writing in their personal blog, or optimizing their LinkedIn profile. Whatever it is, you want to be sure they’re deeply passionate about the subject matter you’d hire them for.

2. “We have a new product coming out in three months. What would you do to launch it?”

This’ll show you how well a candidate understands all the different tactics of inbound marketing and how to tie them together into a holistic plan. It’ll also give you insight into how creative they are and whether they can come up with new and interesting ways to do marketing.

3. What is the difference between marketing and selling?

Both large and small companies experience internal conflicts between the sales group and marketing group stemming from differing opinions about the role of marketing vs. the role of sales. Marketing groups tend to see sales groups as a delivery mechanism at the end of a marketing process. Sales groups tend to see marketing groups as providing a service that helps sales groups to sell more easily.

Both viewpoints depend upon perspective. If you’re in marketing, it may be difficult to perceive the complexity and multiple steps involved in selling. Similarly, those in sales are so focused on “making the numbers” that it’s difficult to appreciate the way that marketing has laid groundwork.

Regardless of which viewpoint is “correct,” the conflicts between marketing and sales groups can reduce a company’s productivity.

Take, for example, the generation of sales leads, a common marketing function. According to a recent study of 600 sales and marketing groups conducted by the research firm CSO Insights, less than a quarter of sales professionals believe that they’re getting fully qualified leads from their marketing group.

As with most organizational conflicts, a sense of mutual respect is the key to building better working relationships.

One of the benefits of this question is that it helps to assess whether the candidate possesses that fundamental sense of respect and will therefore be able to work well with your sales team. If the candidate is dismissive of the sales group (e.g., says something like “marketing drives sales”), he or she will probably increase rather than dampen any conflicts that exist between your sales and marketing groups. Ideally, you want a candidate who understands the contributions of both groups to the overall success of your company.

4. What is your largest responsibility in your current/last role?

The next questions can gauge how driven and motivated the candidate is. Every marketing leader wants to stack the team with passionate employees—try to get a feel for what kind of go-getter your candidate is.

“For admission, enquire here”

A Master’s in International Business is ideal for students who want to develop a global mind set and to understand different business management practices.

By studying a Bachelor’s in International Business, you will not only understand how the global economy works, but you will also know how to develop strategic plans for international operations.

But if your goal is to improve the performance of businesses competing in a rapidly changing global marketplace, a Master’s programme in international business will expose you to ideas that will help you face international challenges more successfully.

Jobs after master program in international business :

1. Management analyst/consultant

A management analyst or consultant helps companies or organisations solve any type of issue and provides advice on growing revenues and improving business performance. Mainly, a management consultant provides expertise knowledge and assists an organisation in developing the skills it needs to maximize growth.

The essential tasks of a management analyst or consultant are:

• identifying issues and analysing possible solutions for them;
• presenting findings and recommendations to clients;
• assisting clients in implementing the suggested solutions;
• analysing financial data, including revenues, expenditures, and employment reports.

2. Sales manager

A sales manager is responsible for coordinating a sales team and has to make sure the company reaches the sales target. Through effective planning and budgeting, the sales manager builds a strategic and effective sales plan and he/she is also responsible for promoting the products or services provided by the company.

Duties of a sales manager include:

• setting a clear sales quota and developing training programs for the sales team;
• monitoring and analysing the sales figures and performance;
• finding potential customers and looking for new business opportunities;
• using marketing strategies to make products/services popular amongst the consumers.

3. International trader

International traders are also known as commodities and securities traders and deal with advising corporate clients on various matters related to trade and investment opportunities. An international trade specialist makes a clear overview of clients’ financial abilities and suggests investments that would benefit them. Additionally, the trade specialist can also provide consultancy in terms of securing capital, real estate and international business strategies.International traders may be employed by investment firms, banks, government or work as freelance consultants.

4. Finance controller

 A finance controller manages everything that deals with financial reporting of a company, and this includes accounts, transactions, payroll, preparation of taxes. Finance controllers collaborate and communicate with all departments of a company and need to have a holistic understanding of the entire business.

Finance controllers will perform the following:

• creating and maintaining the company’s accounting system;
• collecting debts;
• processing and recording transactions;
• finding methods to improve financial reporting.

5. Business development manager

A business development manager combines strategic analysis with marketing and sales techniques to help a company grow and increase its revenues. Business development managers usually focus on establishing new partnerships and increasing sales from existing accounts.

“For admission, enquire here”

Studying takes you on a path towards acquiring hard skills – the specific technical skills you need to do your job effectively. While these are the skills you’ll list on your CV, today’s employers seek more than this. Increasing importance is being placed on soft skills – personal attributes that enable you to interact well with other people.

