Job Application Screening Process for Product Marketing Specialist

Screening resumes reveals that networking significantly boosts job applicants' chances of landing interviews.

### The Application Screening Process: Insights and Tips for Job Seekers
* 📄  Having screened thousands of resumes, I am currently evaluating applications for a **product marketing specialist position**, sharing my process to help future applicants **improve their chances**.
* 🔗  We received 31 applications, including 24 from public postings and 8 from personal referrals, highlighting that **50-80% of jobs are filled through connections** rather than public listings.
* 🔍  My top tip is to **leverage your network**; referrals often lead to interviews, as most of my permanent team members were recruited through **personal connections** rather than formal applications.
* 📝  When screening applications, I prioritize portfolios, eliminating candidates without one, as it demonstrates **independence and relevant experience**, especially for freelance roles.
* 🎨  I recommend using professional-looking email addresses and customizing resumes to fit specific job applications, as this can **significantly enhance your chances of being noticed**.
* 💡  HubSpot offers free resume templates that are **customizable for different experience levels**, making it easier for applicants to **present themselves effectively**.
* 📊  In evaluating candidates, I focus on their **experience in social product marketing**, **creativity**, and **ability to work independently**, as well as their fit with the company's **culture and values**.
* 🤝  After screening, I will send out screening questions to the shortlisted candidates, followed by interviews to assess their **skills and team compatibility**, ultimately leading to the offer stage where **negotiation is encouraged**.

So I have screened thousands of resumés, both for my own company and for other people's companies when I was working there. I'm actually currently screening applications because my team is looking to hire a product marketing specialist. So I figured, why not show you this full process, like in real actual process of screening different portfolios, resumés, and applications, and ultimately making decisions on who we're going to interview and who we're ultimately going to hire. Along the way, I also give you some tips on what works and what doesn't work from the perspective of an employer, so next time when you're applying for a job, hopefully, it will help you have a higher chance of landing it. A portion of this video is sponsored by HubSpot. So for this job posting, I made a YouTube post a couple of weeks back saying that we're hiring a product marketing specialist to join a team, someone who wants to work remote and starting from part-time. I also made a post about it on LinkedIn, and from that, we received 24

applications, but there are actually 31 applications that we're currently considering. Where does the other eight come from? Well, I just mentioned that I'm hiring somebody to my friends and colleagues, and I asked, Hey, do you know anybody who would be interested in this role? This is actually a pretty common process. There's estimates that say between 50 and 80% of jobs are filled just from connections and network, and they were never actually publicly posted. So, because these people came directly from my network, they bypassed the rest of these screening processes, and they went directly to the interview stage, which I will talk about later. So, yes, my number one tip is to try to go through your connections. If you're being referred by one of your friends or one of the colleagues, then you pretty much have an advantage over everybody else that is applying. Like, you at least get an interview. Now that I think about it, almost every single person on my current permanent team did not come from a direct interview. Some people showed up on Discord, and they're just involved.

with the community. So when I mentioned, Hey, I'm looking for someone to fill the XYZ role, they're like, Oh, I could be interested. This would be like ecstasy. And Ibrahim Vermont, one of our full-time editors, he just emailed me and followed up multiple times. Like, whenever I got busy and I forgot about the chain, he would just like remind me over and over again. And I was like, Okay, yes, clearly this person wants to work for this team, and I should not be rude. So I responded, and that's how it worked out. Anyways, technically, the only person that went through the official application process is Rex, our operations manager. Well, let's see what's on. Okay, now going back to these applications, let us start screening them. Just to protect the privacy of everybody that applied, I made sure to remove all identifying information. So first thing I'm going to do, even before reading any of this, is that I'm going to remove anybody without a portfolio. I'll explain why in just a bit. Nope, nope, LinkedIn does not count as a portfolio. This person told me to check

