Marketing Happy Hour - Navigating the Interview Process (for Job Seekers AND Hiring Managers) | Marketing Happy Hour Co-Hosts Cassie Tucker + Erica Spitzley

Starting point is 00:00:00 you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode. This episode is brought to you in

Starting point is 00:00:53 partnership with Creative People. Creative People offers a human-first approach to the recruiting process for both brands and talent to help build best-in-class product, design, and marketing teams for the world's most disruptive startups. If you're looking for an excellent partner to assist you in searching for and hiring your next team member, head to creativepeople.com to get started. Don't forget to tell them you? Hey, I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm excited that we're chatting through this topic today, navigating the interview process and what to do during and after. But first I want to ask you what's in your glass because we have to know it's marketing happy hour after all. Yeah, I have once again,

Starting point is 00:01:45 I think I had this a few weeks ago or I had a variety of this brand, but I have a, my muse passion, which is quite delicious and refreshing. It is hot in Florida, so that's much needed. And I have water. Um, so as always double fisting, what about you, Erica? Um, I love it. I always have water on my desk, but I never talk about it in the episodes. But I actually just have this chai from Chai Guys. My friend Amy came to visit like a few weeks ago and she's been on the podcast. She's a photographer and you're familiar with her too. She took our cover photo for marketing happy hour, but she came to visit and she brought this chai guys, masala chai for me to try. Cause she was like, it's so good. You have to try it. And it is really delicious. I be an advocate for that. I think it's based in like London or something, this company.

Starting point is 00:02:42 So, so interesting. I love trying new things. And she also, it's funny, her brother lives in Canada and I like mentioned how I love ketchup chips and she had her brother like send a bunch of ketchup chips my way. So thoughtful and also amazing because I will eat those all day, every day. So, oh my gosh, I still need to try those so bad. I think about them probably on a monthly basis. I think about the fact that I need to try Lay's ketchup chips, which is weird, but I do. That's so funny. Shout out to Lay's. Please send us ketchup chips. We're not your target market with those because we don't live in Canada, but like, we'll talk about you all day long. We have Canadian listeners. They might want to have some ketchup chips.

Starting point is 00:03:31 We can have a what's in your bowl segment instead next time. And it'll be Lays. So we'll, we'll, we'll make this happen. We'll try to make this happen at least. So Lays, we're coming from you. Stay tuned for an email from us. Amazing. I love it. Okay. Well, I also wanted to quickly, before we jump into the like meat of the episode here, I wanted to talk about our upcoming event in New York. This is the first time that we're actually sharing about it. It will be June 27th from 6 to 9 p.m. over in Flatiron area. And there's limited spots available. So we'll have a link to sign up for our waitlist for tickets.

Starting point is 00:04:16 It's completely free. And it'll just be an encouraging evening of networking, learning, and connecting with some panelists who have been on the marketing happy hour podcast already. So that'll be to be announced soon. Um, but wanted to give our listeners a little insight to what's coming up for us. Yes, yes, definitely sign up for the wait list. It's in the show notes. Um, and as Erica said, spots are limited. So once those spots do open, I think it's going to be kind of like a first come first serve basis situation.

Starting point is 00:04:48 So keep your eyes peeled to your email for those tickets to open up. It'll be free too. So we would love to meet you in person. Okay. So the top of the episode, Erica mentioned our topic for today, and we are discussing interviewing and interviewing. I know is it's a scary subject. It's a scary thing to step into, but it doesn't have to be.

Starting point is 00:05:09 And so we want to give you the tools, the tricks for stepping into a new job interview. And the cool thing about this is, you know, we have a lot of leaders and managers listening in here as well. And so we're going to touch on tips for the hiring managers also. So not only as a career person or someone seeking a job, I should say, you'll get something out of this, but also the hiring managers. So we'll talk about the process, what kind of questions to ask, how to present yourself, frustrations, et cetera. And so I'm excited to dive in. Yes. Oh my gosh. And the other thing is I have wanted to

