Assistant Marketing Manager

We analyzed 244 interview reviews for Assistant Marketing Manager from various job sites, social network groups and forums.

Here are the most frequent job interview questions asked by HR managers during initial phone or onsite interviews. This list does not include technical or factual questions.

10 frequent non-technical questions for Assistant Marketing Manager:

According to our research, hiring managers looking to fill Assistant Marketing Manager role ask soft skills interview questions 93% more frequently than for other roles.

1. Tell me about yourself top question

How to answer

Most job candidates expect this to be one of the first interview questions and probably think of it as an “icebreaker” to get the interview started. It is much more than that! It is your opportunity to show the interviewer your relevance for the job. You want the employer to know that you are qualified to do the job, you are interested in doing the job and capable of getting it done.

  1. About Yourself

    What is your current occupation? Define yourself professionally in one statement.

    Pick 3 key skills that make you great at your work (your Key Selling Points). How have you applied these skills?

    Try to give some numbers to support your statement.

  2. About The Company

    Your first step is to Research the company to find out as much as you can about what they do and their approach to their business and their employees.

    Based on what you know about the company and the job description, why are you interested in the position you are applying for?

  3. About The Fit

    Now is the right time to show the fit between your skills and the company's requirements. Your answer works best if you emphasize your relevance. How do you do this? You will have already researched the company, studied the job description to identify their needs and possible pain points and prepared the relevant Star Stories that show how you addressed similar issues in the past. Your next step is to develop your Present-Past-Present approach.

    Start with the Present. Focus on the skills and experience from your most recent positions. What has enabled you to get the job done successfully and how this relates to what the employer is looking to accomplish.

    Next go back to the Past. Here is where your Star story comes in. Explain how you were able to use your skills and experience to accomplish a task that relates to an area of concern for the employer.

    Finally come back to the Present – summarizing the lessons you learned and how they shaped your response and approach today.

    Remember, the whole conversation is about the present, not the past. Just one sentence can summarize why your approach works, and its applicability and relevance to this position.

Pro Tip

You can also end with a question like:

“Do you know what the current needs in the company/department are, where my skills and experience can help?”

That can help you learn more about the company and the job, turn the “interrogation” into a conversation and will allow you to relax some tension.

Read our blog post to learn more about how to answer this question.

2. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

How to answer

This question belongs to a family of behavioral, or even more precisely, reflective questions.

The interviewer wants to learn two things about you by asking this question.

  • They want to know what you think about the job you are applying for. Remember, they are interviewing you for the job that's open right now. Are you a good fit and will you do a good job for them?
  • Just as important, they want to get an idea of your ambitions and goals for yourself and if your goals align with their needs, especially going into the future.

In this way the employer should see how you see yourself today, and whether you are ambitious and strive to grow as a professional, and whether you like to learn and develop your skills.

  1. About Yourself

    What challenges do you like overcoming? Where are you starting from and where might you be going?

    For example, let's say the position you are applying for is junior accountant. It includes a wide range of tasks such as basic bookkeeping, financial analysis, and reporting. If accounting is your chosen field, then you would most likely want to move in the direction of obtaining your CPA so that you might step up to more responsibility as an accounting manager or senior auditor within the next 5 years. Your responses should make sense in how you see yourself growing in your professional career.

    However, at this point, if you are happy just where you are and want to further your current skills, that is also fine as long as there is a growth path for you that can be imagined and described.

  2. About The Company

    Research the company to learn what career opportunities may be available in the department you are applying to, and what the trends are in the company in general.

    • Is the business expanding, are they opening new locations, or starting new projects?
    • Or are they heavily automating and cutting staff?

    Let’s say you are applying for a UX designer position for a brand-new product.

    In the future, if the product becomes a success - which is what the company hopes for - the company will hire more designers and you may become a lead designer, or you may become a product manager.

    On a side note: If you train your mind to be open to opportunities you will be amazed at how much this world has to offer to you!

  3. About The Fit

    And, of course, try to see where the perfect fit lies between your own potential and aspirations, and the company’s trends and hopes.

    However, beware of the risk of showing too much excitement for future opportunities compared to your attitude towards the current position.

    As we said earlier, you must show interest and enthusiasm for the position you are applying for. If the interviewer senses that you are more enthusiastic about future growth than about the current position, they may conclude that you are not the right person for the job at hand.

