Effective Work Sample Exercises for Hiring a Senior Marketing Manager

Marketing leadership roles require a unique blend of strategic thinking, creative vision, and analytical prowess. When hiring a Senior Marketing Manager, traditional interviews often fail to reveal whether candidates can truly deliver results in your specific business context. The stakes are high—a poor hiring decision can lead to misaligned marketing strategies, wasted budget, and missed growth opportunities.

Work samples provide a window into how candidates approach real marketing challenges they'll face in your organization. Unlike hypothetical interview questions, these exercises demonstrate a candidate's actual capabilities, thought processes, and execution skills. They reveal how candidates analyze data, develop strategies, manage resources, and communicate their vision—all critical competencies for marketing leadership.

For Senior Marketing Manager candidates, the right work samples should evaluate both strategic thinking and tactical execution abilities. The exercises should assess how candidates balance creativity with data-driven decision-making, a crucial skill in today's marketing landscape. Additionally, these activities help you evaluate how candidates prioritize initiatives, allocate resources, and measure success.

The following four work samples are designed to comprehensively evaluate Senior Marketing Manager candidates across key dimensions: strategic planning, campaign management, team leadership, and analytical thinking. By implementing these exercises, you'll gain deeper insights into each candidate's capabilities and fit for your organization's specific marketing needs.

Activity #1: Marketing Strategy Pivot

This exercise evaluates a candidate's strategic thinking, adaptability, and ability to realign marketing efforts in response to changing business conditions. Senior Marketing Managers must frequently reassess and adjust strategies based on market shifts, competitive moves, or internal business changes.

Directions for the Company:

• Prepare a brief (1-2 page) case study describing your company's current marketing strategy and a significant business change that requires a strategic pivot (e.g., new competitor entry, product feature change, shift in target audience).
• Include relevant metrics from the current strategy and business goals for the pivot.
• Allow candidates 24-48 hours to prepare their response before the interview.
• Allocate 20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for questions.
• Ensure the interviewing panel includes stakeholders from marketing, sales, and product teams.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the provided case study and develop a revised marketing strategy that addresses the business change.
• Prepare a presentation that includes:
• Analysis of the current strategy's strengths and weaknesses
• Recommended strategic adjustments with clear rationale
• Implementation timeline and resource requirements
• Success metrics and measurement approach
• Be prepared to explain your decision-making process and defend your strategic choices.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the presentation, provide specific feedback on one strategic element the candidate handled well and one area that could be strengthened.
• Ask the candidate to verbally revise their approach to the improvement area based on the feedback.
• Evaluate how receptively and thoughtfully they incorporate the feedback, as this demonstrates adaptability and coachability.

Activity #2: Campaign Performance Analysis and Optimization

This exercise assesses a candidate's analytical abilities, data interpretation skills, and tactical execution capabilities. A successful Senior Marketing Manager must be able to evaluate campaign performance data and make informed optimization decisions.

Directions for the Company:

• Prepare a dataset showing performance metrics from a recent multi-channel marketing campaign (anonymized if necessary).
• Include data points such as channel performance, conversion rates, cost per acquisition, engagement metrics, and overall ROI.
• Include some obvious issues and some subtle problems that require deeper analysis.
• Provide the dataset to candidates 24 hours before the interview.
• Prepare a brief description of the campaign objectives and target audience.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Analyze the provided campaign data to identify performance patterns, strengths, and weaknesses.
• Prepare a brief (10-15 minute) presentation that includes:
• Key insights from your data analysis
• Identification of underperforming and overperforming elements
• Specific, actionable recommendations for optimizing the campaign
• Expected impact of your recommended changes
• Be prepared to explain your analytical approach and how you prioritized your recommendations.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide feedback on the candidate's analytical approach, highlighting one strength in their methodology and one area where their analysis could be more comprehensive.
• Ask the candidate to reconsider one aspect of their optimization strategy based on an additional data point you provide during the interview.
• Evaluate how quickly they can incorporate new information and adjust their thinking.

Activity #3: Cross-Functional Marketing Project Plan

This exercise evaluates a candidate's project management skills, cross-functional collaboration abilities, and resource allocation thinking. Senior Marketing Managers must effectively coordinate complex initiatives across multiple teams and stakeholders.

