{"id":13599,"date":"2022-05-19T05:21:02","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T05:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/no-bs-seo-job-interview\/447691\/"},"modified":"2022-05-19T05:21:02","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T05:21:02","slug":"cut-through-any-bull-with-these-8-seo-job-interview-questions-via-sejournal-ryanjones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/?p=13599","title":{"rendered":"Cut Through Any Bull With These 8 SEO Job Interview Questions via @sejournal, @RyanJones"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The SEO job market has been on fire lately!<\/p>\n

Companies are investing more in SEO, and agencies of all sizes are scrambling to hire new SEO pros.<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019ve spent a ton<\/em> of time interviewing candidates lately. Separating the good candidates from the bad can seem like a daunting task.<\/p>\n

How do you ensure the person you hire will turn into a good SEO?<\/p>\n

How do you separate the BS artists from the practitioners?<\/p>\n

The secret is in the interview questions you ask!<\/p>\n

Here are eight interview questions I love to ask SEO job candidates.<\/p>\n

Doing An SEO Interview<\/h2>\n

When I do SEO interviews, I don\u2019t ask standard questions that you\u2019d get at your typical interview. Most of the standard interview questions bore me.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean somebody from my team doesn\u2019t ask them (we still need to make sure you actually know SEO), but once a candidate gets past that phase, I prefer to take a different approach.<\/p>\n

While many SEOs will ask very technical interview questions like \u201cwhat\u2019s a canonical tag,\u201d I\u2019ve found that a slightly different approach works better.<\/p>\n

Technical knowledge is great, but SEO trivia is easy to memorize and easy to train.<\/p>\n

If a candidate doesn\u2019t know how to use a specific SEO tool<\/a> I can show them in an hour, so it isn\u2019t worth it to ask questions like that during an interview.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve found that most technical SEO questions are usually the interviewer attempting to show off how smart they are rather than gauge the applicant\u2019s SEO knowledge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Too many SEO interviews are passed simply by letting the interviewer talk about himself the whole time. I\u2019m not that interviewer. As much as I love to talk about myself, the interview isn\u2019t the time to do it.<\/p>\n

Instead, I\u2019d prefer to examine their approach to problem-solving as well as their thought process, client interaction skills, and general outlook on SEO.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t train critical thinking as well as you can train SEO best practices.<\/p>\n

But if I can find somebody who thinks rationally, critically, and logically who knows the basics and has some tech skills, then I can train them up in the other stuff.<\/p>\n

Best Interview Questions To Ask SEO Candidates<\/h2>\n

1. Tell me about yourself. What are you looking for in your next role?<\/h3>\n

This is the first question I ask. It\u2019s one you\u2019ve heard in every interview.<\/p>\n

What am I most paying attention to with this question? What the candidate thinks is important:<\/p>\n