Pro Tip

This question gives you a good opportunity to showcase your Key Selling Points (e.g. “As I am very good at delegating tasks, I can easily see myself leading a team of software testers in the future…”), and end your statement by asking about current initiatives and goals at the company.

In thinking about the possibilities that may lie ahead, you also might want to consider taking a personality test (I recommend 16Personalities which is based on the Myers-Briggs test), research the internet on what career paths are possible with your skills and current job.

It is generally NOT a good idea to say something like:

“Oh, I cannot imagine what happens to me tomorrow, let alone in 5 years”.

This will show you as a person who is unimaginative and not forward-thinking enough to grow with and be a good fit for the company.

3. What skills are you looking to develop on your next job? Why?

How to answer

When employers ask you about skills you would like to develop, they are looking for honesty in the way you answer.

A common target of the question is to discover how motivated you are to extend yourself. If you are willing to learn, then you are probably more motivated to do the job well.

They might also be trying to determine whether you’ll be a good long-term fit for the company. Are you looking for an opportunity to grow with an organization – or will your plans take you to another employer before long?

  1. About Yourself

    Answering the question, reflect on yourself. Show that you are concerned and active about your own evolution.

    You can indicate how development has worked for you in the past, give examples.

    • What qualities do you wish to develop in yourself both professionally and personally?
    • What kind of culture do you want to work in?
    • What motivates you?
    • What qualities do you feel make strong, healthy relationships?
    • What skills do you admire most in your role models?

    And probably the most important is: What will help you to achieve your future goals?

    Choose something you’re already pretty good at, but still trying to improve even more. Maybe it is something that you learned a long time ago but haven’t used in recent jobs very often?

  2. About The Company

    Do your research and learn as much as possible about the organization and the career path you might forge there. Read the company’s story on their website, review their LinkedIn page, explore their blog.

    What personal and professional qualities do they value and what can you learn if they hire you?

  3. About The Fit

    No matter what skills you say you want to improve, however, make sure that you follow it up with what you’re doing about it.

    Focus on a work skill that may not be critical to your industry or job level and demonstrate how you would like to develop this skill further, implying you already have a level of competency. This way you won't be sounding negative about yourself.

    You could say something like “Coworkers often come to me for advice on how to write or format a document they are working on. I know that I am good at this (that’s why they come to me in the first place), but I have no formal training on mentoring others. I would like to take a course or two on mentoring others that would help them while also improving my own skills in this area.”

    Say you are willing to learn new things and take on new challenges. Show employers that you’re self-motivated and actively looking for ways to improve your skills and value in your career.

Pro Tip

If you choose one of the more common working skills such as networking, presentation, mediation, technical, coaching or mentoring, make sure that they are not anything that’s vital or crucial to the job you’re interviewing for.

For example, if you are applying for a manager position, you don’t want to say that you need to work on developing your supervisory skills.

4. What is your greatest weakness?

How to answer

This question ranks as the most challenging for many people. Fortunately, Mr. Simon is here to help!

Interviewers are not out to trick or trap you! They ask this question to gauge your level of self-awareness, your honesty and openness, and your capability for self-improvement.

  1. About Yourself

    No one is perfect and your interviewer doesn't expect you to be perfect either.

    While it is good to be honest and open, it will not help you to put yourself down.

    What's important is to find a weakness that you have overcome. How you turned what might be considered a negative into a positive.

  2. About The Company

    Research the company (website, social media, etc) to learn about the company culture.

    What personal and professional qualities do they value?

  3. About The Fit

    This is the time to clearly state a true weakness that you have overcome.

    Be as specific as possible and stay away from vague cliches like “I work too hard.” It would be difficult for anyone to try and explain how they overcame a weakness like that

    Mr. Simon emphasizes the Present-Past-Present method of responding to behavioral questions. When you are asked about your greatest weakness, you should be able to successfully use this approach as well. Here is an example of how someone might answer this question.

    Present - "I have always had a fear of public speaking, and believe this may have held me back in my career, especially when having to make presentations to management."

    Past - "Last year I learned about Toastmasters International and decided to join this group to help me gain confidence in myself and improve my ability to present to others in just about any situation."

    Present - "By overcoming this weakness I believe that it has made me a much stronger candidate for this position, someone you can count on to make presentations to management, conduct training and communicate at a high level."

