If you’re one of those who are seeking a new career or career advancement in the field of SEO, you’ll no doubt be pursuing the necessary training. But, also consider training yourself for that ever-important interview so, when your dream job becomes available, you’re ready to shine as a job candidate.

To set the ball rolling, we’ve compiled some common SEO interview questions for freshers all the way up to SEO executives in this article.

• 10 Common SEO Interview Questions That Can be Asked in Your Next Interview
• What Are The Questions Asked in SEO Interview?
• What is SEO in Digital Marketing Interview Questions?
• How do I Talk About SEO in an Interview?
• What Are Three Things an SEO Hiring Manager Might Look For in an SEO Job Candidate?
• Why Should we Hire For SEO Role?
• What is SEO in Digital Marketing?
• How Can I Introduce Myself in SEO Interview?
• What do Interview Candidates Look For?
• What Skills are Required For SEO?
• How do I do SEO in Digital Marketing?
• What Are SEO Skills?
• Why Should You be Hired For This Role SEO?
• What Should I Say in SEO Interview?
• What is SEO Job Role?
• Why Are You Interested in SEO?
• What Are The Top 5 Things Employers Look For in an Interview?
• What Are 3 Qualities of a Good Interview?
• How Can You Close an Interview?
• How do You Answer Why Should I Hire You?

10 Common SEO Interview Questions That Can be Asked in Your Next Interview

If you’re applying for an SEO job at a beginner level, prepare for your job interview ahead of time with these SEO interview questions for recent graduates, or beginners. Many of these are appropriate SEO interview questions for 1-year experience and are geared toward someone with a solid education in SEO or some actual on-the-job experience.  

1. What makes a website search engine friendly?

Several factors make a website search engine friendly, including keywords, quality content, titles, metadata, etc. A website needs these factors to be ranked by a search engine and therefore found by a user.

2. How do you measure SEO success?

You might want to answer this question based on the type of company you’re interviewing for, as goals might differ. In addition, there are a variety of ways to measure key performance indicators (KPIs) and, therefore, success.

Read Also: Beyond The Resume: Job Search And Job Application Etiquette

During an SEO interview, possible answers might include increasing traffic to a website or particular landing page, increasing conversions such as newsletter signups or sales, growing the number of inbound links, driving traffic for a particular keyword phrase, or increasing referral traffic.

It’s critical that an SEO professional measures result to know if the tactics and strategy need to change to succeed.

3. How did you learn SEO?

Obviously, this answer will depend on your individual situation, but it matters because a potential employer wants to ensure that you are well-versed in SEO best practices.

If you learned SEO by the seat of your pants at your last job because someone had to do it, an employer might doubt the quality of the skillset you offer. And, if that’s the case, you can always get certified before applying for that job to ensure you are well trained!

4. Which SEO tools do you regularly use?

You will likely have tools you’re familiar with, and you’ll want to talk about those. If you don’t yet have much of a toolbox because you’re new to SEO, check out the multiple webmaster tools Google offers, as well as the tools offered by Moz.

5. How do you approach keyword research?

As with the question above, your answer might vary. You’ll want to explain which keyword tools you use for research, as well as how you go about it. For example, if you use Google Keyword Planner to do your keyword research, then that’s your answer for the tool used. But you must also explain how you go about it.

You must demonstrate you do more than simply guess at a keyword and type that into the tool before checking the results. For example, perhaps you use personas to consider potential problems a prospect faces, and you look for keywords around that.

You should also explain that you consider longer keyword phrases, search volume, and the competitiveness of a keyword. Demonstrate that you know how to find the sweet spot in keyword research, where the keyword narrower so it’s targeted and has good search volume, but is not highly competitive.

6. What is link building and why does it matter?

Google exists to serve the searcher. That means Google is constantly trying to determine which results are most relevant to any given searcher and any given time. In addition to relevance, Google considers credibility too. So the search engine looks to see if other websites have linked to yours.

If so, that means your content is worth linking to and is, therefore, more credible when compared to a website not linked to externally. In a nutshell, link building is what SEO professionals do to try and get links to their websites in order to improve search results.

7. What are backlinks?

A backlink is what we call the links into a website from an external source, as mentioned in link building.

8. What is page speed and why does it matter?

Page speed refers to how fast your site loads for a user, something Google takes into account while ranking websites since a faster loading page directly translate to better user experience.

If the interviewer asks what you would do to increase page speed, describe how you’ve achieved this in the past with examples such as reducing image sizes, enabling compression, reducing redirects, removing render-blocking JavaScript, leveraging browser caching, improve server response time, using a content distribution network to compress files, optimizing the code, etc.

9. What method do you use to redirect a page?

In general, a 301 redirect is the best way to redirect a page so you don’t lose any SEO value that has been accumulated.

10. How can you do SEO for a video?

Videos are growing increasingly popular on the web, which can improve SEO if the videos produced get attention and therefore share and backlinks. But to get the video seen can require SEO to get it found, and Google can’t watch a video.

It needs the same types of information required for text-based pages to rank a video. Including the transcript as a text is an easy way to do SEO for a video because search engines can crawl the text. In addition, the same attention should be paid to keywords, page titles, and descriptions.

What Are The Questions Asked in SEO Interview?

1. What are some common SEO mistakes you’ve seen in other organizations?

If you’re an experienced SEO executive or manager, this should be an easy question for you to answer! You can talk about the obvious mistakes such as using the wrong keywords (which is possible in so many ways), not keeping up with changes made by Google, not optimizing for mobile, ignoring analytics, and so on, but mention others that are particular to your experience too.

2. What is RankBrain and why does it matter?

As with so many things Google, no one can say exactly what it is. RankBrain is part of Google’s search algorithm. It’s an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system used to process billions of web pages to help determine which results are the most relevant, in particular, queries that are new and not necessarily related to specific keywords (to really dumb down the explanation).

There isn’t a way to optimize websites for RankBrain other than to continue to focus on quality content because RankBrain is less about keywords.

3. What is PageRank and why does it matter?

PageRank is about credibility and it is used to help rank your pages. Credibility is determined in part by the age of the page, the amount and quality of the content, and the number of inbound links.

4. How do you use content marketing for SEO?

Content marketing is crucial to effective SEO because Google wants quality content, it gives you content to optimize for SEO, and it creates content other websites will link to (when done right). Content marketing is often done via a blog, but content can be created in many other forms as well, such as video, podcasts, infographics, ebooks, and so on.

5. How do you use social media marketing for SEO?

The degree to which social media influences search rankings is not known, but social media still matters. For example, it can help you get backlinks when you share website content via social media platforms, and it builds your brand, which makes your website more likely to get the clicks on the search results page.

6. How do you see SEO and PPC working together to improve results?

This is another SEO interview question you’ll answer based on your experience, but some specifics you might mention include how PPC can be used to drive traffic while waiting for pages optimized for SEO to start ranking. Also, we no longer have keyword research tools just for SEO, so we have to use PPC tools. PPC can be used to try out a keyword before committing to using it for SEO.

7. What is your approach to developing an SEO strategy?

Again, you’ll answer this question based on your own experiences and knowledge. Factors you might mention include knowing the short- and long-term goals, knowing the competitive landscape, understanding the audience, etc. But how you as an SEO expert go about developing the strategy will probably be unique to your experience.

8. How do you evaluate web analytics to measure SEO performance?

As part of your answer, you will want to talk about how you use Google’s web analytics to look at direct navigation, referral traffic, numbers of visits, conversions, time on page, etc. and how you interpret all of that data to measure the effectiveness of your SEO strategy.