Directions for the Company:

• Create a scenario for a major marketing initiative that requires collaboration across multiple departments (e.g., product launch, website redesign, brand refresh).
• Outline the basic parameters including timeline constraints, budget limitations, and key stakeholders involved.
• Provide information about potential resource constraints or competing priorities.
• Allow candidates to ask clarifying questions before developing their plan.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Develop a comprehensive project plan for the described marketing initiative.
• Your plan should include:
• Key milestones and timeline
• Resource allocation and team structure
• Stakeholder management approach
• Potential risks and mitigation strategies
• Success metrics and reporting cadence
• Be prepared to discuss how you would handle specific challenges like timeline compression, budget cuts, or stakeholder disagreements.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide feedback on the project plan's comprehensiveness, highlighting one particularly strong element and one area that needs more development.
• Present the candidate with a hypothetical mid-project challenge (e.g., "The development team just informed you they need two additional weeks for implementation").
• Ask the candidate to revise their approach to address this challenge, evaluating their problem-solving abilities and flexibility.

Activity #4: Marketing Team Leadership Scenario

This exercise assesses a candidate's leadership style, coaching abilities, and approach to team development. A Senior Marketing Manager must effectively lead and develop marketing team members with diverse skills and experience levels.

Directions for the Company:

• Develop a realistic scenario involving a performance or collaboration issue within a marketing team.
• Examples include: a team member consistently missing deadlines, two team members in conflict, or a talented but disengaged employee.
• Provide context about the team structure and the specific individuals involved.
• Consider recording a brief role-play video showing the problematic behavior to make the scenario more concrete.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the team leadership scenario and prepare your approach to addressing the situation.
• Be ready to role-play a conversation with the team member(s) involved.
• Prepare to explain:
• How you would diagnose the root cause of the issue
• Your immediate and long-term approach to resolving it
• How you would follow up and measure improvement
• How you would prevent similar issues in the future
• Consider both the interpersonal dynamics and the business impact of the situation.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the role-play, provide feedback on one aspect of the candidate's leadership approach that was effective and one area that could be improved.
• Ask the candidate to describe how they would adjust their approach based on the feedback.
• Evaluate their self-awareness and ability to adapt their leadership style to different situations.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should we allow for each work sample exercise?

For the Marketing Strategy Pivot and Campaign Performance Analysis, allocate 30 minutes (20 for presentation, 10 for questions). For the Cross-Functional Project Plan and Team Leadership Scenario, 20-25 minutes is typically sufficient. Remember that quality of insight is more important than the length of the exercise.

Should we use our actual marketing data for these exercises?

Using anonymized versions of real data provides the most authentic assessment. However, if confidentiality is a concern, create realistic synthetic data that reflects similar patterns and challenges to what the candidate would encounter in the role.

How do we evaluate candidates consistently across these exercises?

Develop a scorecard for each exercise that aligns with the key competencies for your Senior Marketing Manager role. Rate candidates on specific dimensions (e.g., strategic thinking, analytical skills, communication) rather than giving a single overall score. Have the same interviewers evaluate all candidates on the same exercises.

What if a candidate asks for additional information during the exercise?

This is actually a positive sign of thorough thinking. Prepare additional context that can be provided if requested. Note which candidates ask insightful questions that demonstrate deeper understanding of marketing challenges.

Should we share these exercises with candidates in advance?

For the Strategy Pivot and Campaign Analysis exercises, providing materials 24-48 hours in advance yields more thoughtful responses. For the Project Plan and Leadership Scenario, providing basic context in advance with details revealed during the interview offers a balance of preparation and spontaneous thinking.

How do we avoid biasing our evaluation based on presentation style rather than substance?

Focus your evaluation criteria on the quality of thinking, not presentation polish. Some excellent marketers may not be natural presenters. Ensure your scorecard emphasizes strategic insight, analytical rigor, and practical application over presentation style.

The investment in well-designed work samples pays dividends in making better hiring decisions for this critical marketing leadership role. By observing candidates tackle realistic challenges, you'll gain deeper insights into their capabilities than traditional interviews alone can provide. For more resources on optimizing your hiring process, explore Yardstick's tools for creating AI-powered job descriptions, generating effective interview questions, and developing comprehensive interview guides.

Ready to build a complete interview guide for your Senior Marketing Manager role? Sign up for a free Yardstick account today