    It's important to show how well you've overcome a weakness by motivating yourself and learning a new skill to grow professionally.

Pro Tip

Use this question to sell yourself!

5. What experience do you have in this field?

How to answer

This question may help you convince the interviewer how smoothly you would fit into the position to which you are applying. It's your chance to WOW them! Be sure to focus on the experience that is relevant to the company and position.

  1. About Yourself

    Start with defining your Key Selling Points you want to emphasize for this position.

    • What job experiences brought you to those points?
    • What were the job titles and the most relevant responsibilities?
  2. About The Company

    Do your research of the company and the requirements for the position.

    • What is the company looking for in terms of experiences and qualifications?
    • What problems are they trying to solve with this position?

    Most importantly, make sure you are able to highlight and speak about at least 3-5 of your key experiences that match up with the requirements listed in the job description.

  3. About The Fit

    Using the Present-Past-Present method is a perfect way to answer this question.

    Starting with the Present, speak about your experience as it relates to one of the key requirements in the job description. You might say "I noted that the job description requires experience in employee training and this is an area in which I have a great deal of knowledge and skill."

    Then go back to the Past to describe how you improved overall training of staff from 82% to over 97% within your first year on the job. Senior leadership took note of this accomplishment for which you received a company commendation.

    Finally, come back to the Present to describe how you will help ensure that the company maintains the highest possible compliance with all employee training requirements.

    Nowadays, every hiring manager wants results, so think in terms of specific achievements and try to structure your example accordingly.

Pro Tip

When telling your story, remember to talk about your STARs!
S - What was the Situation?
T - What was your Task?
A - What Action did you take?
R - Talk about the Results.

6. What are your top 3 skills?

How to answer

This is one of the best questions you can expect!

If you are prepared for it, this question allows you to take full control of the conversation by communicating exactly what you want the interviewer to know about you. This is your time to showcase the best of you!

  1. About Yourself

    First, come up with a list of skills that you know you are good at – as many as you can think of. If you find this exercise difficult, use the helpful questions below:

    • What skills are you better at than your peer X? Your peer Y? Your boss Z?
    • What positive feedback could your manager, colleagues, clients, or even friends give about working with you?
    • What positive points were made about you in your last review(s) that involve the skills you demonstrated?
    • In which areas do you have professional knowledge and/or experience?
    • What records of achievement do you have?
    • What was the most impressive recent achievement you can think of? Which skills of yours made this success possible?
  2. About The Company

    Research the company to help identify the kinds of skills needed.

    Carefully review the job description, this should detail the types of skills required for the job.

  3. About The Fit

    Highlight the skills from your list that match the list from the job description.

    Pick 3 top skills. These are your Key Selling Points, and be sure to communicate them to your interviewer when asked this question.

    To bring these skills home to the interviewer you should use the Present-Past-Present method to tell your interviewer how any one of your 3 top skills will benefit their company.

    Let's say that working well in teams is one of the 3 skills you spoke about. As an example of how this works, starting with the Present, you might say "Although I can take on many projects on my own, I have always loved working as part of a team, collaborating with others, and learning from them to reach a positive outcome for the company."

    Then go back to the Past to relate a specific Star story, for instance: "At my last job, my team was asked to help an important customer set up and install the latest update to its inventory management system. Due to a tight timeline, we had to put in a lot of extra hours to meet the client's deadline. The team pulled it off within the timeframe and under budget. I was particularly proud of my role in this effort, which was noted by both the customer and my manager."

    Then come back to the Present to say, "In reviewing the company's website I noticed the importance that it places on teamwork and based on my skills and experience in working in teams, I am certain that I would be a great fit going forward."

Pro Tip

Optionally, you can end with a question like “And do you know what are the current challenges where my skills can be helpful for the company?", or “I see from the job description that you are looking for someone with the skills X and Y. Could you elaborate on this a little further?”.

That can help you learn more about the company and the job, turn the "interrogation" into a conversation and will allow you to relax some tension.

7. What are your drivers? What motivates you?

How to answer

Motivation is what we use to drive ourselves forward to complete tasks and bring results.

Why do hiring managers ask this question?

They want to get a sense of your personality. But more importantly, they want to see your resiliency and determination.

They do not want to hire someone who will quit when encountering difficulties, whose focus will be elsewhere, or who will just waste their time.

Enthusiasm ranks very high on the list of qualities employers are looking for in a candidate.