9. What’s your greatest digital marketing success story?

Obviously, this is an advanced SEO interview question we can’t help you with, but you have to anticipate and be ready to answer the question, preferably with some hard data to add credibility to your story.

10. What is your experience with managing a marketing or SEO team?

Again, this is an advanced SEO interview question we can’t help you with, but you are interviewing for an SEO executive or manager job, so you will need to talk about your experience as a manager

What is SEO in Digital Marketing Interview Questions?

Here are some of the basic SEO questions, an interviewer can ask in order to check your knowledge about Search Engine Optimization:

Q 1: What do you understand by the term “SEO”?

Ans: SEO abbreviated form of “Search Engine Optimization”. It is the set of processes on account of which a web page or website is being optimized that helps it to enhance their visibility or ranking on top in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

Q 2: What will you do to make a website search engine friendly?

Ans: Few of the main elements that make a website search engine friendly are word count, anchor text, backlinks, outbound links, keyword etc.

Q 3: Do you know about the types of SEO?

Ans: There are majorly two types of SEO that are being practiced namely On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO.

On-Page SEO

It is the process of optimizing a website that includes on-site work like writing title, content, Meta tags, ALT tag, and description along with ensuring web-page’s design and code that can be indexed and crawled by search engines properly.

Off-Page SEO

It is a method of earning backlinks from various websites with a motive to improve the ranking of the site. This method includes various SEO steps like article submission, blog posting, forum, Press release submission, classified, and miscellaneous.

Q 4: Are you aware of SEO techniques?

Ans: There are two SEO techniques: White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO or Negative SEO.

Q 5: Best way of getting a natural backlink to your site.

Ans: Some of the best ways of getting a natural backlink to your site are blog commenting, article marketing, social networking site profile, link exchange, etc.

Q 6: What will you do for the company website you are working for, decides to move all the contents to a new domain?

Ans: In that case, it would be important to update the previous site with a permanent redirect i.e 301 redirection to the new pages. After that, all the previous content should be taken down in order to avoid duplication of the content.

Q 7: What are some external but important factors which impact the ranking?

Ans: Some of the external factors are time spent on the site, page views per visit, bounce rate, and returning visitors.

Q 8: How to cross check if SEO campaign is working or not?

Ans: Firstly, an attempt would be made to search all the search engines employing relevant key phrases and keywords that are to be optimized. After the analysis, the results will point out whether the methods of optimization have worked or not. The report is to be analyzed on a regular basis. Also, another aspect of website statistics would also be taken care of which talks about the origin of the traffic.

Q 9: SEO Blogs you read to keep yourself updated.

Ans: Blogs to keep yourself updated are:

• Search Engine Journal
• MOZ
• SEOSmarty
• Search Engine Land
• Jimboykins

Q 10: How many types of Meta Tags are there in SEO and what are their characters limits?

Ans: There are two types of Meta tags in SEO:

• Description Meta tag: 150 characters limits
• Keyword Meta tag: 200 characters limits

How do I Talk About SEO in an Interview?

Working in SEO requires a certain mindset and skills – It’s like a game where the rules are always changing. But unlike Calvinball, we don’t get to make up the rules!

These strategic questions help to figure out if the person is really cut out to join my elite team of Internet marketing ninjas.

1. What is your proudest achievement in SEO

The candidate will mention a certain event that they’re very proud of. With this question, you can follow up and ask about the sizes of the projects that the candidate has worked on, and what type of clients they like to work with (SMB/Enterprise). It’s also a great question to apply the STAR method to.

• Situation: Why was this your proudest achievement, and what was your role?
• Task: What tasks did you perform?
• Action: How did you perform these tasks, what methods did you apply, what tools did you use, why wasn’t tool X used, and was there a team involved?
• Result: What was the end result? What was the biggest thing you learned?

If a candidate mentions here that successfully starting a personal blog (opens in a new tab) got them really excited about SEO, they’re likely to be more driven than your average candidate.

2. What part of SEO do you like the most?

The answer to this question will give you insight into what area of SEO your candidate is the most interested in. There are no right or wrong answers; it’s about finding out where your candidate’s heart (and expertise) is at.

There are three pillars of SEO:

1. Technology: the technical foundation of the website, which influences crawling and indexing.
2. Relevance: meta information and content, which explain to search engines what your website is about.
3. Authority: links to your website, which determine your authority and trustworthiness.

3. How do you feel about black hat SEO?

This is always an interesting question. Some candidates will call black hat SEOs heathens, while others will say they’re SEO gods, and then there’s the most interesting—and desired—answer:

“I like to keeps tabs on what’s working for black hat SEOs. Black hats are often highly innovative because they’re playing a high-risk cat-and-mouse game with search engines, so keeping an eye on what works for them, and what doesn’t, can be really insightful.”

Example: we heard about a black hat SEO who was using negative SEO. He would briefly DDOS a competitor’s website so that their web server would return 5XX server errors, and at that exact point, he would try to get Google to crawl some of their pages. If Google hit a 5XX server error several times, they might deindex those pages.

While these practices are very questionable, and we’d never recommend doing this, it gives you insight into how they think and how they’re willing to bet—within this high-risk, high-reward environment—that Google deals with 5XX server errors. Very insightful.

4. How do you make sure your recommendations are implemented?

This question is meant to test your candidate’s ability to persuade people. To get their recommendations implemented, they need to be able to persuade people within all the ranks of an organization.

There’s always someone who digs their heels in the sand when an SEO audit is done, and it’s up to the candidate to make sure that their recommendations don’t end up sitting in a desk drawer.

This one especially needs follow-up questions:

How do you persuade management?

You want to your candidate to talk about business cases and projecting growth and revenue. Management isn’t interested in technical details; they just want to know what the potential benefits (and risks) are so that they can make a decision.

And how do you persuade development?

Developers are very different from managers: they do need to hear about details. Your steps to persuade them to implement your recommendations can include e.g. sending over case studies, tests you’ve done, and articles from respected people in the industry. You earn respect from developers by discussing things on their level (or bribing them with donuts).

5. What’s your approach to doing keyword research?

You want your candidate to mention that they have a well-structured workflow for keyword research, such as for example:

1. Brainstorm and ask stakeholders for input
2. Compile a list of keywords you’re already found for
3. Compile a list of keywords you aren’t found for yet
4. Merge the lists into one
5. Retrieve information on keyword attractiveness
6. Further expand the list of keywords with long-tail items
7. Organize and enrich the final keyword set

Follow-up questions to ask:

• How do you get accurate search-volume data on keywords?
  Answer: running Google AdWords campaigns, using tools such as Ahrefs that rely on clickstream data to determine a keyword’s search volume.
• What is a good keyword?
  Answer: one that has business value.
• How many keywords can you optimize a page for?
  Answer: potentially thousands, for long-form articles.

What Are Three Things an SEO Hiring Manager Might Look For in an SEO Job Candidate?

Understanding your candidates’ experience is critical to the hiring process.

You do not have to ask every single question. But you do need to ask enough to give you a satisfactory understanding of the candidate’s real-world experience in digital marketing.

The more knowledge you have about their experience, the better. Keep asking questions until you are satisfied as to if you’re a good fit for the candidate – and if they’re a good fit for your company.

We designed these questions to help understand where a candidate comes from and set up a conversation to understand if that candidate would be a good fit.

1. What is it That Interested You in Applying for This Position?

This is a favorite first question to ask in an interview for a reason: it cuts to the heart of why they are here.

