Effective planning is what separates a successful organization from the rest of the lot. With plans in place, an enterprise can not only prepare for the future but also indulge in accurate decision-making. This creates the need for a demand planner who is responsible for analyzing the demands patterns of the company using statistics and data. Being an important position, a demand planner fetches a lucrative salary and attractive incentives. Prepare hard for the interview session by reading our collection of interview questions.
21 Best Interview Questions To Study
1. How Do You Contemplate or Assess The Future Demand?
This question tests your practical working knowledge.
Sample Answer
Sir, analyzing the demand patterns is a hard nut to crack, but with proper market research and examining the past data, it not only becomes easy but also improves the accuracy levels. It is my habit to always consider the past sales data of the company and also take into consideration the intention of the company to expand. For example, a company having a growth rate of 20% year-on-year basis that wants to expand aggressively must grow at least double the rate.
2. How Can An Organization Improve Its Sales and Customer Satisfaction?
Every effort, process, and hard work boils down to sales and the satisfaction of the consumers. Through this question, an interviewer wants to know about your understanding of marketing.
Sample Answer
Sir, it should be the motto of every company to produce what the customer wants and deliver what they need. This can only happen if an organization invests in studying the market segments and analyzes the demands of its customers. Post this, an organization would surely be in a position to understand how the dynamics and features of a product must be. Further, a company must also invest adequately in improving the quality of its advertisement campaigns.
3. It Is An Established Fact That Plans Can Never Be Made With Accuracy. Then Don’t You Think We Must Scrap This Process and Save Our Valuable Resources?
This question tests how much you value the importance of “planning”.
Sample Answer
Sir, performing business activities is quite challenging, and not every company survives. Then, does this mean we stop doing business? Planning is an art that not only takes into account all the future possibilities, changes, and historical mistakes but also considers the companies own woes and problems. This surely impacts the accuracy of effective plans, but we cannot stop doing this. It is necessary for companies to prepare plans for the future and try hard to contemplate. This is the only way to succeed and gain a competitive advantage.
4. Name The Few Best Software That Are Used Widely In The Industry To Examine The Sales Patterns.
This question checks how acquainted you are with the prevailing technology.
Sample Answer
Sure, sir, These are:
- SAP Integrated Business Planning
- Oracle Demantra
- Logility Solutions
5. We Are Looking For A Demand Planner For Our Newly Launched Business. Which Type Of Forecasting Would You Indulge Into?
Usually, there are two types of forecastings, Active forecasting (for growing businesses) and Passive forecasting (for established businesses). This question tests your understanding of the same.
Sample Answer
Sir, since you said the business is newly launched, I assume there will not be enough past sales data to analyze and evaluate. Thus, I will go with active forecasting in which, these factors are considered:
- Market Research: A complete and deep research of the company would be made so as to analyze the demand patterns of the targeted consumers.
- Expansion Plans: This aspect covers the aggressiveness with which a company wants to expand and scale-up. The higher the sales targets, the stricter would be the projection.
6. We Want You To Formulate The Future Demand For Our Product XYZ. Please Share The Steps That You Will Follow.
Through this question, an interviewer wants to know your grip on your profession
Sample Answer
Sure, sir, I follow a four-step procedure, which is:
- Firstly, I will set some clear objectives as to what we want to achieve.
- Secondly, I will analyze and examine all the records and related information.
- Thirdly, I hold a few meetings with the management and try to understand their viewpoints as well as the budgets.
- Lastly, I generate my report and share a growth rate as well as the target sales to be achieved in numbers.
7. Describe About A Time When You Failed To Achieve Your Targets.
This is a situation-based interview question through which an interviewer wants to know the reasons that compel you to deliver an appalling performance.
Sample Answer
Sir, there are always some situations that are beyond the control of humans. I remember one such instance when I was not able to meet my target as my wife was expecting. I used to remain obsessed with my newborn child and depicted a lower concentration level. This affected my work performance and I was not able to meet my targets.
8. What Is An External Macro Forecasting?
This question tests your knowledge and understanding of the various techniques using which you can forecast the demand patterns.
Sample Answer
9. Name The Best Quality That Every Demand Planner Must Possess.
This question tests how deeply you understand your profession.
Sample Answer
Sir, demand forecasting is an analytical job and requires a planner to deal with a lot of data. Thus, in my opinion, any person who is good at numbers and possesses an excellent analytics ability would be fit for this role.
10. What Is Your Interpretation Of The Term “Perfect Employee”?
Business organizations want to hire “perfect” employees. But, how does such an employee looks like? This is a term-based interview question that requires you to share your own version of the term “perfect employee”. To share an ideal response, you must read and understand the description issued to you by the employer and understand the requirements of the job. Post this, frame an answer that covers all those requirements as well as depicts that you are a perfect match for the opening.