If you can demonstrate that you are genuinely passionate about your profession and interested in the position you are applying for, your chances of getting hired will improve significantly.

  1. About Yourself

    This question requires serious self-examination; you should be asking it yourself long before the interviewer does.

    Look back on everything you’ve done in your life, job, and career so far.

    • What was it about your best days that made them the best?
    • Can you take those feelings and apply them to specific moments from your life and past work experiences?
    • Are you ready for tough projects or for being asked to do something that isn’t quite on your job description, or for having to stay at work till late instead of another team member?
    • Will meeting deadlines, learning new things, finding a way to solve problems or overcoming a challenge inspire you and make you want even more?
    • What gives you a sense of accomplishment when you can look back on and say "I achieved that"?

    Look deep inside.

    Analyze your experience by types of tasks, by type of environment, type of feedback, level of responsibility and stakes? Do you prefer independence, or being part of a team?

    1. Task type: if you were given a whole day or even week at work to focus on just one of your tasks, without interruptions or multitasking, which one would that be? Why?
    2. Environment: do you feel motivated in a dynamic environment with lots of action, communications, deadlines? Or would you rather disconnect from the outside world and immerse into a single task, with your headphones on?
    3. Feedback: are you better motivated by positive feedback, or by healthy criticism? Or maybe by customers’ smiles and “Thank you” messages?
    4. Responsibility and stakes: are you motivated to do your best when you know that the stakes are high and your contribution will make a great impact on the bottom line? Or do you feel better in a more safe and relaxed environment when someone else is responsible for making big decisions?
    5. Financials: what is the salary range that makes you feel comfortable and respect yourself? Let’s be realistic, this is one (although definitely shouldn’t be the first) of the drivers.

    Be creative, this list is not exhaustive.

  2. About The Company

    Take a long look at the job you’re applying for.

    • What kinds of tasks will you be responsible for?
    • What will the environment be?
    • What do you know about the possible kinds of feedback you will be receiving?
    • What is the level of stakes in this role?
    • What do you know about the salary they can possibly offer?
  3. About The Fit

    How comfortable are you with the drivers the company can offer, comparing to those of your own? Pick those that have a match and give some examples.

    For instance, if you’re applying for a software engineer job, describe how you are motivated by solving complex technical challenges.

    If the job involves teamwork, give an example showing that you love collaborating and accomplishing big things as a part of a team.

    That is what drives you to do your best each day. You can say you enjoy meaningful work creating products that change people’s lives, if this is relevant to the company.

Pro Tip

Be enthusiastic. The more enthusiasm you have for what motivates you, the more enthusiasm the interviewer will have for you!

8. What are your current professional goals?

How to answer

This question is your chance to show yourself as a focused and results-oriented person (and this is exactly who you are, aren’t you?)

  1. About Yourself

    Define up to 3 goals. Think about each goal:

    • Why is it important to you?
    • What are you doing to achieve it?

    Imagine a company where you would like to work, ideally. How can working in that company help you achieve your goal? And what about the opposite - how can the company benefit from your reaching your goal?

  2. About The Company

    Based on the research you did on the company, what are their current goals and initiatives? How would its goals and initiatives help lead you to achieve your goals?

  3. About The Fit

    From your list of goals choose the one with the most synergy between yourself and the company. Explain how your professional passions will help the company achieve its success.

    Craft your story around these 4 points:

    • The Why: Why is this goal important to you, what makes it so exciting?
    • The What: What steps are you taking to reach your goal?
    • What’s in it for you? How can this company and job role help you reach your goal?
    • What’s in it for them? How can the company benefit?

Pro Tip

Try to validate your assumptions by asking the interviewer what they think.

For example, you can end your answer with this question: “And do you know what current goals the company/department is trying to achieve?”

It can help you learn more about the company and the job, turn the "interrogation" into a conversation and will allow you to relax some tension.

9. Walk me through your resume

How to answer

This question is often asked at the beginning of the interview.

The interviewer wants to hear a brief overview, a summary of your professional experience, in order to have a starting point from which they can dig deeper.

Structuring your answer wisely gives you a good chance to emphasize your Key Selling Points and to channel the conversation in the direction you want.

  1. About Yourself

    Print out your resume. For each of your recent job experiences (at this point do not go back more than 5 years), write down 3-5 key points at which you feel you are strong.