The answers can be wide-ranging.

For example, they could discuss their knowledge or experience in SEO. Or they may have been drawn to your company, having little background in SEO but a whole lot of interest in working for you and taking on the challenges of the job.

No matter their response, you’ll learn a lot about their engagement in the process.

2. How Long Have You Been Studying and Working With SEO?

I have found that years of experience in SEO bears little relevance to a candidate’s actual job knowledge and ability to get results.

Nonetheless, this is an excellent question to gauge not just how long they’ve been in SEO, but what brought them to it, and if they’re still studying it.

3. How Do You Think Your Specific Experience Will Benefit Us?

This question cuts to the heart of the question above. You want to know what value the candidate brings to your company.

If they don’t see the value they bring, maybe they don’t have much value to bring at all.

Why Should we Hire For SEO Role?

If you want your website more discoverable on the search engine, you need to have a powerful SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your website. SEO allows websites to be ahead of others and perform well to achieve a higher position in the Google search results. SEO moves around the keywords. There are many factors that affect SEO which only experts can handle.To rank on top, you will need the expertise of the best SEO expert. To enhance the visibility of your website, hire an SEO expert so your website will become more discoverable.

Here are the  reasons why you should hire an SEO expert for your website

1. Get Organic Traffic on Pages

Organic traffic is the greatest source of leads. People searching for things can find your website if the proper SEO is done. You can actually show them what they are looking for. A website is a collection of many web pages. These pages may contain different information.

People searching for a certain thing should land on a relevant webpage. They can find what they want and can contact you. You also may get their contact details if they fill up the form present on the webpage. Later you can contact them through their phone numbers and emails.

2. Free Audit and Keyword Research Report

Before starting the work, a Professional SEO expert gives you the free audit and keyword research report for your website. With the help of these reports, you can design the scope of SEO.

What work should be done, how much time it will take place for SEO, what will be the duration of the contract, these all things may get clear using these reports. These reports contain all the detailed information of your website as far as SEO is concerned.

3. Set accountability

Once you get the Audit and keyword research report, you can design a scope of the project. The scope will contain what work should be done to achieve certain results. To satisfy the objectives of the project you can set the accountability of the project with a professional SEO company.

They will sign a work contract agreed by both parties. In this case, you will definitely get desired results. This may not happen if you don’t hire a professional SEO company.   So setting accountability is very important before starting any project.

4. Focus on Your Work

Performing SEO may not be your full-time business. You can actually concentrate on your own business if you have hired SEO company. They have expertise in that, let them do their work. Your sales team can focus on handling the traffic and inquiries coming through your websites.

You can also focus on your own work that is delivering and fulfilling customer needs. Growing businesses often outsource their SEO work to Expert SEO company to save their valuable time.

5. Save Money on Tools/Resources

Various tools and resources are required for effective SEO. Some of them are free tools and some of them are paid. If you don’t hire SEO company, you will have to purchase these SEO tools only for your websites. These SEO companies already have these tools. They can use those for multiple websites. You can save your money by hiring a professional SEO company.

6. Follow Latest SEO Techniques

Google always keeps changing its algorithm to rank the websites. Every time you cannot learn the new technique. Be patient and hire SEO company that has updated SEO techniques. Again, let experts do the work for you. They are in touch with latest changes made in technique. Let them apply their skills for you.

7. Get Results with Legit Methods

There are both ways of doing any work. One is legitimate and other is illegal. There are many agencies that make slick promises and get results by using illegal, unethical “black hat” SEO tactics.

Blackhat SEO technique may show results temporarily but that may lead to getting your site blacklisted by the search engine. This would be a huge loss for your business. Professional SEO companies use legitimate techniques for the SEO.

8. SEO is Long-Term Process

SEO is a long-term process. Some illegal techniques may cause a huge damage to your online presence. Professional SEO companies know the best legal way to enhance the online presence of your website. You can improve your online rankings when you carefully select the right keywords to target.

You can build a quality web page and make sure you don’t feature any broken links, develop a sitemap, maintain clean code and promote a diverse array of content types. Inbound marketing works best when you are in it for the long run. Set long-term goals for your SEO efforts.

9. Monthly Keyword Position Reports

Keywords are the most important part of any SEO project. It is necessary to track the results of your efforts. You should get the data of the work which is in progress for your website. As a client, you must know the progress of that project.

You must know is your scope of work is going in right direction or not. A good SEO company will give monthly keyword position reports.You can check how your website has performed in SEO for the keyword. This will also verify the accountability of the SEO company.

10. SEO Maintenance and Fixes

This is also the main reason why you should hire an SEO Company for your website. SEO is not a one-time task, it is continuous in nature and it should be. Regular Search Engine Maintenance is required to keep optimized and well-formed during the contract period, these companies regularly maintain the SEO ranking and if any bug occurs, they will fix it immediately.

So having a regular checkup of your website helps to gain more popularity by the search engines. This will always help you to get more and more organic traffic to your website and to grow your business faster.

What is SEO in Digital Marketing?

SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’, which is the process of getting traffic from free, organic, editorial, or natural search results in search engines. It aims to improve your website’s position in search results pages. Remember, the higher the website is listed, the more people will see it.

• Good SEO involves many different activities, such as:
• Identifying relevant keywords with good search traffic potential
• Creating high-quality, useful content and optimizing it for search engines and for users
• Including relevant links from high-quality sites
• Measuring the results

These days, SEO is considered an essential marketing activity.

When it comes to learning how SEO works, it’s often helpful to have an example. So, say you have two websites: Website A and Website B.

Website A isn’t responsive, which means users on tablets or smartphones will have a tough time navigating and using the site. Website B, however, is responsive, which means a better user experience for tablet, smartphone, and desktop users.

For search engines, it’s an easy decision which website is more friendly: Website A.

Of course, how search engines work is a bit more complicated than that. Today, search engines use more than 200 different factors to generate search results, which means a lot of different elements influence your placement in search results.

How Can I Introduce Myself in SEO Interview?

Simply introduce yourself, tell them what you do and how you can help them. Too often we see businesses put themselves in a box with an elaborate elevator pitch but that doesn’t work if the person they are pitching to is looking for something quick. If it’s a good fit, the prospective client will ask about your credentials or need for more information.

There are many startups in Bangalore or anywhere which are budget constraint. Help them, Educate them

Contact them, provide services for free. Take help from them to promote your services. This will help in creating your portfolio.

Once you have sufficient results to show off. HIT BIG, Show off your skills, the results. and shout loud for money.

What do Interview Candidates Look For?

While you can train an employee in hard skills, soft skills are more an inherent part of the person’s character and are difficult to acquire on the job. If you are looking to hire a new employee, there are some key qualities you can look for when you are interviewing candidates.

By carefully wording your questions and by listening for certain types of attitudes and responses, you find out who will fit the position and your company culture on all levels.

1. Communication

A study by the research and a consulting firm Millennial Branding showed that 98 percent of employers say effective communication skills are essential for their job candidates. By the time you have gotten to the interview, you already will have a handle on some of the candidate’s communication skills.

For instance, you probably will have corresponded by e-mail, viewed the candidate’s social media pages and possibly spoken by phone or by Skype. Be aware of how much attention to detail the candidate revealed in these different forms of communication.

Now that you will be meeting face to face, it’s time to ask some open-ended questions in order to gain a greater understanding of how this person will communicate with others on the job. Open-ended questions are a good way to evaluate communication skills. You could begin with a broad ice-breaker question such as: Tell me about yourself or tell me why you feel you are a good candidate for this job.

