We ask junior hires to write three to five sentences about why they want to become a growth marketer.
Consider this answer:
I enjoy the challenge that growth marketing brings. I love dealing with constant challenges and new things that come up. Learning to adapt to them is the main aspect of this job, and I am all for it. I want to be able to help out small businesses as much as possible using fresh ideas.
Anyone applying for any job can say this.
In fact, many applicants do. They don’t stand out. They could just as easily say these things about consulting or retail jobs.
How could you answer better? Ask yourself three questions.
Question #1: Why?
Say someone wrote, “I want to help startups grow.”
Well, yes, that’s what a growth marketer does. That’s not enough.
Why do you want to help small businesses grow their companies?
There may be things in your past that led you to want to grow companies, and there may reasons you want to grow companies in the future.
Ask yourself “why” at least 5 times to get at the fundamental reasons you care.
Here’s an example.
Question #2: Why growth marketing?
Some applicants have a why, but they haven’t thought through why they want to pursue growth marketing, specifically.
Let’s look at the original answer again.
I love dealing with constant challenges and new things that come up. Learning to adapt to them is the main aspect of this job, and I am all for it.
Again, this could just as easily be about consulting, retail, or growth marketing jobs.
You need to write about why you want to work in growth marketing in particular.
What happens in growth marketing?
High-level
- You combine the creative and analytical sides of your brain.
- Your success is tied to whether the company makes sales.
- You personally affect whether the company lives or dies.
- It leads to interesting career paths (founding your own company, becoming a head of growth, consulting, etc.)
- Etc.
Day-to-day
- User interviews
- Cold emailing
- Data analysis
- Setting up referral programs
- Etc.
Think about things like these.
Question #3: Why me?
The last part of answering this question is to make it personal.
Give examples from your life so far (e.g., school, jobs, friends/family, projects) that convince your reader you’re a more compelling fit than the next person who applies.
For example:
- If you’re a “hard worker”...
- “I can work harder than anyone else when I’m motivated. In college, I spent 60 hours a week becoming an EMT while simultaneously running the archery team. I want to be just as intense learning growth.”
- If you’re “passionate about learning marketing”...
- “I work in real estate sales during the day, but I’ve spent the last 10 weekends taking a night course on Google Ads and I’ve helped my uncle grow his carpeting business.”
- "I love video games and made my own in college. No one used it except my friends (once). It was a big lightbulb moment that I couldn’t just make something and expect people to use it. I want to fundamentally learn to fix this problem firsthand."
- If you “like combining your creative side with your analytical side”...
- “I worked at a bakery last year and realized sourdough was by far our best-selling bread, but we marketed bagels in our ads. I told the owner and they changed the ads. I didn’t know what I was doing was called “growth”, but I loved this kind of strategic thinking.”
Only you have that life experience. Only you can say these things. So you stand out.
Put it all together
After you ask these three questions, combine them together.
Your answer should include why you want this job, why you’re picking growth marketing specifically, and why you would be a good person for us to work with.
Remove everything that doesn’t answer one of these three questions.
Write the answer in a way that logically flows from one point to the next.
Video feedback example
Here’s feedback on a real applicant submission. There are a few other tips in here.