Starting point is 00:05:47 do an episode like this for a long time because we have a lot of, you know, friends or peers in the industry that reach out to us and ask all the time about like, Hey, they asked me this in my interview or they asked me to prepare this assignment for the rest of my interview process and what should I do and all of that. So we'll get into all of that today. I wanted to make sure that we have a resource out there that can get everyone on both sides, talent, hiring manager on the same page to make interviewing and negotiating and accepting offers, just the whole hiring process run really smoothly. And I think we have some really good tips in today's episode. So Cassie, let's kick it off with you. What are your top tips for talent in the interviewing process

Starting point is 00:06:32 in real life and over Zoom? Yeah. So here's the deal. Like if you have pursued a job recently, chances are you've had maybe some in real life interviews, but a lot of them are going to happen over zoom. And so a lot of these tips are going to apply to both, uh, in real life interviews, as well as zoom. Um, and I'm going to kind of run through these tips pretty quickly, but there's a lot. And so make sure you have your notebook out and take some notes. Uh, but first things first is just make sure you have done your research on the company and the role ahead of time. Make sure you take a thorough look at that job description. You know exactly what this company is looking for and kind of anticipate

Starting point is 00:07:14 the needs of the company as this role pertains to that. And so that's the first thing. I've seen a lot of people go into interviews just not knowing much about the brand, about the person interviewing them, the leaders of the company, kind of the history of the company as well. And so make sure you kind of take some time to dig into that a little bit and LinkedIn and the company's website are both two of the best places I would say to kind of start with that. Absolutely. And I actually have had the opportunity to be a hiring manager for a social media role. And I will say the sole reason that we went with one candidate over the other is because one of these candidates did her research and made it very clear in the interview process that she knew a lot about the company and was excited and just passionate about the work that we were doing.

Starting point is 00:08:05 And so I think there's a lot of power in research. You know, everybody says, do your research, make sure you know what you're getting into, but like, it is so impactful and can really truly be the deciding factor. So I just wanted to like, put that anecdote in there. Cause it's so true. Yeah, 100%. And I think one thing that hiring managers are looking for a lot of times, and you kind of alluded to this, Erica, but it's like that personal buy-in into the mission and vision and kind of the goals of the organization. And I believe as a job seeker, having that buy-in into a company is really important for just motivation throughout your time in that role. Things happen, challenges occur,

Starting point is 00:08:47 but if you feel really deeply connected to a company and what they're doing, their values, et cetera, I feel like that's going to really help. And so doing your research initially, I think is kind of like a checklist phase for you even just to decide, is this a company that I would be okay supporting and getting behind? And do I believe in the mission and the goals of what they're doing? And so it's more of just for yourself too, to make sure it's a good fit just overall for your next role. So the next tip I have for you is have questions prepared around the role and the vision for the company, things that you can ask the interviewer. That's always really important. Again, just showing that you did your due diligence to kind of dive into what is expected for you in that position.

Starting point is 00:09:36 I cannot stress the importance of being presentable. We all know that quote, dress for the job that you want. And so take some time to kind of figure out, um, what is the dress code at the company and maybe plus it up just one, um, and, and be presentable. And same thing goes for over zoom as well. Make sure, you know, your top half, we call it blue jeans interviews because your top half should be kind of professional. And then typically people will wear jeans or for me, sweatpants on the bottom half. And that's totally fine. Um, but make sure you show up, uh, looking great. And speaking of showing up, make sure you are at least a few minutes early to your job interview. Again, whether that is via zoom or in real life, uh, this just shows to the interviewer that you are timely, that, um, you have good time management skills, which is going to

Starting point is 00:10:26 be very important just for your role. And it speaks volumes to the hiring manager. Next thing I want to mention as well is just overall presence. So whether or not you are in person or virtual, presence is really important. So when I say presence, I mean, make sure you are making eye contact with the hiring manager. Make sure you say presence, I mean, make sure you are making eye contact with the hiring manager. Make sure you are smiling. You're sitting up straight. You're showing that you're confident and you're excited to be there. And with virtual, it's kind of funky to think about, but a lot of us have Macs, for example, and the Mac cameras are super, super tiny. But staring straight into your video camera can kind of be a visual example or visual representation virtually of eye contact. It looks like you're looking right