out a specific Instagram. Sorry to be kind of harsh here, but at least link to Instagram. It really should be on part of a portfolio as well. Spelling mistakes like Instagram not being spelled correctly, that's also a really big red flag, so that's also going to be a no. Nope. Maths, AI, Python, and programming, that is not a portfolio. All right, we have 13 people left. Let me explain why I just did that. So, if you look at this job posting, you'll notice that this is from a company that is pretty small. We have a pretty small team, and you also see that the job is remote and starting from part-time. So, this could potentially convert to a full-time position, but since it's starting off as part-time, this is considered a freelance gig, which means that I am hiring you to do something very specific for this company. And you can have a great resume that says that you have all these prestigious schools, worked at all these different places, but I don't really care about that. I want to know if you're able

to perform this task. And also, if you've had other freelance experiences before, I want to make sure that I don't need to be holding your hand through how to work as a freelancer. There's like this expectation of independence, an expectation of competence outside of a full-time job. To be fair, if you're applying for larger companies, like when I was applying for Goldman Sachs or for Meta and these places, you can just directly apply through their company website, and they wouldn't really care so much about your portfolios because they probably have automated screening. So they'll just screen through it anyway; nobody would actually look at it. This also goes for cover letters. If it's a larger company, especially in tech, they don't really care at all about your cover letters. But if you're going for smaller companies, like this company or like startups, and especially if it is a freelance part-time position, then there is an expectation that you will have a portfolio as well as a cover letter. In our case, this is the part where we said

anything else you think we should know. It's not as important as the portfolio, so I wouldn't screen someone out just because they don't have a cover letter, but it does matter a lot because it shows that you made an effort. One more tip: when it says like email address over here, a lot of people apply with their school emails. This is fine; like, there's nothing wrong with doing that, and especially if you're going for entry-level positions, this is like totally fine, right? You went to a prestigious school; that is good. But under qualifications here, we specifically wrote proven experience in social product marketing, preferably in a tech or education sector. So, this shows that this is a position that is not explicitly entry-level. So, it's actually better if you are not using a school email. It's honestly pretty easy; just buy a domain. It's like a few dollars, and then just make an email from a professional-looking domain. This will make the person feel as if you have more experience than if you were a student as we're looking over some resumes in a bit.

you may also start being inspired to up your resume game. That's why I thought it would be cool to share with you guys that HubSpot actually has a completely free bundle of 12 professionally designed resume templates for marketing, sales, and customer service, or really any other job applications. My favorite thing is that it's actually labeled and divided into different experiences and different roles. There's strategist, specialists, entry-level, and intern. They're very well thought out. For example, for the intern resume, it takes into consideration that you probably don't have that much job experience, so there's a bigger emphasis on highlighting yourself and your traits. For entry-level, there's a section that covers school awards, while for specialists and strategists, there's more of an emphasis on job experience. So you can pick your experience level and what things you want to highlight. They're completely customizable on Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Google Docs, and Slides. Like, for example, if I'm going for a marketing position, I would choose this resume because it fits my experience level and also it's yellow and my

favorite color is yellow. All I have to do like is go here and literally just type in my name. You can just fill out all of these things over here, and voila, you have your own custom resume. I highly recommend that you download these templates. You can get them with this link over here, also linked in description. Thank you so much HubSpot for providing free resources to help us stand out in the job hunting process and for sponsoring this portion of the video. Now to the video. Pardon me, sir. I'd like to join. What are your qualifications for this role under qualifications point one, which is proven experience in social product marketing, preferably in tech or education sector, as well as an understanding of digital marketing channels and tools like LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, whatever. These pretty much just we want to know that you've had some experience using these tools before. Communication collaboration skills. You can work as part of a team emphasis on analytical mindset and data. We are a very engineering, a data-heavy team, so in order to fit in, even if you're doing

