My mentee just got a verbal offer for a Senior Paid Media Specialist role at Sally Beauty — a title upgrade from where she was, and a real jump in compensation. We prepped together through three rounds of interviews, including a presentation assignment, and I want to walk through what worked at each stage.
The mistake most people make is treating all three rounds the same. They're not. The HR screen, the hiring manager conversation, and the final executive interview are three completely different tests, and you need a different approach for each.
For the HR screen, your goal is simple: make it easy for them to check the boxes. HR is working through the job description, and they're essentially verifying that you are who your résumé says you are. So front-load your intro. In your first 90 seconds, hit the keywords — how many years of experience you have, which platforms you've worked on, which tools you know. Don't wait for them to ask. Then tell them briefly why you're interested in the company. That's usually enough to move you to round two.
The hiring manager conversation is more nuanced. I always tell my mentees to research the person's LinkedIn before the interview — what channels have they focused on, have they gotten any certifications recently? If they're Google-certified, they're going to care a lot about search performance. Tailor your examples to what they care about. And somewhere in that conversation, genuinely acknowledge what you admire about working for them — that you'd be learning from someone with deep experience in a particular area — and complement it by pointing out what you'd bring to the table that fills a different gap. That's not flattery. It's positioning.
The final round — in this case, the Head of Marketing — requires a different lens entirely. Put yourself in that person's seat for a moment. What keeps them up at night? Nine times out of ten, it's some version of: "We're spending money on ads and I don't know if it's actually driving revenue." That means your most powerful prep for an executive round is having a strong story about how you've measured and proven ROI — dashboards, attribution, connecting media spend to sales outcomes.
One more thing: if you've switched industries before, they will ask you about it. Have a story ready. Ideally it includes previous experience marketing to a similar customer, or some credible reason why this industry genuinely excites you for the long term. Conviction is persuasive when it's real. She nailed all three rounds. If you're heading into a multi-round process, think about what each interviewer actually needs to hear.
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