Starting point is 00:11:13 directly into that person's eyes. And so if you need to put like a sticker next to your webcam or something, try to avoid looking at yourself or the person on the screen. Try to look right into that video camera. And then the kind of last tip I have for you here is show that you're action oriented. And when I say this, I mean, just show that you take action to solve problems. So you're going to get a lot of questions that start with, tell me about a specific time when you did XYZ, or give me an example of how you solved XYZ problem. And so answering these questions with specific situations, but how you would either hypothetically solve that situation to leave a customer, a client, or a team partner in a better situation than when they were found is really important. And those

Starting point is 00:12:06 just show how you would take action and be action oriented, like I said, in those interviews. And I know I said that was the last one, but one more thing I want to share with you, and that is just going back to more of the virtual interview tips. A couple of things to think about as well, in addition to looking directly into that webcam and being presentable, is make sure you have a well-organized background. You don't want to have a distracting background. You don't want to look like you are kind of a messy person. So choose an area to have that interview that shows that you're kind of put together. It's less distracting.

Starting point is 00:12:39 And then lighting and good Wi-Fi is also very important. You don't want to be breaking up, uh, as you're answering those questions and you want to come across as clear and concise as possible. So those are all the tips I have for talent. So good. So good. And I think too, we could do a whole episode about interview questions and like how to best prepare your answers and things like that. And we might do that. But I also just wanted to say there, when you are interviewing, you'll often be asked, you know, tell me about yourself or tell me about your career journey this far. And I always like to say, don't assume that someone

Starting point is 00:13:16 has read your resume, always go in prepared with an elevator pitch that kind of speaks to specific milestones in your career. So you can run through the jobs that you've done or really just the jobs that pertain or that have skills that pertain to the role that you're interviewing for. And then add quantitative data wherever you can. We talked about quantitative data when it comes to your LinkedIn profile and optimizing that in our last career focused episode. But it's always beneficial to add quantitative data when you're even interviewing so that the hiring manager,

Starting point is 00:13:51 when they're taking notes, they can write down, oh, this person, you know, tripled the, you know, social media following, for example, for this brand, they have those notes that they can refer back to quickly and like, have tangible data of like the accomplishments that you did versus just like, oh yeah. And then I did this and I worked here and I was responsible for, for all of these things. And I think it's helpful and more memorable to dive deeper into some of that quantitative data where you can. And then, um, don't be afraid to show a little bit of personality and your responses to other questions. So like, what do you do outside of work is a common question to gauge, you know,

Starting point is 00:14:30 whether you're going to be a culture fit for, you know, the brand or business that you're interviewing for. So don't be afraid to share some unique things that you do outside of work. You know, you can talk about if you love coffee or if you love, I don't know, pickleball or something like that, you can always talk about that. And then it's also a point of connection for a hiring manager to remember you. So say you love pickleball and you're like, I just participated last weekend in a pickleball tournament. It was like the best thing ever. Then maybe that hiring manager also loves pickleball or wants to get involved in pickleball. And they'll have that memory marker of you saying pickleball.

Starting point is 00:15:10 And they'll be like, oh, that person, I remember them. They had this really well-prepared elevator pitch. They'd ran through all of their career milestones. And they had a great answer about what they do outside of work. I want to ask them a little bit more about their pickleball hobby or whatever it may be. It just makes you more memorable and stand out amongst the crowd of applicants. I always love to say, show your personality. One more thing I want to add just really quickly before we move on to hiring managers. I love how you mentioned that tell me about yourself question. Another thing that you can

Starting point is 00:15:43 kind of include at the very end of that as well is where you're looking to go in the future. And that's a really good way to kind of tie in your goals and why you'd be a good fit for that company and some of the values that you believe in personally and how, again, those tie into the company. But I think it's also important not to go on for too long. So I've talked to hiring managers before and they're like, I've asked someone that question and they went on for too long. So I've talked to hiring managers before and they're like, I've asked someone that question and they went on for 10 minutes and you start to lose that person. And as you said, that's usually one of the first questions that hiring managers will ask. And that first impression with that question is really important. So just wanted to mention that as well.