11. Describe Yourself In A Single Word?
This is a tricky interview question that requires you to summarize your whole personality into a single word. As an ideal response just share a corporate-friendly word that:
- Closely associates with you and defines your personality
- Meets the different requirements laid out in the job description issued to you by your employer
12. How Do You Manage Your Workplace Stress?
Everybody in this world experiences stress in different forms due to distinct reasons. Corporate employees are not spared and they also face stress-like situations. It is an established fact that a stressed employee not only fails to deliver the expected targets but his quality of work also dips. Thus, an interviewer is always interested in knowing the various strategies and techniques that are followed by you to manage your workplace stress.
13. If You Were An Animal, What Would You Like To Be?
This question might give the feeling of a cakewalk to the less prepared candidates but the veterans know its worth. This is a master personality evaluator that requires you to choose a corporate-friendly animal and then align its positive traits with the requirements of the job. Hence, always study the job description issued to you by your employer and start learning about the various corporate-friendly animals such as dolphins, elephants, honey bees, bald eagles, dogs, etc.
14. Planning Is A Calculative Task, Yet Employees Fail To Effectively Assess. How Do You Manage Your Failures?
Sometimes no matter how hard you try, things just don’t fall in place for you and those stars just never align. This creates a messy situation in which a person experiences failure and is subject to humility as well as embarrassment. With such a depleted state of mind, employees are not able to deliver good performances. Hence, an interviewer is always interested in knowing the various strategies and techniques using which an employee is able to manage its failures.
15. Being A Demand Planner You Got To Be Multi-Dimensional and Perform Several Tasks In A Single Business Day. How Do You Ensure That You Are Meeting The Deadlines?
It is common for established business organizations to assign several tasks to their employees that need to be executed in a single working day. In order to ensure timely submission, it is necessary for the employees to adopt a prioritization technique, which is demanded in this interview question. Most employees prefer to arrange their tasks either on the basis of difficulty level or time consumption.
16. We Divide Ourselves Into Teams and Also Give An Option To Work Individually. How Do You Prefer To Operate?
This is a tricky interview question as you will never be safe no matter what option you choose. This is because, if you prefer to choose “Team” then you will be categorized as someone who can not work under minimum guidance and supervision. On the flip side, choosing “individually” will make the interviewer believe that you are not comfortable with people and are simply not able to develop camaraderie. Still, you got to choose one option, and we recommend you to go for “team” as this mode is highly popular in this era and most companies prefer to follow it.
17. Why You Chose To Work With Us?
We all apply to various business organizations, but not every company is number one on our list. This is a common interview question through which an interviewer checks your level of seriousness towards the company you are getting interviewed with. To prepare a perfect reply note down the historical facts and achievements of the company from the official website. Further, never forget to share what you personally like in the company. Further, this question is not to check your sycophancy ability but to genuinely check your interest in the company.
18. What Are Your Salary Expectations?
It is common for the interviewers to ask this question from every candidate. It is true that this question is non-technical but it has the ability to spoil your selection chances. This can happen when you quote a salary figure that is either too high or too low from the mean salary. Hence, always remember to conduct deep research of the industry to which you belong and base your quote on the mean salary. Further, we recommend never deviating more than 10% to 15%.
19. Describe Your Best Boss and Worst Boss.
We all work at different business organizations and meet several bosses and seniors. Some are rude and not that helpful, while some are really nice to us. The former fails to make an entry into our good books while the latter is always in the books as well as our hearts. An interviewer as a part of personality assessment wants to check the reason or the basis using which you distinguish between your different bosses.
20. When Can You Start Working With Us?
At the time of interviewing there are chances that we are either working somewhere or simply have some other prior commitments, which will not make us an immediate starter. This question requires you to share a date of start on or after which you can start working with the company. Be specific and try to keep a few days margin as well while quoting an expected date of start.
21. Do You Have Any Questions For Us?
This is the last question of every interview session and is asked by the interviewers to understand all your doubts and apprehensions. Being the last thing on the plate, this question summarizes your interview and presents you with one last opportunity to impress your interviewer. Hence, it is recommended that you always attempt this question and ask a few relevant counter-questions from your interviewer. You can always read the model questions mentioned below for a better understanding.
Model Questions
- What are the various incentives and allowances that are offered by the company to its employees?
- Please share all the anti-harassment policies, which are implemented to protect its employees from possible instances of teasing, bullying, and harassment.
- Is it the policy of the company to offer paid leaves to its employees especially in the situations of medical emergencies?
Download the list of questions in .PDF format, to practice with them later, or to use them on your interview template (For Demand Planner interview):
References
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876285920305593
- https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.1201/9781003090441/security-risk-assessment-handbook-douglas-landoll
I’ve put so much effort writing this blog post to provide value to you. It’ll be very helpful for me, if you consider sharing it on social media or with your friends/family. SHARING IS ♥️
Sandeep Bhandari is the founder of PrepMyCareer.com website.
I am a full-time professional blogger, a digital marketer, and a trainer. I love anything related to the Web, and I try to learn new technologies every day.
All the team management, content creation, and monetization tasks are handled by me. Together with the team at PrepMyCareer, the aim is to provide useful and engaging content to our readers.