Here are the reasons why soft skills are more important than ever:

1. hard skills are useless without soft skills

In most jobs, technical skills alone are not enough to be truly effective. A salesperson with an unrivalled knowledge of their product and market will have little success if they don’t have the interpersonal skills needed to close deals and retain clients. A business manager needs to be able to listen to employees, have good speaking skills, and be able to think creatively. All careers require at least some soft skills to make the hard skills valuable.

2.  Soft Skills are Harder to Learn

While hard skills can be easily learned and mastered over a period of time, soft skills are much more difficult to develop. Since soft skills are linked to a person’s character, it takes a conscious effort, willingness, and commitment to self-development. While technical skills might get you noticed as a job candidate, soft skills get you promoted and lead to sustained long-term career success.

3 .  the future workplace will rely on soft skills

Automation and artificial intelligence will result in a greater proportion of jobs relying on soft skills. Thanks to cutting-edge technology, tasks that require hard skills are continuing to decline, making soft skills key differentiators in the workplace. As an example, look at this fascinating study by Deloitte Access Economics, which predicts that two-thirds of all jobs in Australia will rely on soft skills by 2030. This trend will inevitably be mirrored globally.

4. The Modern Workplace is Interpersonal

Current work environments value soft skills such as listening, collaborating, communicating, and problem solving. Strong soft skill proficiency in employees leads to a more productive, collaborative, and healthy work environment.

5. Customers Demand Soft Skills

No matter the company or industry, the modern market offers consumers an unlimited number of solutions to their problems. Most of the time, soft skill proficiency regarding customer service can provide a competitive advantage that ultimately leads to an organization’s success.

“For admission, enquire here”

Hiring a great marketer is more difficult than hiring a great engineer or a great salesperson.

Preparing yourself for a marketing interview requires a bit more work than most other positions. Millennials have found themselves emerged with the digital marketing world, so any job involving marketing requires some tenacity to stand out from the competition. Here are some tips to use when you’re preparing for your next marketing interview to help you land the job.

When hiring engineers, the college and work experience of the candidate usually applies directly to the job at hand. For example, if a candidate has a 3.9 GPA, an EE degree from Stanford, and has worked for 3 years at Microsoft, you pretty much know exactly who you’re hiring and why.

Hiring salespeople is more difficult, as I pointed out in my previous post, “How to Hire a Great Salesperson.” However, while there are different types of selling, there’s general agreement on the definition of “selling.” Nobody would confuse “selling,” for example, with “accounting” or “manufacturing.”

Here are three important questions for marketing jobs:-

1. What is the difference between marketing and selling?

Both large and small companies experience internal conflicts between the sales group and marketing group stemming from differing opinions about the role of marketing vs. the role of sales. Marketing groups tend to see sales groups as a delivery mechanism at the end of a marketing process. Sales groups tend to see marketing groups as providing a service that helps sales groups to sell more easily.

2. How would you contribute if you were temporarily assigned to our sales group?

Many companies do this type of cross-assignment as a way to build bonds between their sales and marketing groups. However, even if you’re not planning such an assignment, you should still ask this question because it takes the theoretical situation in the first question into the practical realm of the candidate’s career.

The worst possible answer is something like, “I’m sure I’d be good at selling, but such an assignment would not be the best use of my talents.” A response like this suggests that the candidate, if hired, will have difficulty creating marketing programs and deliverables that are useful to the sales team.

3. Tell me about your personal brand?

This is a bit of a trick question. On the surface, it provides an opening for the candidate to talk about his or her experience and identity and how they appear to the outside world.

However, you’re actually probing for something deeper: whether this candidate’s priority is 1) helping your marketing team build a stronger corporate brand or 2) building a personal brand to advance the candidate’s own career.

Ideally, you want a candidate who defines his or her personal brand in terms of service, working with a team, and helping a company be successful. A candidate who articulates a personal brand that’s independent of any corporate brand is problematic.

4. Tell me about a time when you owned the process of an email campaign from beginning to end.?

Look for an understanding of key email marketing concepts from subject line to creative to CTA’s to A/B testing to list management.

“Which tools do you use to report on the success of your email campaigns?”

Interview Questions for a Lead/Demand Generation Marketing Role

I always think of these nurture marketing and lead marketing roles as the test-takers of the team. They need to be able to change strategies on a dime, identify important metrics, and be on top of their game when measuring quality vs. quantity.

“For admission help, enquire here”