As your candidate responds, look for important communication qualities such as eye contact and an open body posture that includes unfolded arms and legs and a forward leading position. Next you can do more to assess communication skills by asking the candidate: Describe a time you had a problem with a supervisor and what you did to resolve it.

Here you are looking to see that the candidate values good communication. If he did nothing to resolve the problem, for example, that can be an indication of poor communication skills.

Remember you are not evaluating the candidate based upon that problem — in fact, it can even be an issue he or she had during a part-time job as a student – but are looking at ways the candidate has used soft skills to resolve the issue.

2. Positive attitude

According to leadership coach Mark Murphy, author of the book Hiring for Attitude, many employers miss clues during the interview that a job candidate will eventually fail as an employee.

Referring to a study his company did that tracked 20,000 newly-hired employees in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia that found that 46 percent of them had been fired or had received poor performance reviews over the past three years, Murphy contends that most new employees don’t fail because of lack of skill. Rather, he says they fail because their personalities and their attitudes are not a good match for the organization.

A positive attitude is a quality closely linked with business professionalism. Even if you are hiring for an entry-level job or a volunteer position, you want someone who is upbeat and excited about working with your organization. When a candidate is enthusiastic about the job, it carries over into the workplace and into job performance.

Ask : How does this position fit into your career plan? The candidate’s response will reveal what he knows about the company and your company culture and whether he sees a position with your company as a stepping stone or as a meaningful career.

3. Cooperation/Teamwork

How a candidate will fit in with the rest of your team is a huge consideration when making a hiring decision. Of course, there will be times when the candidate will work independently, but you will want to make sure that she can work well with your team on projects when necessary as well.

One way to ascertain this skill is by asking “Tell me about a time when you completed a group project at your previous position.” Ask follow-up questions if necessary about the size of the group, the responsibilities your candidate had and the scope of the project. Also ask if the project was successful and why or why not?

Another way to gauge how well a candidate works with others is by asking: “When do you enjoy working in a group setting and when do you prefer to handle a project independently?”

4. Goal-Oriented

A strong employee is someone who sees this new position as a challenge. You will get the best job performance from an individual who sees the new job as a fulfillment of a goal rather than as just as the means to a paycheck or as another listing on a resume.

Find out how goal-oriented your candidates are by asking them a few simple questions such as: – How do you measure your own success? – Describe your short-term or long-term career goals. – Tell me how your last job fit or did not fit into this plan. Interested in learning more? Why not take an online class in Business Skills? – How will this job meet your career goals?

Another way to get a look at a candidate’s career goals is to ask “Where do you see yourself in five years? The response you get to this question will not only reveal if the candidate expects to stay with your organization but will show how much he or she already knows about your company.

5. Flexibility

Flexibility is the valuable ability to adapt to different circumstances and different people and to handle unforeseen events with a sense of calm and grace. Companies that have been able to survive and even thrive during the last economic downturn have done so because of flexibility.

They may have trimmed one aspect of their business while beefing up another, for example. In today’s global economy, competition is fierce, and customers can leave you for your competitor’s product or service with only the click of a mouse. As a result, flexibility is more critical than ever.

To determine how set in his ways your candidate is, ask him to describe a situation in which he had to adjust to changes over which he had no control.

6. Dependability

Hiring a reliable employee is the goal of every interviewer. You want to find a candidate who will show up on time and give his all to every project. You want to find someone who complies with your company rules and procedures and is trustworthy with company resources.

Trustworthiness is such an important soft skill, yet it is difficult to measure in an interview. What you are looking for from the candidate is how he has demonstrated dependability with prior performance. An opening question related to dependability could be: How would you describe your work ethic?

Follow that question up by asking the candidate to discuss a situation in which she had to go beyond the normal call of duty to get a job done. Ask for clarification on the candidate’s job responsibilities when this incident occurred if necessary.

Keep in mind that there are no right or wrong answers to dependability questions. You are simply trying to gauge how candidates reacted in certain previous situations to help you determine how they will handle your workplace environment. Don’t worry about fabricated scenarios. With clear, direct follow-up questions, you should be able to expose these as made-up examples.

7. Integrity

Hand-in-hand with dependability comes integrity. Despite what you may read in trendy headlines, companies want to hire people who conduct business ethically. The best employees are ones who are honest and upfront in all aspects of their employment. Apart from diligently checking the candidate’s references, how can you assess your applicant’s integrity?

Here are some suggested interview questions: – Tell me about a time when your integrity was challenged at work. How did you handle it? – What would you do if an employer or a colleague asked you to do something unethical? – Have you ever experienced a job setback or loss because you did what you felt was right? – Are there any work situations when honesty could be inappropriate?

8. Creativity

The phrases “thinking out of the box” or “drawing outside the lines” have been used to the point of being meaningless cliches, but being able to think creatively is indeed a highly-valued soft skill in today’s job market.

Managers are looking for versatile team members who can apply their skills to a variety of different situations and can solve unexpected problems that come up with ease and confidence. Here’s an idea for a question to determine your candidate’s creativity:

Approach the topic by commenting that your organization continually strives to do more – sometimes with less. Then ask the candidate to discuss a time he or she helped a recent project or become faster, smarter, more efficient or less expensive.

Strong job candidates will be excited with this question and eager to share their creative ideas. Another idea is to ask the candidates to share a time they had to solve a tough problem at work. Ask for as much detail as possible, including the deadlines and the budget for the project.

9. Organization

No matter what service or product your organization offers, a desirable job candidate is one who exhibits strong organizational skills and is excellent at time management. Although our culture has revered the concept of multi-tasking, current research is revealing that doing many tasks at once does not mean doing them well.

For example, a 2005 research study conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London found that workers distracted by e-mails and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers. When you try to accomplish two dissimilar tasks, such as writing an email and listening to a presentation, your brain cannot process both and encode them fully into your short-term memory.

When information doesn’t make it into the short-term memory, the brain cannot transfer into long-term memory for later recall.

Another study by researchers at the University of California at Irvine found that office workers took an average of 25 minutes to recover from interruptions such as taking phone calls or answering e-mails and then returning to their original task. A 2007 article in The New York estimated that extreme multitasking costs the American economy about $650 billion each year in lost time and productivity.

Here are some interview questions to help you gauge a job candidate’s organizational skills: – Before you begin a new project, what steps do you take to get organized? – How do you prioritize your tasks in an average workday? – What steps have you taken (or would you take) when a project appears it will not make its deadline?

10. Intelligence

When you think of intelligence, what comes to mind? High SAT or IQ scores? Someone who is well-read? Someone who can speak several languages?

Broadly-speaking, intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Another more flexible definition is: “Intelligence is what you do when you don’t know what to do.” Howard Gardner maintained that intelligence has seven basic components: bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, logical-mathematical, musical, linguistic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. 

Emotional intelligence — the person’s ability to function within social or group settings –is one of the most desired skills to look for in a job candidate. This will determine how well the person interfaces with you, your team, and your customers. 

When you are faced with a stack of resumes from many qualified candidates for your position, how can you determine who has the intelligence for the job? That intelligence – that indefinable ability to make sense out of a complicated project, to figure out the next step when a project has gone haywire or to calm down an irritated customer — is invaluable.

An intelligent employee has the confidence to think on her feet. She doesn’t get bored because she is always coming up with new ideas, and she has the ability to handle complicated situations whenever the need arises. An intelligent employee is innovative and adaptable to different surroundings.

