Tell me about a time you had to develop a junior team member or a junior marketer who was struggling to meet expectations. What specific steps did you take, and what was the outcome?
RoleMarketing Lead
DifficultyDifficult
TopicBehavioral
Asked at
Why This Is Asked
Unilever invests heavily in developing talent from within; a Marketing Lead is expected to grow the next generation of brand leaders. This question tests your coaching mindset, patience, and whether you can identify root causes of performance issues rather than just managing symptoms.
General Approach
Structure your answer around a specific individual. Describe the performance issue factually, then focus on your diagnostic approach (how you uncovered the root cause) and the specific development actions you took (tools, mentorship, structure). End with a clear positive outcome and what you learned about developing people.
General Answer
Start by choosing one real person and one concrete struggle, then say plainly what the gap was, for example missed deadlines or weak consumer insight decks. Explain that your first move was not to correct the work but to diagnose the cause, so describe how you sat with them, reviewed their workflow, and asked questions about their workload, clarity of briefs, and confidence with the tools. In a Philippine team setting, be honest if the issue involved shift fatigue or competing priorities from other tasks, since that is a normal reality in fast-moving FMCG or agency environments. Then walk through the specific steps you took, such as giving them a simplified reporting template, pairing them with a more experienced peer for shadowing, or breaking a large campaign into smaller weekly milestones with check-ins. Make clear that you set expectations together and gave feedback immediately after each deliverable, not only during formal reviews. End with the measurable outcome, like improved on-time submission rates or a successful product launch they led, and close by saying what this taught you about adapting your coaching style to different learning speeds. Keep the tone matter-of-fact and generous, never apologetic, and avoid any Taglish unless the interviewer switches first.
PH Interview Gotcha
Filipino candidates often avoid highlighting a junior's failure because it feels like gossiping or 'maarte' about a teammate. Or they take all the blame to seem humble. Instead, focus on your coaching actions and frame it as a positive development story, not a complaint. The interviewer wants to see you are a builder of people, not a critic.
Sample STAR Answer▾
S
Situation
I was a Senior Brand Manager leading a team of three Assistant Brand Managers. One of them, a recent hire with high potential, kept missing deadlines for critical launch materials and submitting work with recurring errors in brand guidelines. After two months, her performance was affecting the product launch timeline for a new snack variant.
T
Task
I needed to turn her performance around without burning her out or damaging her confidence, because I saw she was eager to learn but lacked structure. The launch was ten weeks away, so time was tight.
A
Action
I scheduled a private, non-punitive coaching session where I asked open-ended questions about what she found challenging rather than just listing her mistakes. She admitted she felt overwhelmed by the brand guidelines document and wasn't sure how to prioritize tasks. I created a simplified one-page cheat sheet of the top ten brand rules and a weekly task tracker with color-coded priorities. We also set a 15-minute daily standup for the first two weeks to check progress. I paired her with a more experienced ABM for a mentorship on managing agency feedback loops. I also assigned her a smaller, lower-risk project first so she could build confidence before returning to the main launch tasks.
R
Result
Key Takeaway
Helping a struggling team member starts with empathy and diagnosis, not criticism, then giving them the tools and structure they need, not just more pressure.
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