Starting point is 00:16:18 Absolutely. Short and sweet. Okay. Let's move on to hiring managers and tips for the interview process on that side. Cassie and I both have had some experience being hiring managers and just walking through the interview process ourselves. And we know that it is a huge undertaking and that it can feel like a lot of your time is being dedicated to searching for the right candidate and you're feeling overwhelmed. And there's just a lot of things to consider when you are a hiring manager. And maybe you are sitting through multiple rounds of interviews every single day while also trying to manage your full-time other position.

Starting point is 00:16:59 One thing that we hear a lot from interviewees and candidates is that they got on an interview and they felt like the hiring manager was just like firing questions at them and just like trying to check it off their list that they did this interview. And they felt like they were a burden versus like somebody that the hiring manager, you know, was really invested in hiring the right person for this specific role. So you never want to act like your time is being wasted. You know, if you're concerned about how much time you're dedicating to the process and getting worn out or bogged down, work with a recruiting partner, like creative people to screen and make

Starting point is 00:17:40 sure you're getting the quality, valuable candidates ahead of, you know, going forward in the interview process or make your careers page like super intricate and like very straightforward of what candidates can expect when they go through your interview process. A really good example of this, and I'm not sure how to pronounce their name, but I'll include it in the show notes. Alma, A-L-M-A, has an incredible career page. It has all their open roles. It lists their values. It lists their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. It lists all sorts of stuff about employee benefits. I feel like every

Starting point is 00:18:19 question that an applicant would have is answered. And then it also goes through their interview guide, which it talks you through submitting the application, sharing your expertise, like best tips and tricks for interacting with their hiring managers. It talks about the team and like what you can expect from that round of interviews. And then it'll go through like what you can expect on the offer side. So I highly recommend if you are a hiring manager or part of an HR team or people in culture at an organization, I highly recommend checking out this careers page. I will link it out in our show notes just so that you have that resource because it is absolutely incredible. And I'm like, if I didn't already have a full-time job, I would want to work here because of just how much it comes through that they care about their candidates and just their employees

Starting point is 00:19:10 in general, just from this career page. So that's a great tip. And then you want to take the time to get to know the interviewee. So you want to ask questions beyond, you know, what's your strengths and what are your weaknesses and all of those regular questions that you hear about, you know, people have prepared like answers for that you want to just like make sure you're not getting a quote unquote, like fake answer for. So you want to make sure that you're asking about those things to make sure that they're a culture fit. Like, what do you do outside of work? You know, what are your hobbies?

Starting point is 00:19:46 What are some of the things that you really value in being a part of a company? All of those things will really teach you a little bit more about who that person is, because again, we are way beyond what we do every day at work. We are, you know, that plus all of these other things that we have going on in our lives. And you want to make sure that this person is going to not only dedicate their time to their role, but also have a fulfilling life outside of work that they can then bring their filled up cup into work and do the work that they're supposed to be doing. So always take the time to get to know the interviewee,

Starting point is 00:20:21 be respectful of their time, you know, just as they're being respectful of your time and not going on forever about that question of tell me about yourself. You want to make sure that you're being respectful, respectable of their time. So if you say that this interview is going to be 15 minutes, make sure you stick to that. You can always chat again, but you just want to make sure that you're never taking up too much of their time because a lot of times people are interviewing and they're working at a company still. So they're taking time on their lunch break or after work or whatever it is to speak with you. And so you want to make sure that you're using that time in providing value to them. Um, and then asking questions specific to the role. Um, you know, we talked about this a little bit in, um, what talent can expect and how they should be answering things, but you want to make sure that you go beyond, tell me about

Starting point is 00:21:14 yourself, what are your strengths and weaknesses, you know, sprinkling some, you know, culture questions in there, but you want to make sure that they're actually a great fit for the specific role. And a way that you could do that is think through the job description and ask one or two questions that goes along with the job description. Like tell me about a time where you encountered XYZ and XYZ is going to be a really big part of this role or something like that. And then assignments. This is a huge topic that we hear a lot about from both sides, hiring managers, wanting to have candidates complete assignments, but then also talent who are applying to like multiple jobs with multiple assignments that are very heavy. We've heard from some talent that like a hiring manager or just a company in general