What Skills are Required For SEO?

The skill set for SEO experts is typically quite broad, but there’s normally a baseline of traits that contribute to their digital prowess. In considering how you or your SEO service provider handles your optimization, keep an eye out for these 10 skills.

1. Critical Thinking

It’s important to remember that no two SEO plans are completely alike. Every website is different, and there are many factors that impact a site’s search engine ranking.

Because of that, it’s imperative that an SEO expert should be able to find potential issues on the websites that they work on. This can be done by engaging in competitor research and figuring out what’s working or not working for some of your chief rivals.

SEO success boils down to having the ability to “out-optimize” your chief competitors. An SEO expert should be a critical thinker; someone who can examine your campaign vs. those of your rivals to determine what went right, what went wrong, why it happened, and how you should go about fixing any problems.

There is no standard SEO formula. That’s why it’s important to bring a critical mind to the table in order to understand unique problems from multiple angles and find creative solutions to correct them.

2. Prioritization

Prioritization is vital to running a successful SEO campaign. That’s why all SEO experts should have a strong understanding of the steps that need to be taken. Each of these steps should be prioritized as it pertains to their importance and difficulty.

For example, back link building is one of the most time consuming and difficult aspects of the SEO process. It is also one of the most important factors in determining ranking. A backlink is a link to your site from a respected website that is relevant to your industry. Think of it as a recommendation. When a site is linking to your page, it is acknowledging that you are an expert in your field.

Because of the difficulty and importance placed on link building efforts, it’s important to give this process lots of time and attention to ensure that it pays off for you in the end. Simple matters like content tweaks, while still important, take far less time and shouldn’t be prioritized.

3. Research Minded

Research is incredibly important to an SEO campaign. An SEO expert should be someone who mastered the art of researching while still in school and perhaps even enjoyed it on some level. Comfort and confidence are needed for strong research, and make no mistake about it, keyword research is going to take a fair amount of time.

Be thorough and look into every angle when planning out your keywords. SEO experts know the importance of terms that are both high value, meaning that there is a large demand for them, and relevant. Relevancy is huge.

If your SEO director is telling you that you should apply keywords that have nothing to do with your product of service, that’s black hat SEO and it will actually hurt your ranking in the long run.

An SEO expert should be well versed in tools like Google’s Keyword Planner. It’s also important to do a lot of research the competition, but be careful not to copy them. What works for one business might not work for another, even if they’re in the same industry.

Finally, and most importantly, SEO experts need to constantly research Google, and stay on top of its ever changing search algorithm. SEO is not something that you just learn once and then never touch again. You have to always be reading articles and paying close attention to what Google is doing. If you fall behind, you’ll lose out on a lot of progress.

4. Analysis

Analytics are the backbone of SEO. It’s how SEO experts measure success, so it should be a regular part of their day. Every action that is taken during an SEO campaign can and should be measured.

Experts in SEO should understand how to pull analytics as well as how to read and interpret the data that they’re receiving.

But they have to know a lot more than how to simply read the results. Any SEO expert worth the title will know how to take action and apply those analytics to the site that they’re working on in order to achieve continued success.

SEO is a report based process, so any SEO professional who does not have strong analysis skills will be unable to monitor their successes and failures.

5. Decision Making

Throughout the SEO process, you have to make decisions on the go. It is a constantly evolving atmosphere and you can’t always wait to discuss developments in a committee.

What’s more, SEO is never a consistent process. Google is constantly changing the way it examines websites and changes have to be made fast, lest you lost the progress you’ve gained. That’s why it’s important that SEO experts have the ability to make decisions quickly.

Knowing how to make the best decision in a given situation without having to ask 10 different people their opinions is a strong quality that all SEO experts should demonstrate. Such a skill only comes from having inside out knowledge of Google’s process, and keeping an ear to the ground to determine when things are changing.

6. Flexibility

If a specific strategy that an SEO expert believed would be a sure thing turns out to be a flop, it’s important that they know when it’s time to course correct.

One size does not always fit all with SEO. That means what worked well for other companies won’t necessarily be a slam dunk for another company. Your SEO expert should have the flexibility to switch strategies at a given moment.

What’s more, it’s important that these strategy shifts not kill any momentum or slow the process down in any way.

7. Writing

Strong writing skills are a must for anyone managing an SEO campaign. Remember, search engine optimization is a content driven strategy, and SEO writing is an art form that not everyone is good at.

It is exceedingly difficult to weave keywords into your content without making it seem forced. There is nothing more painful than reading a blog or information page that has been obviously stuffed to the brim with keywords. Readers see right through it and so does Google. At the end of the day, bad writing may actually hinder your SEO progress.

SEO experts should also understand what kind of content gets clicks in your industry. You have to appeal to both Google and your core audience. What’s the point in drawing people to your site if the content is bad and doesn’t encourage customers to make a purchase?

An SEO specialist also needs to understand how to blog effectively for link building. One of the best ways to get links for your website is to write blogs and shop them around to other relevant sites. These blogs should not be about your service specifically, but rather a general information piece that shows off your expertise and includes a link back to your site.

SEO experts should specialize in writing content for both web pages and blogs, creating titles, writing metadata, and more.

8. Web Coding

While SEO experts don’t have to be web designers, it’s important that they understand the basics of web design and Meta tags. SEO specialists have to be a rare breed of marketing professional with an understanding of how to merge web design and SEO strategy in a way most web designers would not appreciate.

When you’re designing a site for SEO purposes, you have to always keep the overall strategy in mind. Designing an SEO compliant site means relying less on artistic vision and more on cold hard data, which flies in the face of what most designers are looking to do.

9. People Skills

Having people skills will help an SEO expert in the realm of client communication. Clients ted to get upset because they don’t understand how the SEO process works. This can lead to frustrations and unfair expectations. It’s important that an SEO expert understands how to properly communicate and manage the expectations of their clients so as not to back themselves into an unwinnable situation.

For example, SEO takes time. Most campaigns will go a full six months before any kind of return on investment is seen. If that is not properly communicated to a client, they may become fed up after the first month or two.

You don’t just want to communicate your point effectively; you want to do it in a way that can reassure people that SEO results will happen in time.

10. Humility

As we mentioned before, the world of Search Engine Optimization is constantly changing. Even experts can get left behind if they’re not keeping up with Google’s constant algorithm changes.

Believe it or not, humility is a skill in the SEO world. Some people simply prefer to learn what they can to do their job, then go home and do other things. For an SEO expert, work cannot be something to just “get through.”

Being an SEO expert never means knowing everything there is to know about the world of SEO. To think so would be arrogant, and there is no room for ego in SEO. Specialists have to be able to recognize when they’ve made mistakes, accept that certain ideas that they’ve had won’t work, and move along quickly and efficiently without stubbornly dragging their heels through the sand.

How do I do SEO in Digital Marketing?

SEO efforts such as competitive keyword research, on-page optimization, landing pages, site structure and backlinks provide more fruitful results when combined with social media platforms and PPC efforts, and apart from helping you get more reach across multiple channels, it’ll also help you optimize your individual marketing tasks.

1. Use AdWords to find better keywords and optimize for them

This is the most obvious advantage of integrating SEO with PPC.

But let’s just pause for a second and think:

With Google’s reaffirmation that almost 15% of all searches are new, there is almost no way to determine if new keywords have sufficient buyer intent.

In such a situation, it’s a hit and miss game to create in-depth content targeting such keywords. This is where PPC can help you.

