5 Questions Likely to Come Up in a Publishing Interview

After spending the last month applying for editorial assistant job vacancies, I’m pleased to say that a lot of my time recently has been taken up by interviews at a few (pretty big) academic publishing houses.

During these interviews I obviously met a wide variety of professionals in the industry (editors, assistant editors and publishers) from all different publishing houses, but there was one thing I noticed that didn’t vary quite so much: the interview questions.

I found that certain questions just kept reappearing; some I’d envisaged (thankfully) and pre-prepared answers to, others completely stumped me the first time round. So to help you prepare (and preparation is key), here are five questions that I think are extremely likely to come up in a publishing interview and my advice on how to answer them:

1.      What led you to wanting a career in publishing?

This is an obvious question that is bound to come up, but an impressive and original answer needs preparation. Try to come up with something that isn’t just, “I love reading” – that’s not enough. Think about the type of publishing you’re trying to enter into. Why does that particular area interest you? For me, academic publishing became an interest at university after researching lots of literature essays. I got a real buzz out of finding useful, up to date and high-quality scholarly titles, so being a part of the publication process for cutting-edge academic research genuinely excites me. If, alternatively, you’re interested in trade publishing, where, when and why did that interest start? An influential book in your childhood? Or maybe there was one book that changed your outlook on life. The point here is to be original – this is much easier than you think when you’re pursuing a goal you feel really passionate about.

2.     Why do you want to work for this particular publishing house?

When answering this question, make sure you show off all the research you’ve done on the publishing house. Find their mission statement, browse their website, see if they’ve been in the news recently, read a couple of their recently released titles. After carrying out this research, what did you find that particularly excites you about the publisher? For me personally, a career at Palgrave Macmillan interested me not only because they’re a prestigious and highly-regarded academic publisher, but also because they’re extremely innovative and forward-thinking with projects like Palgrave Pivot, Palgrave Open and Palgrave Connect. So find something specific that attracts you to this particular publishing house and use it to show your genuine excitement at the possibility of a career there.

3.     What do you think are the main job responsibilities for this editorial assistant position and what skills do you possess which will allow you to carry out these responsibilities successfully?

This was a question I actually quite liked as it gave me the chance to demonstrate two things. First, that I had a clear understanding of what the role would involve (publishers like this), and second, how suitable I was for the position. When preparing for your interview it really is worth going through the job description and finding the main responsibilities you will be tasked with. Once you’ve picked out the main ones, ask yourself what skills will each of these responsibilities require? Then come up with examples of where you’ve previously used each of these skills. So, for example, one of the job responsibilities for an editorial assistant at Palgrave Macmillan was managing editorial processes and the peer review process. A task like this obviously requires great organisation and time management skills, so I took examples from my time as an editorial intern when I often had to juggle a variety of tasks given to me by project editors. So approach this question logically; make sure you know exactly what the role will involve, think about the skills needed to carry out these responsibilities, and have examples ready to demonstrate these skills.

4.     Which publishing houses are our main competitors and are any of them doing something you think we should be doing?

The competitors question came up during my interviews at Cambridge University Press and Palgrave Macmillan. Although I was aware of their main competitors and could easily list them, the second part of the question gave me a slight panic attack. But after taking a few moments to actually think, I came up with a pretty good answer. I knew from my research that academic publishing is currently undergoing immense change because publishers are making the conscious effort to become more digitally focused. This reminded me of the competing eBook digital platforms that numerous academic publishers now offer to universities (Palgrave Connect from Palgrave Macmillan and University Publishing Online from Cambridge University Press). So I based my answers around comparisons of these platforms and came up with some good areas for improvement. Remember, publishers ask questions like this one to test your knowledge of the industry, so it’s a great way to show you’re keeping up with current trends. My advice is to not only research the publishing house you’re interviewing at, but also one or two of their main competitors. Make sure you have an idea of how competing publishers are trying to outdo each other!

5.     Do you have any areas of weakness? If so, what are they?

This is a pretty standard question for any interview, but it was one I’d completely forgotten to prepare for. First off, make sure you actually give them a weakness – we all have more than one. Then, try to emphasise that it is a weakness, but a weakness you’re working on. Give an example of how you’ve recently made an effort to improve in this area. This says a lot about you as an individual.

Ace these likely questions and you might just ace the interview! There’s really no excuse not to have an impressive answer to each of these questions. Preparation really is key!