Starting point is 00:22:09 will ask them to create an entire like social media strategy for a brand and like have a really, you know, in-depth walkthrough of that. And I just think it goes back to being respectful of the candidate's time. You want to make sure that if you do ask for an assignment, it should be very, very light. And it should tell you more about what they are able to do in the specific role versus like trying to solve a problem that you have. So if you have this problem where you don't have a social media strategy, don't ask the candidates to do it for you. Um, rather just say, you know, what have you done in the past? Show me specific examples there, or what is something that you're

Starting point is 00:22:56 passionate about? Or what is, uh, um, what is a brand that does a really good job with this and tell me why. And then you'll be able to kind of see from there you know how they would perform the tasks of the role and not you know bog them down with like a really intense uh assignment and I think too if you can get their work examples from previous roles that's a lot better than assignments in general. And then that also kind of leads me into the process as a whole. We've heard from a lot of talent and just people out there job seeking that there are multiple phases of interviews and multiple rounds that they have to go through. And I personally experienced this. Like I remember a few years ago, I was going through the interview process at two different companies and

Starting point is 00:23:49 they were five rounds each of hour long interviews. And at the end, you know, I ended up not getting either one of those jobs. And it was just so much time. That was 10 hours plus prep time, plus thinking about it for weeks at a time. And it was just like so stressful on top of the role that I had been in already. And so I love to recommend hiring managers two to three rounds at most, do an HR screening or work with a recruiting partner, like creative people to take that task entirely off your plate and just deliver you some incredible talent. And then do one interview with a hiring manager, maybe one interview if you want to move them on with somebody at a higher level, maybe it's the hiring manager's manager. And then go right into the offer or no offer

Starting point is 00:24:39 process. And then in your initial interview, this is a tip that I always like to give make sure to ask if the salary that's in the job description by the way you should always have a salary in your job description aligns with what the talent is actually looking for and if not if they say you know I'm kind of I'm open to that or I I want to make sure that, you know, it's, it falls a little bit higher than that or whatever the case may be. Um, don't move them on in the process. I mean, there are other opportunities that they can go for, but if you have no flexibility in your salary range, you want to make sure that they're, um, they're going to be happy with what they receive and you're not wasting their time again. Yes, I could not agree more with all of those. I wanted to go back to really fast and just add a

Starting point is 00:25:34 point about the assignments too. I think a note for job seekers is making sure that you have like a portfolio or LinkedIn pages built out and thorough as possible with recommendations, testimonials, links to your work, things like that. Cause I think that helps alleviate some of those asks like that. Um, so the more work and examples you can provide, uh, the better, as you said, um, but want to jump in to our next kind of subtopic, which is negotiating an offer. And we talked about this a little bit with Tori Dunlap, and she just mentioned about how to ask for money and what you should be asking for. So definitely go back and check that out if you have not listened to that, but wanted to first provide some quick tips for talent. So the first thing to think about

Starting point is 00:26:23 is you can negotiate more than a salary. So make sure when you are in the interview process, take a look at other benefits like time off. Is it remote work? Is that something that you want? Benefits outside of that, like health and 401k and things like that. There's a lot to a salary and benefits package. So when you are negotiating, look at different options outside of salary, even though of course we all want more money, right? So on that too, I think knowing how to know how much money you need. So number one, know what you have to offer. So that goes back to researching the company, researching the job description, knowing what they're looking for in that role and what kind of gap they're looking to fill and knowing

Starting point is 00:27:12 what you can provide and how you can help go above and beyond in that role. Mentioning your experience, the industries that you've worked with, your education, the impact you've made in past roles. So as Erica said, having quantitative data to share of what you've achieved in the past. You can also research the industry. So see what similar roles are paying and bring that to the table as well in your negotiation. And I want to mention too that LinkedIn has a really cool salary tool now that you can check out and kind of see like what range just based off of your profile details they would look to give you or companies would look to give you,