Just set up a PPC campaign targeting those keywords, and try to mock up a few pages to convert that traffic. If the conversion rates look good, you can go ahead and create stellar content that you can optimize for organic rankings.

2. Use paid social ads to measure your performance

Paid social ads include Facebook ads, sponsored tweets, Instagram ads, Facebook retargeting and more.

Let me give you a simple example. Take a look at the tweet below:

We actually promoted this tweet for two purposes:

1. We wanted to know which demographic group this tweet resonated with the most
2. We used it to test headline ideas

The first goal helped us find craft a persona for users that loved such comparisons (we’ve done a ton of them since). By creating such a persona, we tweaked our language to match that of the persona.

The second purpose helped us in finding a good title for the post that drove clicks: Best Ecommerce Platforms and Shopping Cart Software Comparison Chart.

IMO, Facebook ads are a better option if you’re looking to achieve goal 1. Facebook audience insights help you find our demographic groups at a much more granular level so that you can craft better personas for other marketing efforts.

3. Consider split testing with AdWords or Social Media Platforms

I’m a big believer in the power of SEO to drive consistent traffic. But we’ve seen a problem with almost all the ecommerce clients we’ve worked with (and over the years, we’ve worked with hundreds).

Some pages just don’t convert

And the sad part:

You realize this after months of grinding to get the page to rank.

But we overcame this problem after we started using social media and Adwords to split test content and pages.

A split test is a marketing strategy where two elements of a marketing campaign are tested against each other to analyze which one can deliver the best results. This testing helps you to feel confident that your ads/posts are reaching the right people, in the right place, at the right cost, so that they convert.

And almost everything can be tested: from images to landing pages to blog posts. Once we’re confident that a page will convert well after A/B testing and conversion optimization using Adwords and paid social media traffic, we can go all-in with our SEO and link building efforts to rank the page.

And this can be used for much more than just blog posts:

Facebook split testing supports business objectives such as traffic, app installs, lead generation, video views and even direct conversions.  Facebook recommends 4-day tests for the most reliable results, and if you aren’t sure about an ideal time frame, you can start with 4 days.

And here’s a tip (we learned this the hard way):

Make sure that you are not using this same audience for any other Facebook campaign that you’re running at the same time.

4. Google and Facebook remarketing

Remarketing helps you reach people who have visited your website in the past.

We all know that.

But by integrating SEO efforts with remarketing, you can fine tune what I like to call ‘pushes’ that help users in taking the buying decision.

The effectiveness of these ‘pushes’ vary with niche and pricing levels, but here are some good examples:

1. Product video descriptions that give users a clearer picture of the product
2. Discounts and offers
3. Case studies (for B2B businesses)

Pushes 1 and 2 help particularly well for ecommerce stores where users don’t convert on the first step.

Push 3 is a huge hack to get people to make the buying decision for your service or SaaS product.

You can run remarketing campaigns both via Adwords and Facebook. Remarketing campaigns in AdWords provide you with access to users through the Adsense network.

Facebook remarketing is designed to help you target your previous visitors on Facebook. I prefer this over Google remarketing as the audience targeting capabilities are much more granular, and the types of ads that I can show to users who abandon carts are much more diverse.

What Are SEO Skills?

The SEO skills are basically the knowledge of various elements required to carry out SEO for various websites. Without the knowledge of the required SEO skill set, one will not be able to perform SEO with that precision.

The various SEO practices are dependent on thorough knowledge of the concepts and also require the knowledge of various SEO tools to further measure the performance. Let us take a look at the various skills one must inherit or acquire over the time.

1. Ability to observe and strategically suggest the futuristic SEO changes

When you step into SEO, the first thing you need to understand is that you need to possess a strong observation power and not just that, your observations must lead you to the solution of the problems you observe meanwhile.

The idea here is to look at things calculatedly and provide measured solutions because the SEO is all about numbers. The organic searches generate leads for the purpose of conversion.

Conversion is the ultimate objective of all the SEO campaigns that are been carried out. Thus, keeping the objective in mind along with strategical and analytical one needs to provide with SEO solutions over defined intervals of time.

2. Technical Knowledge relevant to SEO

The technical knowledge is not just a requirement but a need when it comes to SEO. A major component of SEO is HTML coding, it is very important that the SEO aspirant is well versed with the HTML tags and must know the codes to build web pages since they will be a part of the business where everything is run on a marketable website.

3. Excel in MS Excel!

The data you will be analyzing over the search engine will be stored in an excel sheet for the records. Without the knowledge of its functioning, you will be left clueless ass to how to go about it.

There will be tons of records you will have to maintain to get going with your long-term SEO game. There is absolutely no other way of maintaining such heavy records of data in the absence of basic Excel know-hows.

4. To  host SEO campaigns: A prior experience of Web hosting

If an individual possesses a prior web hosting experience, it will help him choose a host with a better web hosting provider. The SEO agent must have web hosting experience in order to keep a track of the uptime and downtime of the website.

If the search engine optimizer is alert about the uptime and down time of the website, he is more likely to have the uptime of the website increased. This SEO skill is crucial because the Google spiders may crawl onto any website at any time and record the website as it is. This will be the case in either of the cases, in the uptime or the downtime.

5. Patience: The search engines deliver results at its own pace

This is basically a human trait which a human is supposed to possess naturally but when working on SEO of a website, it is counted as a basic necessity. The SEO campaigns are not known to give immediate results and an SEO specialist working on a particular campaign must ideally wait for a defined period of time before employing the various SEO tools for measuring the performance of the campaign.

6. Knowledge of Content

The content posted online is an integral part of the overall SEO of the website, thus this also calls for the knowledge of the right kind of content in order to provide the website visitors with some useful information.

A good SEO personnel is aware of the fact that according to the latest Google algorithms, quality is placed over quantity. There are factors associated with content which are important to be known in order to produce quality content that drives traffic to the website.

7. Know-how of SEO tools

Mere carrying out of SEO campaign does not sum up the job responsibilities of an SEO personnel. After employing the SEO campaign it is further more important to measure the performance of those campaigns. In order to do so, one must be able to aware of the knowledge of employing various SEO tools.

Thus, being aware of the know-hows of the SEO tools like Google analytics, SEMrush, etc. is a must know for an SEO aspirant.

8. Strengthen SEO by Offering what the user is looking for

This is more of research based task to know what the user is looking for and offering them with exactly the same thing. By looking for the most searched keywords, an SEO associate will be able to do this. To find the most searched keywords the SEO aspirant must know the tools and thus any other technical element is added here.

9. Be liberal in your Approach when working as Search Engine Optimizer

We all know that change is the only constant and hence we must evolve with it. One of the most important points to be kept in mind is that to practice SEO, in the long run, you need to be liberal in your approach and keep adopting all the new practices that become the latest trends in the market.

Now that we have already discussed what are SEO Skills and already have the SEO skills list, we will further look up on the ways you can judge where you stand. One such method is an SEO quiz, which is an easy and effective way to test your SEO skills.

The result may make you jump with joy or may simply make you sad. Nothing must affect you because you are much more than one quiz and there is nothing in this world that you can’t learn and overpower. Only keep the fire in you burning.

Why Should You be Hired For This Role SEO?

Job interviews can be daunting. You will find yourself sitting in a room with the hiring manager, having to answer tough questions about your experience and qualifications for the position you are seeking with the company. It’s important to deliver specific examples as often as you can.

