TRANSCRIPT;

If you’re asked the question, why are you looking for a new job?

Then what you say next is pretty important to your success in the interview.

Because it’s too easy to get straight to the point.

It could be that your CEO doesn’t believe in marketing. You need a new challenge. The sales team are hard to work with. There are a lack of career opportunities. The business doesn’t want to invest in marketing.

Now all those are valid reasons. BUT and it is a big BUT.

A lot of company’s out there will just think to themselves.

“So what.”

And silently, they’ll be thinking to themselves.

• What did you do to persuade the CEO that marketing can help their business grow.
• Why didn’t you raise your hand for more challenges? Surely there were more, every business has a ton of challenges.
• What did you do to improve the relationship with the sales team.
• Were you not able to prove to them you were worthy of a promotion.
• If they weren’t willing to invest in marketing, how effective was your marketing.

So getting straight to the point is never the best way to answer this question.

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Further Reading; B2B Marketing Interview Questions – The Comprehensive Guide

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A framework to answer the question

And in this video I’m going to give you a simple framework to use to answer this question so an interviewer is left with no concerns.

Hello, if you’re here for the first time, I’m Matt Dodgson and I’m a Co-Founder of Market Recruitment.
And we help B2B marketers in the Tech sector accelerate their careers, whether you’re looking for a new marketing job or looking to hire into your marketing team.

And while you’re here if you’re watching this on YouTube then I’d recommend hitting the Subscribe button followed by the bell so you’re notified when our next video lands.

So…how to answer the ‘why are you looking for a new job question?’

Now before I give you an example of how I’d answer this question, I want to talk you through why I’m suggesting what I’m suggesting.

Why companies ask, ‘why are you looking for a new marketing job?’

And that boils down to why companies ask this question in the first place and what they’re looking to hear.

And really they ask this question because they want to uncover any problems you had to make sure you don’t encounter them in their company and end up leaving or not being suited to the role.

As a simple example. Let’s say you’re interviewing for a role where they know there’s an issue with the relationship between the sales and marketing team, and you then say that the reason you left your previous company was because of that very issue.

No surprise that role won’t be a good fit for you.

And that’s quite simplistic but it’s one of the reasons they ask it.

The other, is that they want to see how you handle a challenge. In every B2B marketing job, there will always be challenges.

It could be budget, buy-in, stakeholder issues, not being promoted quick enough. So you’re always going to come across a few road bumps.

And do you run or do you face those challenges and try and work through them.

That’s the key to answering this interview question in the right way.

Because when you boil it down, apart from the obvious fit part, you need to give an answer that covers what you did about this issue you ran into.

To answer it in the right way, you almost need to rephrase the question like this.
Why are you looking to leave and what have you done to overcome that before being here today.

Now there is a caveat here. Which is they’re also trying to sniff out whether or not you were performing. So be careful constructing an answer that isn’t quite the truth, because it wouldn’t take an experienced interviewer to find that out.

The key is to be honest.
And you might watch this video and think to yourself. You know what, I’m not sure if I have done enough to overcome this issue I’m having. I’m going to stick at it until I’ve exhausted every avenue and then look for a new job.

Right, so hopefully that makes sense.

Now..how to answer this question. Why are you looking for a new job?

Explain it’s not been an easy decision to move jobs

So the first bit is to tell them that’s been a tough decision because you enjoy your role and you well thought of.

That puts to bed the ‘was he or she performing question’.
The next bit is to give them the reason. Don’t try and sell it, don’t try and position it, just give it straight.

And then the last bit, is to put some context behind, and this bit is really the most important bit of the answer. The last bit is to talk about what you’ve done to overcome this issue. You don’t have to go on forever, but you need to give a bit of detail.

So, all together it could something like this;

Well I need to say first that deciding to leave my company hasn’t been an easy decision. I really enjoy my job and the other day the CEO told me I was a really important cog in the business, so I’d like to think I was doing a good job there.

However, there really aren’t any opportunities for me to develop my career here.

And it’s something I’ve tried to work through. So I’ve spoken to my CEO about it and I’ve been constantly raising my hand and taking on new projects. During my time there I’ve implemented automation, ABM and a lot more.
But as my CEO said to me, I probably need to move to get more growth, which is why I’m here today.

Now hopefully that makes sense.

Basically front load the answer with the fact it’s been a hard decision.

Then give the actual reason.

Talk about how you’ve tried to overcome the problem

And lastly, talk about what you’ve done to eradicate that issue.

By doing that you’ll counter any concerns a company might have and stop them jumping to conclusions that simply aren’t right.

And finally if you’re watching this video on our website, you can subscribe once it ends so you can get an email the next time a video goes live.

Good luck with your interviews and speak soon.