Starting point is 00:27:51 I should say. And last thing here is just be polite and really clear and just confident in your ask. You know, it's okay to ask for more money and don't be afraid to do that. And the last thing you would want to do is go into an interview process and thinking in your head, oh, I want more, but I'm afraid to ask, or I don't know how to say it and just not doing it. And then you step into that situation at a way lower rate than you're looking for. So don't be afraid to have that conversation. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:21 And you mentioned Tori too, and she goes into it a little more in her episode, but she kind of talks through how to know how much you actually need salary wise and benefits wise and things like that. Um, more so on the side of like with your living situation, how much do you actually need to survive and how much do you need to like, make sure that you're going to be, you know, set up for success in your role. So definitely go listen to that episode. We'll put it in the show notes as well. But then quickly just going through tips for hiring managers here, there's really just one big tip that I like to give and it's surprise and delight. We know the power of surprise and delight in marketing, but it's even more powerful in the negotiation process.

Starting point is 00:29:07 So I always like to say, you know, you already had that conversation about salary. You know, that the range that's in your job description is what you're able to offer. If this person is everything that you're looking for, go ahead and offer at the top of that salary range from the job description. They will feel like they are just, you know, so valued and so excited to start with you because they already feel like you are setting them up for success. And then I would say to advocate for policies within your workplace, if you're a hiring manager and not necessarily on the HR side, that will entice talent to work at your company. So Cassie mentioned some of those negotiation

Starting point is 00:29:46 tactics that you can use other than salary. So like vacation policies, 401k matching is huge. Extra benefits like work from home or educational stipends. Those things can really entice people to work at your company. And you want to make sure that you're fostering an environment where it's a great place to work. You always want to make sure that your employees are happy and that you're fostering an environment where it's a great place to work. You always want to make sure that your employees are happy and that you have a great retention rate with employees in general, because that will continue to attract more talent and the right type of talent. So I always like to give those two tips. But Cassie, I know you wanted to share about our job board and just some of the other created career related episodes that we have. So go ahead and do that.

Starting point is 00:30:26 Yeah. Well, overall, I hope this episode was helpful. I know we kind of drilled into a lot in this recording and hopefully we'll go back and kind of dive deep into some of these topics. But let us know how it was helpful. And I think just overall confidence is really important. Confidence and research, I would say are two of the biggest things to kind of just have in your back pocket when you go into the interview process.

Starting point is 00:30:52 And I think not being afraid to just go for it. You know, sometimes I think we look at our resume or we look at jobs and we're like, I'm not qualified for this or I wouldn't be a good fit. I don't have enough experience. And it's always an option to just apply and see what happens. And if you get that interview, then that shows that shows that you are qualified and you have a chance to make that happen. And so don't, don't down yourself. Don't doubt yourself with those different opportunities and just go for it. But yeah, we have a lot of awesome resources available for the job seeking process. So number one, we have a job board on our website that is updated weekly. So definitely check that out. And we share those job opportunities out in our newsletter on

Starting point is 00:31:37 LinkedIn, but also our email newsletter as well. And we have a LinkedIn group, especially just for open jobs. So jump in there if you are in the beginning phases or if you just want to see what's kind of out there and open, we definitely encourage you to join that. We'll have all the links below and we'll also have links below to career related episodes to kind of piggyback off this conversation. We've had some awesome, awesome conversations with Tim Dick to talk about tips on building a winning resume. We had a conversation with Matthew Miller on finding a mentor, lots of great combos there. And Erica and I also just did a conversation on just career

Starting point is 00:32:18 growth and how to identify your dream job and go after it. So definitely go check all of that out. Yes. Thank you so much for listening. I hope this was helpful. And if it was, identify your dream job and go after it. So definitely go check all of that out. Yes. Thank you so much for listening. I hope this was helpful. And if it was, please DM us on Instagram. We would love to hear from you.

Marketing Happy Hour - Navigating the Interview Process (for Job Seekers AND Hiring Managers) | Marketing Happy Hour Co-Hosts Cassie Tucker + Erica Spitzley

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