The more concrete examples you can give, the better you will be able to showcase your value to the hiring manager. Don’t just respond with a generic answer like, “I’m smart, qualified and I want this job.” Of course, you do, or you wouldn’t be sitting in this interview.

It’s almost certain that every other candidate is going to be saying nearly the same thing. You need to be unique and separate yourself from the talent pool. Otherwise, you risk falling into the same category as everyone else, which is what you’re trying to avoid in the interview.

For the question why should one hire you, the simple answer is I am well aware of what trend is and I try to do SEO in unique way by thinking out of the box ideas.

Possible Answer :

“Over the years, I have acquired relevant skills and experience, which I shall bring to your organization.

I have also worked tirelessly on my communication abilities and teamwork skills, which I will put to use in my future career, which would be in your organization if I am selected for the position.

I have given my 100% effort in my past companies, and this has enabled me to recognize my capabilities and limitations.

If I channelize them further, they will bring fruitful results to me and also to your esteemed organization.”

What Should I Say in SEO Interview?

Here are a few SEO questions that anybody with SEO experience should be able to answer. Of course their answers won’t be verbatim, but they should hit the main points listed below each question.

What is Domain Authority? How does it affect your rankings?

Answer: Domain Authority is a score developed by Moz(an SEO tools company) that gauges the strength of a website. It’s measured on a logarithmic scale from 1-100.  The higher the score, the stronger the website in search engines, and the easier it will be for that domain to rank for competitive keywords.

Name at least one popular tool for checking backlinks.

Answer: Some commonly used tools include Link Explorer (by Moz), Ahrefs, Majestic and SEMRush. You can also ask how they have used the tool.   If they have used the tool to analyze competitors that is good.

What is Google Search Console?

Answer: Search console is a collection of tools and reports that Google offers free to webmasters to help them (and SEO professionals) monitor website performance. Basically, it’s Google’s way of letting you know if they see anything wrong with your site. Some of the reports include ranking reports, links to your site, Index status, crawl errors, sitemap submission, and more.

What is a disavow file and what is it used for?

Answer: A file is used to “disavow” links that are pointing at your website from other sites. The need for this arose when Google started penalizing sites for spammy link building practices.

A disavow file is submitted to Google via your Search Console account. It should list all inbound links that you want disavowed. The disavow file is simply a way to tell Google that you don’t want those links to count toward your reputation.

What does a site map help search engines do?

Answer: A sitemap helps search engines crawl and index your website pages faster. This is especially helpful if you publish new content on a daily basis to ensure that Google gets a fresh feed of all your new content. However, it DOES NOT help your pages rank higher. If you don’t submit a sitemap Google will still come around and crawl your site eventually.

Name three “On-Page” ranking elements.

Answer: Any of the following – title tags, URLs, page copy, H1 tags, image name and alt-text.

What is SEO Job Role?

A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialist analyzes, reviews and implements changes to websites so they are optimized for search engines. This means maximizing the traffic to a site by improving page rank within search engines.

Simply put, in the words of SEO.com, “it is the job of the SEO specialist to make your website show up at the top of the search engine results. Ten years ago that job looked a lot different than it does now, and it requires a whole new skill-set from what was needed back then.

A modern specialist must be a problem solver and decision maker, with the ability to prioritize and develop relevant and engaging content. You know the old adage, “Content is king?” well, modern SEO specialists know that search engines are placing increasing value on quality content – which will invariably include keyword or phrases that increases traffic to a site.

They may also test and implement testing various search engine marketing techniques, web site layouts and advertising for search engine optimization. They also know the importance of internal links and the ability to problem-solve comes in handy when trying to find the best locations and the best approach to internal links.

An SEO Specialist will analyze websites for improvements, have an in-depth knowledge of keyword research, understand SEO copywriting and serve a liaison between various departments.

Why Are You Interested in SEO?

1. It’s Rewarding

One of the best things about SEO is that you’re able to actually track how you’re doing. Whether it’s building links or using keyword best practices, you’ll be able to see exactly how much your efforts are impacting your website. Various programs will allow you to track the amount of traffic you have coming to your site, and there’s nothing better than seeing that number steadily rise from your efforts.

Another rewarding feeling is when you build links. Link building is another way to generate traffic to your site and is a staple in SEO. Since it often relies on building a relationship with another domain, it’s a great feeling when you’re able to a link from another site.

2. It’s Great Skill To Have

As a journalism major in college, I often was asked “What are you going to do? Don’t you know print is dying?” While it was a very valid question, SEO and marketing became a new outlet for using journalistic skills.

Many who get into the SEO field actually come from writing, English, and journalism backgrounds. This new career is bringing many skilled writers into the field, allowing another option for post-graduation employment and providing another great reason to love SEO.

With SEO, I was able to put my writing skills to use, as well as learn the ins and outs of a new career that didn’t even exist a few decades ago.

3. It’s a Growing Field

While SEO is a highly competitive practice, the demand for those who have the skills or are willing to learn the skills is rapidly growing. Almost all major brands that have a website will have a marketing team, and that marketing will almost always have specialists that are adept in SEO. I love SEO because I know that I’m in a field that is in high demand, and the sooner you start digging into the practice, the better.

A way with words will always get you far in SEO. Not only are you communicating with Google algorithms, you’ll be communicating with other humans as well, so backgrounds in communications and public relations are also great skills to have.

4. It’s Never Too Late To Start

Another reason why I love SEO is that it’s never too late to start practicing good SEO techniques. Many assume that the bigger companies will remain at the top of the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) forever. However, a good SEO practitioner can help their site rise through the ranks.

On the other hand, just because you’re at the top today, does not mean that you’ll remain there tomorrow. One of the most exciting aspects of SEO is that it’s a constant practice. You always have room to grow so there’s never a shortage of making connections. Each day is an opportunity to attract more eyes to your website and to grow your brand.

5. Reading!

As an avid bibliophile, there’s never a shortage of new information coming down the pipe. Google is constantly changing how they rank pages and experts across the board are always weighing in and providing helpful tips and tricks for SEO. I love scouring the various blogs and SEO websites to find the latest news and other link-building tips to try out.

I love SEO because it becomes a community of those who are trying to grow businesses. These entrepreneurs are boosting each other up so everyone can be successful. There’s never a shortage of information to take in, so those who love reading will surely enjoy an SEO career.

What Are The Top 5 Things Employers Look For in an Interview?

Here are the top five things hiring managers look for in a job interview that will set you apart from the competition.

1. Passion

While skills and experience are essential, hiring managers also look for passion. Some would even say that passion is the most important credential when looking for a job. For one thing, skills can be taught. Passion can’t. Bring your whole self to the job interview. Make it clear how excited and enthusiastic you are about the opportunity.

You never want hiring managers to doubt your genuine interest in the role. Passion can also be translated into an eagerness to advance. “We have found that employees with career drive and an eager attitude to take on new projects often succeed in their roles and help improve processes of their department,” says Sacha Ferrandi, Founder and Director of HR of Source Capital Funding, Inc.

2. Fit

To create and maintain a strong corporate culture, hiring managers want to ensure that new hires will fit into that culture. Organizations committed to hiring based on fit tend to define the company’s cultural values and use them to inform the interview process. Ideally, hiring managers use an objective assessment to identify people likely to be a good fit.

Hiring for fit is especially important in smaller organizations. For example, at software company Officevibe, they have their core values printed out on cards.

Then one of their interview questions consists of asking the candidate to order the cards in terms of what they think is the most critical value and then explain their answer. Ultimately, it’s not about how similar you are to the interviewer. It’s about having a unique perspective that enhances the team in the long run.