marketing. You need to be very data-driven. Finally, creative thinking and problem-solving. We're not looking for a yes man; we're looking for someone who is able to be independent and come up with solutions themselves. And of course, being passionate about AI and education is a plus because you will be marketing for something in AI education. So, best if you actually know the product. Why join us? Blah blah blah, you know we think we're really good and stuff, but another big thing to make a note of is that we've been told we're also fun to work with. This is something we care a lot about because we wrote something like this, and if you actually made an effort to go and look at the YouTube channel, look at the things that we're doing, you would know that we have a certain more chill, casual kind of vibe. And the vibe check is really important, and it should be something that we can tell in your application, especially in your portfolio. Do you have the right vibes to match the vibes of

the company these qualifications and The Vibes actually matter the most because you can teach people some of these key responsibilities as long as they're interested in these key responsibilities but this is kind of like the foundation that we care about the most but let's just quickly go through the key responsibilities as well as well the whole point of product marketing is to Market our lonely octopus program so we' be developing and executing marketing strategies not a management role in order to drive product awareness collaborate with a bunch of teams blah blah blah make sure that you're a team player you'll be analyzing market trends so really emphasis that we are very data driven company manage and optimize online marketing campaigns and customer research track and report of performance these are pretty like standard things for marketing rules another key thing I want to point out here something that I would be looking for in the resume and the portfolio is is the fact that this is a social media based company we have a YouTube channel we have a strong social media presence so I'm going to be

Looking for the fact that you, as a marketer, have done your research all right. Describe your experience with product marketing. So, five plus years of experience as a solo product marketer at two startups. So, leadership abilities, that is great. Looks like you have things with Gen Z, so like engineering experience. I like how things are quantified. It looks like you've also been in the edtech industry and engaging with 120k-plus users. This is super impressive. This is a very packed resume. Product marketing experience, that is wonderful. Go-to-market strategy, a lot of the lingo, including LM developers. So, this is great. Contract, so has freelance experience. Really like that. Great that we have some projects that are here. Hopefully, this is something that is shown and also goes more in-depth onto portfolio selected work examples. Oh wow, this looks really good. Damn. So, webinars, videos, landing pages. Looking through some of these samples, clearly someone with extensive work experience and contracts and is in the education space and is in the AI and Tech space. This is just like, could be our dream person, but

that was only application number one. Let us see what else we got. Appreciate the summary. Let's look at the resume. Nice one-pager. Love how there's already numbers over here. Clearly an analytics-driven person. So marketing specialist, Instagram team lead, digital marketing, and PR intern. So amazing. Lots of experience here. So usually when I look at a resume, I'll just be a quick screen of education. In this case, I don't really care that much about education in this world. And I'll also look at their professional experiences. Anything to showcase that they've done similar things in the past. But the highlight is going to be in the portfolio, which is going to bring color to the resume. A lot of these things are going to be blurred out because we don't want to reveal any personal information. So first thing I want to comment on. In this case, we are using Wix as the website. Just get a custom domain name. It's really easy. It's something that just makes you look a lot more professional. What I love about this portfolio already is that there is clear

creativity. I love how there's analogies are going on. It's very beautiful. There's really beautiful illustrations. It shows that this person spent a significant amount of effort in making it a good page, which is something that you definitely want to see in a marketing specialist. How to first learn to market yourself. I wish I can actually show you guys some of these posters and stuff. They're just beautiful. I love that there's a YouTube video documenting the process of this person working where a video-based company so clearly understands how YouTube works. Oh my God, I'm so impressed. Clearly has proven experience in social product marketing, strong understanding of digital marketing channels, absolutely analytical mindset, clearly showing by the numbers on the resume, creative thinking, problem-solving skills, just by how well organized this is. There's just creativity oozing out of it. There's like personality in this portfolio, and that is absolutely what we're looking for. I don't think there's anything specific in tech or education or passion for AI, but this is overall really, really strong for