    For example, for your current (or previous) job, you may want to list skills like “Excellent presentation skills,” “Employee Engagement guru,” “Analytical skills,” “Attention to detail” (they don’t have to be all soft skills, but being aware of at least a few of your strong soft skills is important). Make sure you have examples for each of your statements.

    If you have difficulties to think of these points, search online for job descriptions for similar job roles, and figure out which of those keywords appeal to you. Look for people on LinkedIn that have jobs similar to the one you are applying for. Their profiles often contain many keywords that you can use in response to this question.

    Now that you’ve gone through all your recent experiences, are there any points that repeat more often than others, or are especially important to you? These are candidates to be your Key Selling Points -highlight 3-5 of them.

  2. About The Company

    Research the company and the role for which you're being interviewed. When researching the company, find out what skills and qualities they value the most. Carefully consider the job requirements. What is it that you will be responsible for?

    Now, write down 3-5 keywords from the job description that you find of utmost importance for this job role.

  3. About The Fit

    Try to establish the match between your own highlighted keywords, and those of the job description. These are your Key Selling Points! You should normally limit yourself by 3-5 such keywords or phrases.

    Now, craft a story based on your career history. You don’t have to go in chronological order - you can start with your current or last job experience, and then go back to your previous ones, or focus on just the experiences that are relevant to your story, and only briefly mention the less relevant ones and only if needed.

    Select one point to highlight for each phase of your career. Make sure you ingrain your Key Selling Points in the interviewer’s memory - after the interview is over, you want them to remember you as someone who is strong at XYZ, or experienced in A, B and C.

    It's okay to focus more on stellar achievements and brag a little bit about them.

Pro Tip

Don't bore the interviewer by going through your resume line-by-line.

Instead, WOW them by succinctly (keep it within 2 minutes) telling a story of how your career path has brought you to this point and how you are the best candidate for this role.

Super tip: The more you practice with Mr. Simon, the better you'll be at telling WOW-worthy succinct stories!

10. How would you handle a customer with difficult behavior?

How to answer

People skills are highly valued in every company, especially in a company that occasionally deals with difficult customers. It is important to show how you can manage difficult personalities.

  1. About Yourself

    Look back on your experience. Have you dealt with a difficult or disruptive customer? Remember how you diffused the situation and how you turned things around.

    • Do you have certain principles, or methodology, to deal with difficult people?
    • Do you have strong people skills, are you good at conflict resolution?
    • Are you high on emotional intelligence? Can you give an example?
  2. About The Company

    • What have you found about the company and its culture?
    • What have you learned about how the employees value each other?
    • How do they treat their customers?
    • Knowing their line of business or industry, what can be some examples of difficult customers?

    Do your research.

  3. About The Fit

    When a question like this asked in an interview, it is an indication that you will probably encounter difficult customers, or other difficult stakeholders while working for this company.

    This would be an excellent opportunity to use the Present-Past-Present approach to respond to this question.

    Start with the Present. Speak about your “conflict resolution” skills and how you apply these today.

    Next go back to a Past situation - remember your Star Stories to relate a relevant situation that happened in a previous job where you resolved a problem for a difficult customer.

    Finally, come back to the Present, summarizing what you learned from past experiences and how you will apply them to the job you are interviewing for today.

    If you can give an example of how you handled a difficult person in the past in a situation similar to what this company may require from you, this will strongly increase your chances of showing yourself as a good fit.

Pro Tip

One methodology for diffusing a difficult situation is called “the triple A” approach:

  1. Acknowledge - what the other person is feeling,
  2. Apologize - for the way the other person is feeling,
  3. Admit - that there was an issue that you are working on to get it resolved.

If the difficult situation involves a customer, it would add that extra touch if you added another "A" to your approach by Asking for the customer's contact information so you can update them of any progress on their issue.

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Group membership is free of charge, courtesy of Mr. Simon.

Join our Friends of Mr. Simon Meetup Group to become part of our growing and supportive community!


This page has been updated on February 23, 2024.

You can practice answering this question, as well as over 160 other common job interview questions from Assistant Marketing Manager by engaging in a mock interview with Mr. Simon. As an artificial being, his undeniable benefits include:

24/7 availability 24/7 availability
He will never make you feel intimidated He will never make you feel intimidated
The current version is free The current version is free
A starry night sky.
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