How to Succeed in Your Next Marketing Interview: Tips from Coca-cola's Marketing Executive
As a marketing professional, you have likely seen and admired the innovative marketing strategies of the Coca-Cola Company, such as the “Share A Coke” campaign or the Christmas advertising featuring Santa Claus drinking a Coke.
I’ve always been a fan of the company’s strategies, which is part of the reason why I invited Stephan Czypionka, Global VP of Marketing Performance at The Coca-Cola Company, to share his marketing career and hiring experience for our third Awaken Career Chat.
Stephan started his marketing career as an intern and worked his way up to a marketing executive. He sees marketing as a human-centric discipline, and his experiences living and working in four different continents have helped him gain a greater understanding of global cultures and perspectives that he uses daily in his leadership position.
For the past 16 years, Stephan has hired for multiple marketing positions at Coca-Cola, including marketing director, creative excellence, data scientist, researcher, media planner. In our chat, he provides insight into the hiring process from a hiring manager’s perspective and give useful tips to help marketing job seekers stand out in their job interviews.
In this interview, you will learn:
How an open mind and interest in diverse perspectives took Stephan from Austria to Argentina to South Africa to Singapore
Positions he hires for at Coca-Cola and what he looks for in candidates
Tips to make your resumé more concise and easier for recruiters and hiring managers to read
Tips for a successful interview based on his experience as a hiring manager
Why you should always ask questions during your interview and examples of good questions to ask
Here’s a glance at this interview…
[5:50] Lydia: I feel like now, if you’re in marketing and you are not having those diverse perspectives or an open mind, then sometimes you miss lots of great opportunities, right?
Stephan: I think for me, the exciting thing is that my learning curve was always very, very steep. You can be a marketing director in Asia, and if you do the same job, you hold the same job title in Europe or Latin America, it’s very different ...
[6:37] Lydia: What do you love most about marketing?
Stephan: First of all, I think that marketing is a very broad discipline, and it’s very varied. If you’re Marketing Director, you go to the office in the morning, maybe you review a strategy presentation that you give to the leadership team, then your first meeting in the morning is with a research agency and they present an interesting brand audit ...
[11:41] Lydia: Is there any one special position that you love to hire?
Stephan: Actually, no. And I think that’s the great thing about interviews, because every person is a world of personality, and in the interview, the person turns from a resume into a person. During the interview, you discover that person …
[14:12] Lydia: What are some tips for a successful interview from your previous hiring experience?
Stephan: Before the interview, the most important task for you is to write a concise, brief resumé. I think that’s the first task at hand because I’ve seen many CVs that are five, six, seven, eight pages long, and what you need to do with a resumé, you need to make sure that the person screening the resumés quickly understands…
[20:16] Lydia: What kind of questions do you wish job seekers would ask during an interview?
Stephan: I can only encourage everyone to ask questions. There is a part of the interview where you should ask questions, and I think it’s very underleveraged. People don’t focus on that aspect a lot, but maybe I can give you a couple of tips …
[25:04] Lydia: What is one piece of career advice that you would give marketing professionals who are ready for their next move so they can stand out in the talent pool?
Stephan: I think it all boils down to preparing well. There is a lot of great talent out there and everybody is unique, so you need to make sure you can convey that uniqueness, what makes you special as a person …
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