Both of these applications so far clearly demonstrate the needed qualifications, and they also show that they've done things as part of the key responsibilities already. In love as a product marketing specialist, they're able to market themselves right, and there's a demonstration of video content, which is primarily where we operate in, and expanding past just like a product marketing role. If you're going for software engineering, data, AI kind of role, you also want to embody what that role is and put it within your portfolio. In those cases, I wouldn't care as much about the aesthetics of things like, you know, you're an engineer, it's okay, you don't have to be that aesthetic, but I would care more about these projects. Have you done projects that use the technologies that are required in order to build products within those? The octopus rese is for screening foundational qualifications. Does this person have experience? What is their education background? Things like that. But the portfolio is really what brings everything to life. You can say you have all these skills, you've done all these

Things which is like great, right, is really great. But by looking at a portfolio, you can get so much more information about a person because they're able to express their projects, they're able to go more in-depth, they're able to show their aesthetic kind of style as well. I am now going to show some not-so-great things in people's resumes and portfolios, and again, I'm not trying to be mean here. I really hope that this is going to help you when you're doing your applications. This person has a good resume. They show that they have the qualifications, and they've worked different jobs in which they've demonstrated other projects that show the key responsibilities that we're looking for as well. I also appreciate for anything else you should know apart. The person wrote down what it is that he thinks he's able to bring to the table. However, when we look at the portfolio, there are clearly projects that are kind of like mock projects, personal projects where they took a certain data set, where they pretend to have a certain product.

and they're marketing it, doing some analytics and things like that. There's nothing wrong about this per se, but compared to the other candidates, it doesn't show real projects and real experience. When I'm looking for a freelancer, I want to see that this person has done something in freelancing, like actual projects outside of their full-time job. This person has a really great resume, clearly shows that they have marketing experience, they've been a manager, they've worked at so many great companies, but if you look at the portfolio again, the only thing they have are things that are personal projects or things related to their job, nothing outside of that. If I were hiring this person full-time, not a problem, I would go give that interview, but just given the fact that there isn't any freelance experience per se, it feels like I would have to hold their hand in order to explain to them, Okay, like this is how it is that freelancing works. And just by the way, I want to say like it really isn't that hard to get something on your

resume and your portfolio that has to do with freelancing. You can even just go to like places and just say, Hey, can I like do this freelancing thing for you for free? Can I like redesign your poster? Can I manage your social media accounts? Just do that, and then you would have like real experiences, and you can convert them to things that are paid. Another thing I want to point out, which doesn't sound great when I say like this, but it's the honest truth. For some of these people, they feel very overqualified. They have multiple degrees, like MBA degrees. They have like master's degrees, two different engineering degrees, worked at these like big prestigious companies. And I know it sounds bad by me saying this, but when I see this, I'm like, Wow, this person is going to be really great. But at the same time, how much is their salary expectation going to be? And that is a consideration, if I'm going to be honest with you. So I'm not saying like don't put your degrees and accolades, but if you just like look at the job posting.

in the company and the position that you're hiring for pretty clear that since we just say for an experience we're not saying like 10 years of experience 25 years of experience like having these like bachelor's and MERS and education degrees just know that if you're applying you may come off as being overqualified and that could be like a not great thing or it could just mean that maybe this is not the kind of side gig where like part-time job that you should be applying for maybe you should be applying for something that is a little bit more advanced this person for describe your experience with product marketing really love the fact that they listed things out very nicely and they also phrased it as a cover letter like hello lonely octopus War Mis regards I love that also appreciate writing something for anything else you think we should know resume wise so much great experience only comment here is that there's like so much stuff that I'm not sure where my eyes should be drawn to which again like I'm being a little

bit nitpicky here because truthfully the applications started coming in for this position. I am dumbfounded by how good they are. This is also my first time looking through them, by the way, so like this is my genuine reaction. I'm really surprised by the quality of applications. Portfolio looks great too. This person has a decent resume, but the formatting of it, we could really work on that. You're going for a product marketing position, so the ability to market yourself aesthetics is important in this case. For the portfolio, I can clearly see that there's SEO marketing that's written here. It is very good that they are clearly SEO specific, but for this particular company in this particular role, we have a heavy emphasis on content, not SEO. So even though they may be a great fit for another company, this would be a pass. A little bit of research can go a long way. You can even just have duplicates of your same website and your same portfolio and then just change like what the tagline is and then highlight