3. Preparation

Hiring managers look for candidates who have taken the time to do their homework. In fact, 88% of hiring managers say that an informed candidate is the top quality they want when interviewing, according to a survey from Glassdoor. Lori Goler, Facebook’s vice president of people, suggests that potential interviewees learn about Facebook’s company culture and do their research before the job interview.

That means taking the time to thoroughly read up on the business for up-to-date insight into its priorities. Show that you understand what the company stands for. Look for connections you have with current employees so you can talk to people on the inside.

Remember that every conversation you have is essentially an interview. Then find out who you will be interviewing with and investigate their background. Prepare questions that are specific to each interviewer. And if you can find a personal connection, even better.

4. Resourcefulness

The world of work is fast-paced, especially during these hectic times. With more employees than ever working remotely with little to no supervision, resourcefulness is an important quality. You need to be able to figure things out on your own.

In many cases, there aren’t set procedures or processes in place. That means it’s up to you, the employee, to take the initiative. If you don’t know the answer, figure out how to get it. Or if you have a problem, know how to solve it. 

5. Willingness to learn

Hiring managers are looking for candidates that can hit the ground running. So, the capacity to learn is crucial. And learning doesn’t stop with the company itself. If you have a client-facing role, you will need to learn about your customers and their pain points. Recruiters will consider hiring a candidate that lacks industry knowledge as long as they show that they can quickly grasp new concepts.

According to research conducted by global staffing firm Robert Half, 84% of HR managers reported that their company is open to hiring an employee whose skills can be developed through training.

Even more impressive, 62% of employees surveyed said they were offered a job even though their skills didn’t match the exact job qualifications. To demonstrate your willingness to learn, embrace emerging technology, ask intelligent questions in the job interview and highlight your commitment to career growth.

What Are 3 Qualities of a Good Interview?

Here are the 3 most important requirements/qualities/traits of a good successful interviewer are mentioned below:

Knowledge about the job: A good interviewer has sufficient knowledge about the job for which he/she is taking the interview.If the interviewer lacks adequate knowledge regarding job duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required, it would not be possible for him to select the best candidate.

Training and experience: Interviewers should have adequate experience and necessary training to conduct an interview effectively and efficiently.

Listening attentively: Good interviewers are attentive listeners. They listen more than they talk.The listening tendency helps the interviewer to make a better evaluation. Many interviews fail because the interviewer talks more than listening.

How Can You Close an Interview?

Follow these steps to successfully close an interview and increase your chance of receiving a job offer:

1. Ask questions

The first signal that your interview is shifting toward a close is typically when the interviewer asks if you have any questions. It is important to prepare questions to ask them about the position and the company before your interview.

The interviewer may answer some of your questions throughout the course of your interview, so try to prepare more questions than what you plan to ask. You should try to ask questions that show you have been listening throughout the interview, your genuine interest in the role and the company, and the research you have done.

2. Address any concerns

Before you end the interview, it is important to make sure the interviewer doesn’t have any concerns left about your qualifications for the role. One of the best ways to do this is to directly ask if they have any concerns about you as a candidate. You can do this by asking a question such as, “Based on my experience and skills, how well do you feel I fit the qualifications for the role?”

Asking the interviewer how they feel about your qualifications for the role allows you to clear up any miscommunication and to directly confront any concerns that may exist. It is typically better to directly address concerns during the interview than it is to leave the interview without knowing how they feel about your qualifications.

3. Remind the interviewer of your strengths

After you have addressed your concerns, try to refocus the interviewer’s attention on your strengths. Consider the unique selling points that make you the best candidate for the position and the company, then reiterate the knowledge, skills and experience you have that support those unique selling points.

You can combine this step with the prior step by discussing how your strengths will help you overcome challenges. But if you do this, it is important to make sure you are still directly addressing their concerns rather than trying to avoid their concerns by discussing your strengths.

4. Express your interest in the job

Next, show the interviewer your genuine passion for the position and your interest in working for their company. Interviewers want to make sure you are the right fit for the position and that the position is the right fit for you.

You can make this clear by stating the reasons you are excited about the specific position and company you are interviewing for and how the discussion during the interview has confirmed your interest. Doing this lets the interviewer know you are still interested in the position.

5. Ask about the next steps

Make sure you leave the interview knowing what to expect to happen next. Asking the interviewer about the next steps in the hiring process can help you identify whether they are still interviewing candidates and when you should expect to hear from the employer if they choose you for the position. It can also help you prepare if you will need to take part in another round of interviews.

If you are sure you are interested in the position, this is also a great time to ask the interviewer for the job. For example, you can say something like, “I am really looking forward to getting started in this position and hope you will extend an offer to me during the next steps of the hiring process. When can I expect to hear from you regarding this position?”

6. Offer additional information

Before you leave the interview, offer to provide the interviewer with any additional information they need to make their decision. Additional information can include a list of references, a copy of your portfolio or a copy of educational and professional certifications.

7. Leave the meeting politely

You should also always make sure you leave the interview in a professional and polite manner. Make sure you thank the interviewer for their time, and ask for their business card or contact information that includes their email address.

Asking for this information can help you ensure you know how to follow up with them after the interview. You should also firmly shake hands with anyone who attends the interview before they leave the meeting room.

8. Send a follow-up email

When you arrive home from the interview, write a follow-up email to thank the interviewer or hiring manager for their time and consideration once more. You can also use your follow-up email to attach any additional documents or information they requested that you didn’t have with you at the interview.

Read Also: Interview Tips That Will Help You Get Hired

Sending a follow-up email as soon as possible after the interview can help you ensure your follow-up email impacts the employer’s perception of you positively before they make a hiring decision.

How do You Answer Why Should I Hire You?

1. Show that you have skills and experience to do the job and deliver great results.

You never know what other candidates offer to the company. But you know you: emphasize your key skills, strengths, talents, work experience, and professional achievements that are fundamental to getting great things done on this position.

2. Highlight that you’ll fit in and be a great addition to the team.

Show the interviewer that you have corresponding personal and professional traits that make you a great addition to the team. At larger companies, departments and their staff vary greatly. Marketing people are different from IT specialists. Identify the company’s culture and the department’s characteristic features and tell the interviewer how you will fit in.

3. Describe how hiring you will make their life easier and help them achieve more.

Determine what problems they had so far, what new issues or goals they have now, and how your specific skills and experience can come in handy. Scour the company’s website and social media channels to research their roadmap and history. Google their media mentions and case studies. Reread the job ad you applied to. Use this information to guide your answer.

4. Show enthusiasm for performing required duties, not just capability.

Your application lets them know you’re willing to do the work. Being called for the interview means they think you’re capable. Apart from highlighting your skills and experience, show them your enthusiasm to prove you’ll have positive attitude towards your tasks. But don’t go overboard—a wide smile will never substitute professional qualifications.

5. Always speak honestly.

Be honest with both yourself and your prospective employer. You won’t make it far if you lie. Recruiters often ask follow-up questions to check if you’re consistent with what you’ve written on your resume.

Sample Answer:

Oh wow, where do I begin! I have been an avid traveler since as young as I can remember. When I reached adulthood and started booking flights for myself, your airline would be my top choice. Alpha Airlines has always made long-distance travel a pleasure, and I would be honored to say that I work for you. On top of this, I believe that my patience and multitasking skills are second to none, and these would go a long way in helping me the best flight attendant possible.