Questions to Ask a CMO During an Interview
Questions for a candidate who has reached the chief marketing officer in an interview loop, whether for a marketing role, a design or content role, or a job that reports into the function two levels down. They cover what marketing is accountable for here, how budget and attribution work, the relationship with sales, and whether the role you are interviewing for is set up to succeed.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
How would you describe what marketing owns here, and what it does not?
The boundary is the job. In some companies marketing owns pipeline, pricing and product messaging, in others it makes assets for sales and is not in the room for the decisions. The second half of the answer is the one that predicts your frustration.
- 2
What made you open this role now, rather than six months ago or six months from now?
There are only a few real answers: someone left, a target moved, a budget got approved, or a capability is missing. Each of those sets you up differently, and a backfill after a resignation deserves a follow up about why the last person went.
- 3
What are you measured on by the chief executive and the board?
The metrics on the CMO's own scorecard are the ones that will eventually reach your review, no matter what the job description says. If the answer is a list of activity numbers rather than revenue, awareness or retention, marketing is not being held to an outcome here.
- 4
Which channels are working right now, and which ones are you carrying out of habit?
The second half is the test. A marketing leader who can name something they are winding down is managing a portfolio and making choices. One who says everything is performing well is either new, not looking, or answering you as if you were a candidate rather than a colleague.
- 5
How is the budget split between building the brand and generating demand, and how has that moved in the last year?
The direction of travel tells you what the company believes right now, and it usually reflects pressure from finance rather than a marketing philosophy. If the split has swung hard toward demand, expect a short leash on anything that pays back slowly.
- 6
How do you decide that marketing caused a sale?
Attribution is an argument about credit, not a technical setting, and the model in place decides which of your work is visible. Ask what happens to long sales cycles and to word of mouth under their model, because those are the places good work goes uncounted.
- 7
What is the relationship with sales like, and where does it break down?
Every company has friction here and the interesting thing is where they locate it: lead quality, follow up speed, pricing, or territory. A leader who says the relationship is great has either fixed something specific, which they can describe, or is not close enough to hear the complaints.
- 8
How much of the revenue number does marketing carry, and was that number agreed or assigned?
Carrying a share of pipeline is normal. Being handed one that sales did not agree to is a structural problem that lands on the team below the CMO, which may be you. Ask who set it and whether it has ever been renegotiated.
- 9
What did marketing get wrong in the past year?
You are testing for a specific story with a decision in it. A candid answer also tells you whether mistakes are discussable here, which matters more for your daily life than the strategy does. A deflection to market conditions is its own answer.
- 10
Who outside marketing weighs in on marketing decisions, and how far do they go?
Founders, sales leaders and product often hold informal veto power over brand, naming and creative. Knowing who they are before you start saves you from presenting finished work to a person you did not know had to approve it.
- 11
How does creative work get approved, and how many people can say no?
The number of approvers predicts both how long anything takes and how conservative the output becomes. Ask for a recent example from first draft to launch, with the dates, rather than a description of the process on paper.
- 12
What would you want to see from someone in this role in the first ninety days?
A vague answer usually means the role has not been thought through and you will spend your first quarter defining it yourself. An answer that requires a full rebuild in ninety days is a different problem: the expectation was set by someone who has not done the work recently.
- 13
What is the split between in house work and agency work, and is that changing?
This decides whether the job is making things or managing people who make things, and candidates frequently discover the difference after starting. A planned move in either direction also tells you where headcount and budget are heading next year.
- 14
How long have your direct reports been in their seats, and who was in the role I am interviewing for?
A leadership bench that all arrived in the last year means a rebuild, with the instability that comes with it. If the seat you are interviewing for has turned over twice, ask what changed after each departure, and listen for whether anything did.
- 15
What happens to marketing spend when a quarter misses?
This is where you learn whether marketing is treated as an investment or a lever. Companies that cut brand spend first in a bad quarter will do it again, and the work you are hired to build may be the first thing paused.
- 16
What is the plan for this team over the next year: headcount, reporting lines, tools?
Reporting lines matter most. A function about to be reorganized under sales or product is a different job from the one being described to you, and the CMO usually knows about it before it is announced.
- 17
What kind of person does well working for you, and what frustrates you?
Asked as a pair, this gets a more honest answer than either half alone. Listen for whether the frustrations are about craft, speed or communication, and ask yourself honestly which of them describes you on a bad week.
- 18
How long have you been here, and what would keep you for another two years?
Marketing leaders turn over faster than most of the executive team, and if this one leaves, the strategy you were hired to execute usually leaves too. The answer also reveals whether they are building something or holding a position.
- 19
If I asked the sales team and the product team what marketing is for, would I get the same answer?
This is the polite version of asking whether the function has a mandate. A leader who laughs and describes the gap is being useful. One who insists everyone is aligned has just told you they have not asked lately.
- 20
What do you want this team to be known for that it is not yet?
It ends the conversation on ambition and gives you something concrete to reference later. It also surfaces the gap the CMO is privately worried about, which is often the real reason this role exists.
Interviewing with a CMO
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
What this stage of the loop is actually for
What this stage of the loop is actually for
- By the time you reach the CMO, your skills have usually been assessed elsewhere. This conversation is about judgment, taste and whether you will be a problem in a room.
- You are being watched for the quality of your questions as much as your answers. Two specific questions about the business beat ten generic ones about culture.
- If the role reports two or three levels below the CMO, expect fifteen or twenty minutes. Pick three questions rather than working through a list.
- Save compensation, title, leveling and holiday for the recruiter. Raising them here reads as a misjudgment of the room, and the recruiter can answer them better anyway.
- Do the homework first. Look at their advertising, their landing pages, their pricing page and their last few announcements, so your questions come from something you noticed.
Reading the answers
Reading the answers
- Specific numbers, dates and named examples suggest someone close to the work. Consistent abstraction suggests distance from it, or a story being managed.
- Watch whether they distinguish brand from demand generation as a real trade off. Leaders who treat them as the same thing tend to fund neither properly.
- When they describe a failure, note whether the cause sits inside their control. Everything blamed on the market or on a previous executive is a pattern worth weighing.
- Listen for who they credit. A leader who names individuals on the team is describing a place where work is visible.
- Notice if they ask you anything back about what you would do. Curiosity in the last five minutes is usually a good sign about the working relationship.
Signs the role may be set up to fail
Signs the role may be set up to fail
- Nobody can describe what success looks like in the first quarter without using the word visibility.
- The role has turned over more than once in two years and the explanation is that they were not the right fit.
- Marketing owns a revenue target that sales did not agree to, or has no target at all.
- Creative approval runs through a founder who is not in your interview loop and is described in slightly careful language.
- The budget for the work you would be hired to do has not been approved yet, or is described as something you would build the case for.