different projects depending on the role you're applying for. It's like a 5-minute, 10-minute kind of change, but it increases your chances of landing a position much, much more. All right, after this step, we're left with eight people in consideration, along with the other eight people that directly went into the interview phase. This is 16 people in total. I am not going to conduct 16 interviews that are a minimum of 30 minutes each, so I'm going to send a list of screening questions. The first question is, What is the first thing you will do when starting this role? That is, What do you think will be the first project? Why am I asking this question? Well, from the portfolio plus the resume, I'm able to see the past experiences, have a good vibe about everything, but now before I actually interview someone, I have to answer the kind of a little bit unfortunate kind of question, Is this real? Like, do you actually have the skill sets? I'm going to ask specific questions, which I think that you should know if

You're going to be going for this role. Pretty sure by the time you watch this video, people would have responded to this already. So, I'm just going to say it in this case. The first thing you should do is conduct an audit. Like, what is the marketing funnel that's currently there? What are the numbers? Where's the drop-off? So, this should be the first thing, and people should be able to answer that and give a justification. Second question: What is one thing you could improve about our website? This website over here. I like this question because it doesn't take the candidate a lot of time. They can just kind of click through and be able to see what's up and then give some sort of input. If they truly did have experience from the things that they've done, they should be able to pick out a lot of things that we can be improving right now. Finally, we're not doing a very good job in managing our meeting. Le. This is absolutely true. People sign up, and we don't really do anything except tell them that we're

launching another cohort. What do you think we can provide that is of value and of entertainment between cohorts? Email marketing is like one of the foundations of digital marketing, so they should be able to answer this question. When I was hiring for an editor on Reddit, similar thing. I asked this series of questions that an editor should know. By the way, quick tip: let us not assume that the person you're talking to is a bro. It doesn't really matter, but for some reason, Reddit people just think you're a guy. So, I do this a lot, and when I'm hiring engineers, it would be like a quick little coding challenge, or it would be something like, We are trying to build this AI product. What kind of LLS do you think we should be looking into for larger companies that get a lot more applications? This part, they would be a lot more stringent. Like for Goldman Sachs, I believe there were four rounds of interviews, and the screening one that doesn't have a real person was like two different rounds. And for Meta, there was

think like seven rounds of interviews, and the first few rounds were just coding challenges and HR screens and things like that. Okay, so I've just sent those screening questions to the eight people that are still in consideration. Hopefully, they get back to us. What I'm looking for is obviously to answer what would be kind of above and beyond would just be like if somebody answers using a video, for example. If somebody actually illustrated what they're talking about, like maybe instead of just saying, You should just change this part of a website, maybe they could actually show an illustration, like what is it that we should be changing, what's the reasoning behind it, you know. These little things can really make you stand out. Just a little bit of effort is all it takes to elevate yourself from the rest. Also, follow-ups. Do follow up, especially with smaller companies like these. Like, somebody will be reading these. Don't feel like it's annoying if you're following up because like, What's the worst-case scenario? Like, we think it's

annoying. You have nothing to lose anyway, but by following up, it's like, Oh, there's enthusiasm, and then, you know, like, We're able to know that this person really cares. Be like Rat, for example, our editor. I think he followed up like at least seven, eight times. And when you get a job interview, try not to call your employer a punk or a skank. Makes sense. While we're waiting for these people to reply, let's talk about the interview stage. There are quite a lot of interviews that we're going to be conducting, like the first eight people that remember, like, they literally skipped all of these steps, right? Just directly going to the interview step because they were through networks and connections. I'm thinking probably like three to four people from the applications we will be interviewing. And during this interview, probably just a quick check to see like if they actually did things that they said they were going to do. But a large part of that is just going to be a vibe check. Like when you talk to someone like through VC, you

