In a recent Student Success Coach webinar I interviewed expert digital marketer and serial entrepreneur Salil Dhawan. We spoke about how digital has changed the face of marketing from broad based campaigns to highly targeted messages on social media which rely on data from cookies and pixels. Knowledge of social media platforms is crucial for career success in digital marketing and Salil offered insights from a recent course we have released called Ace Your Digital Marketing Interview.
Our audience was interested in the “trick questions” that recruiters and hiring managers could ask; it’s crucial to be well prepared for digital marketing interviews and Salil provided excellent insights from the course and his experience. One of these trick questions you can expect is whether you could get the company’s products onto the first page of Google search results. The straight answer is no for popular keywords (but a big budget would help). However for “long tail keywords” it is easier and aspiring digital marketers should learn these and demonstrate how to use them in alignment with the company’s goals and strategy.
I asked about the ethics of digital marketing and how my Facebook feed seems to know about my Whatsapp messages or even my conversations with Google Home. Salil explained that this is exactly why Meta (parent of Facebook) recently suffered a big loss; new privacy controls over user information are causing concerns for Facebook because of its reliance on its user’s data and behaviour. Many companies actually trade in this data because it provides such a rich source of information for targeted digital marketing campaigns.
We also spoke about the generic aspects of preparing yourself for a digital marketing interview and how to answer questions under pressure. A useful trick is to repeat the question in the first part of your answer; this keeps the interview going while giving your brain valuable seconds to formulate the rest of the answer. As Tracey Ashington coaches her clients, you also don’t have to answer every question – rather than say the wrong thing, offer to follow up with an email after the interview. Plus this gives you an email address for following up and staying in touch with the recruiter or hiring manager – a vital strategy in getting the job you want.
Similar knowledge of digital marketing is also required for recruiters and hiring managers. How can you ensure a quality pipeline of talent and skills into your organisation? Salil and I also provide this training in our course Learn Recruitment & Acquisition Of Digital Marketing Talent. Your organisation can’t afford to get left behind in the race for ranking and product marketing success in a highly connected and digital world. Just make sure you hire people who will keep your organisation on the right side of ethics – let your customers talk to Alexa without worrying if Mark is listening.
