I was a Digital Media Head at Zebra Idealabs Pvt. Ltd. I joined them as a copywriting intern and later handled the digital marketing for the agency. In my 4 years, I got skilled with paid marketing and performance marketing. After a short break of 6 months, I was looking out for opportunities as a Performance Marketing Manager.

I moved to Bangalore in January 2024 and was looking for jobs. In this blog, I wanted to share one such experience that made me understand the marketing pulse of Bangalore. The company name is Alethea Technologies. They made technology for Wifi systems and testing. I found out about their opening on the job portal where the listing suggested an opening for a Performance and Marketing Senior.

Interview Process:

Exhibit 1

On a pleasant winter evening, around 8:30 PM I got a call from a young HR who eagerly informed me that my CV got shortlisted just half an hour ago for the further process and so she wanted to understand a few points from my experience.

She quickly asked me a few pointer questions like – Have you worked on Meta Ads and Google Ads? What was the maximum monthly budget that I have handled? Have you done any re-marketing campaigns, if so, share your experiences?

She also asked me about report generation and tools like Excel, Google Sheets, and Google Data Studio to understand if I had any experience with client reporting. During the call, she hesitately kept asking if I had previously worked on technology/selling.

My call ended with me enquiring about the company, work hours and job role demands that were expected of me. She informed me I would receive an email with the job description and other company details.

After the call, I was still unclear about the roles that I was required for. Generally, during the first call, we must get a pinch of taste of what is expected of us through the job description. I was told that I am fit as a digital marketer, however, the job description mentioned roles including business development, sales, and various traditional marketing roles as well.

I was also required to complete a task in which I had to prepare a PPT that indicated the required changes in the website and update the layout of the brochure and content. My technical round would depend on the above task itself.

Exhibit 2

My second round was technical with the company’s Co-founder. It was a virtual round and here are the questions that I was asked:

1. Explain in detail with budget spent on a campaign that you executed. Mention your roles and challenges.
2. What according to you is good ROAS?
3. How do you measure the success of Radio Jingles or pamphlets for a product?
4. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your design skills?
5. How do you analyze if a design will work or not?
6. Screenshare and Write a press note on the new product whose specifications and USPs you have studied from the brochure. You can use any resources online.
7. Mention an offline B2B campaign that you have executed.
8. Your previous experiences in marketing software/technology if any.

After a hectic 1 hour discussion, he asked if I had any questions for him. I grabbed the opportunity and with a calm polite demeanor, I asked him about what my every day at Alethea would look like. He explained that they were looking for someone with a tech/ software product experience. He also informed me of him taking other candidate interviews as well. He ended the call by giving me an idea of the roles I am being expected of and the accountabilities that I share if and when I get hired.

Exhibit 3

The 3rd round was the HR round again. My calendar showed the 3rd week of the month. I had already shared my documents, so at this point, I thought this was the closing part of the deal and my days of staying “unemployed” or “incompetent” were ending. This was supposed to be an onsite round, however, since I was traveling they arranged for a virtual setup.

Here are the HR questions that I was asked:

1. How many team members have you handled?
2. How was your every day working at your past company?
3. One Challenging experience in your past job and how did you tackle it?
4. Say a team member is giving excuses for not doing work, it has happened for a month now, how do you deal with it?
5. If this team member still doesn’t get things done even after mentioning the deadlines of the task, what do you do in this situation?
6. How do you work when there is a tight deadline and key team members are unavailable?
7. Why do you feel that you are fit for this role?

To be completely honest with you, the last question has left me feeling a bit unsure about whether I am the best fit for the role. Just like after watching a horror movie, you would doubt your own shadow if it moved when you are still!!

My Take Aways

When you are looking for jobs, research about them as much as they would do about you. Send a polite message to other employees who are working in those companies and ask about the culture. Be frank with the HR about job roles at the initial level itself. It is always beneficial to understand why you got selected and what is expected of you.

Job seeking is tough! It takes a little more than technical skills to be placed. You need to be patient and constantly upskilling to strike that right balance. And most importantly, I want to share this from my personal experience – it is OK to take a break and come out about it to the HRs. Trust me the right organization would value honesty, principles, and your character equally as your technical skills.

From such other experiences, I learned that Bangalore is beautifully tech-savvy. If there is trouble with business, the nerds would align and create a new version out of it! Unlike Ahmedabad (my previous workplace), people here aren’t quick risk-takers. However, people here respect professionalism and the value of having good people as employees. That my friends is the marketing pulse of Bangalore. It’s competitive, but very accepting as well!

All the best.