would have a much better understanding of the vibes of the person. Does this person fit in? Does your personality fit in? This is a really, really important part because you can be like the best marketing specialist, best engineer ever, but if you don't fit into the team that you're going to be working with, that's going to be a problem. Finally, step seven, probably going to send out offers to maybe like three to four people, and then we enter into the negotiation phase. I don't want to make this video super long, so I'm not going to talk too much in detail about negotiating because that is kind of like its own thing. Quick tip, especially if you're going for a part-time job like a freelance job, do not be afraid to negotiate. If you have zero experience, then just do not negotiate; you just want something. But if you're someone who's had some experience, like do not be afraid to negotiate. You're not going to lose a deal just because you negotiate. I'm kind of like, am I shooting myself in the foot here by

telling you guys, negotiate with me, okay? But in all seriousness, I do want to be transparent. You should negotiate, and I respect people who negotiate and understand their own values. And I really want to see people who I'm working with thrive and reach their career goals and their salary goals. All right, that is all that I have for you guys today. I hope it was helpful, like actually seeing through the full process, not just kind of like me giving tips I can remember in my brain. But yeah, let me know in the comments what you think about this process and how it is I'm going through these applications, or if there's any other topics you want me to talk about. I will see you guys in the next video or live stream.

Screen Resumes With Me! (hiring for our team) 🐙

Hi! My name is Tina and I'm a ex-Meta data scientist. Now I create content and other internet things! 

This channel is about coding, tech, career, and self-study. I love learning new things and my goal is to always minimize effort and maximize outcome! 

I strive to do things in the most efficient way possible and with the highest reward. I basically refuse to do extra work to achieve my goals c: 




Tina Huang

to deliver results for the specific tasks I need.

A portfolio is crucial because it showcases your work and demonstrates your skills.

Additionally, spelling mistakes and irrelevant links are red flags that can lead to immediate disqualification.

Networking and referrals play a significant role in the hiring process, often giving candidates an advantage over others.

Tips for Applying to Freelance and Part-Time Positions

Freelance roles expect independence and competence, with smaller companies valuing portfolios and cover letters more than larger ones.

Using a professional email domain can enhance the perception of experience.

HubSpot offers free customizable resume templates for various experience levels, aiding in the job application process.

Seeking a Data-Driven Product Marketer for AI Education

The ideal candidate should have a strong background in marketing, with a focus on data-driven decision-making and creative problem-solving.

Passion for AI and education is a plus, as the role involves marketing the company's AI education program.

The company values a fun and casual work environment, and the right candidate should demonstrate a good cultural fit through their application and portfolio.

Key responsibilities include developing marketing strategies, analyzing market trends, managing online campaigns, and having a strong social media presence.

The resume showcases an analytics-driven marketing specialist with diverse experience, including digital marketing and PR.

The portfolio, built on Wix, features a custom domain, creative illustrations, and a YouTube video documenting the person's work process.

Overall, the applications demonstrate the needed qualifications and relevant experience, with the portfolio bringing the candidate's skills and personality to life.

A strong portfolio provides more in-depth information about a person's projects and style, while a good resume highlights qualifications and key responsibilities.

However, mock and personal projects in a portfolio can lack real experience, making it less appealing for freelance positions.

Overqualification and multiple degrees may raise salary expectation concerns for potential employers.

The company is looking for candidates with varied experience, and being overqualified may not be a good fit for the role.

The quality of applications has been impressive, with great portfolios and resumes, but some formatting issues need to be addressed.

The emphasis on content marketing is crucial for the role, and candidates are advised to tailor their portfolios for better alignment with the company's needs.

Conduct an audit of the current marketing funnel to identify drop-off points and areas for improvement.

Ask candidates for their input on website enhancements and value-added offerings between cohorts.

Look for candidates who go above and beyond in their responses, such as providing video illustrations or following up after the initial contact.

The Job Application and Interview Process

Following up after applying for a job shows enthusiasm and care, which can make a positive impression.

The interview stage is crucial for assessing candidates' fit with the team and checking their qualifications.

Negotiating offers is important, and candidates with experience should not hesitate to negotiate for better terms.