06 November 2017

Faye Turnbull has worked in a variety of social media roles for MTV, Huffington Post, Warner Bros. Records and is currently the Head of Social Media for RT UK (you can read her full Mediargh Q&A here). Below, Faye talks in-depth about one of her first major job interviews back in 2012, which was for a paid digital marketing internship with MTV. What questions was she asked? How did she answer? Reflecting on an important time in her life five years ago, Faye says:

Following a series of internships in London not resulting in anything permanent, I was starting to feel incredibly deflated. I had moved back up to Newcastle, living with my parents, filling in job application after job application, while signing on at the Jobcentre (gasp). I then got a call from the HR team at MTV asking if I was available to attend a job interview for their paid, 12-month digital marketing internship. I was ecstatic. At 22-years-old, I had grown up watching MTV – from obsessing over The Ashlee Simpson Show (forgotten classic) to staying up every year to watch the VMAs. Also, their HQ is in the centre of Camden which is one of my main haunts as a music lover.

My main concern was travelling down from Newcastle to London for the 11am interview. I looked at Megabus and National Express, but an eight-hour overnight coach didn’t seem like a wise idea. Although I’d made that journey many times for other interviews I wanted to be on top form for this one! One of the ‘perks’ of being on Jobseeker’s Allowance is that they have a ‘Travel To Interview’ scheme. This is where they will pay for your travel (including trains) to interviews, as long as they have proof from the company interviewing you. I bit the bullet and asked MTV if they could send confirmation to the Jobcentre. It was slightly soul-destroying, but hey, I ended up getting the train there and back for free!

STAGE 1:

After spending three hours ‘revising’ facts about MTV on the train, I arrived in London. While nervously waiting in the reception area, Vicky Gooden – MTV UK’s Senior Brand Manager, who would be interviewing me – came to collect me. As I walked through the turnstiles to the main hall, I was in awe. The offices were seriously cool. I looked up and there were two massive Moonmen dangling from the ceiling.

I thought I had messed things up almost straight away as it was a bit of a walk to the meeting room and, at the time, I was incredibly socially-awkward and terrible at small talk. We finally arrived and sat down in MTV Base (FYI: The meeting rooms are named after all of MTV’s channels: MTV Base, MTV Dance, MTV Hits, VIVA, etc. and decorated accordingly).

The questions were fairly generic, from what I remember:

Tell us about yourself.

Why did you apply for the role?

What do you think about the MTV brand?

What’s your favourite social media platform, and why?

What do you think we could be doing differently on our social media platforms?

Are there any social media campaigns from any other brands that have impressed you recently? (Always a good one to have a pre-prepared answer for!)

Of course, their final question was: ‘Do you have any questions about the role?’ Even if you genuinely don’t have any questions, this is where you should have a series of pre-prepared backup questions at hand. My favourite examples include:

How long have you worked here and what have been your biggest successes while working here? (Higher-ups generally love to talk and brag about themselves)

How many people work in this department?

How would you describe the typical workday of the role?

Is there a chance for progression after the initial contracted role?

Overall, I thought the interview went pretty well. Despite the initial awkward introduction, I felt we had engaged in a good dialogue and I came across enthusiastic – maybe a little desperate…



STAGE 2:

Good news! After a week of waiting, I got a call back saying I had been invited to a second interview, but this time they wanted me to complete the following task:

“Social media content planning is crucial to the rollout of our big 360 degree/priority campaigns. Geordie Shore Series 3 begins this summer and series 2 has now finished. Series 3 is set in Mexico, Cancun. We would like to see your creation of content plans for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the show, to bring in for your interview.”

I had never created a digital marketing plan, but I knew this was my chance and went all out. I opened up PowerPoint and produced a 37-page social media deck for Geordie Shore series three.

My mind is always split when it comes to tasks like the one outlined above. I was hesitant to reveal all my best ideas in case I didn’t get the role, but I was totally sick of being on the bloody dole.

Thanks to the Jobcentre, I got a train down to London again. This time, I was ten times more nervous as it felt like my final chance. I couldn’t have possibly put more effort into the deck. It was do or die! In fact, I nearly did actually die two days beforehand… I stupidly broke my nose while stage diving at a hardcore punk gig, resulting in two black eyes. At the time, I was mortified. I had this life-changing interview and looked like I had gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. Fortunately, with layers of concealer, it didn’t look too bad and wasn’t brought up in the interview!

The second interview took place in MTV Base again and as I went through my deck on my Macbook, Vicky looked absolutely astounded at the amount of effort I put into it and asked how long it took me to do. I casually said a day, which was a slight fib. She even asked me to send the PowerPoint to HR for them to send her it, which I interpreted as a great sign!

OUTCOME:

Almost a week had passed and I had heard nothing, which was pretty upsetting. I sent HR an email asking for feedback and they replied fairly quickly. Their feedback stated that I had ‘narrowly missed out on the role’, but the team were ‘hugely impressed by my enthusiasm and ideas in the social media space’ and, instead, offered me a four-month freelance role to work on Geordie Shore series three. Of course, I accepted!

The four-month role provided me with invaluable experience and connections, leading me to join a social media agency providing out-of-hours services for MTV. Then, three years later, I returned in-house to head their record-breaking MTV Hottest and MTV Stars social media campaigns.

Faye on Twitter: @xfayex