Best interview questions for your hiring process
SEO Manager Interview questions
Ideally for the role of SEO Manager you should be looking for someone with:
- a few years of experience is advantageous but not essential.
- Good knowledge of the tools used to track analytical data, like traffic, click through rates and bounce rates.
- They should also have a creative streak to come up with new content ideas, and engaging campaigns to help improve those KPIs mentioned above.
- SEO Managers usually work with different teams within marketing like Content Writers, Copywriters, PR Communications and Performance Marketing so it’s important that you find a candidate that has great communication skills and enjoys working within a cross-functional environment.
Interviewing an SEO Manager
Do you need a new SEO Manager in your team? With our interview questions designed for SEO Managers you’ll be able to prepare quickly and easily.
Please note: Our interview questions are suggestions for the earlier stages of the application process and for candidates with average work experience. They are therefore a little more general.
How to open the job interview
Interviews naturally breed nerves, so the first part of your interview should aim to make the candidate feel comfortable speaking with you, you’ll get much more information out of them and a better sense of the person they are if they feel like they can trust the environment they are in.
To do this you can ask some fun and interesting questions linked to the role, they should be open-ended and encourage conversation.
Best interview questions for your hiring process
See our SEO Manager Job Description hereFor the interview
A positive opener to start
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Why did you decide to go into marketing?
Behavioral Questions
How do you work with developers to implement SEO recommendations and strategies?
Could you tell me about a time that something has gone wrong with your SEO strategy? How did you deal with that situation?
This question is designed to show how the candidate deals with issues and works under pressure.
What kind of team structures and management styles do you thrive in?
Here you should get a good feeling of the work style of the candidate and how they will gel with your developed team already.
Soft Skills
How would you go about explaining a complex issue to a colleague that was new to the industry?
It’s likely that your SEO Manager will coordinate and present to different departments. They should display good communication skills and be able to break down technical issues to be easily understood.
In what specific ways do you stay motivated with SEO and encourage your team?
Candidate should show passion for their work and a willingness to be a team player.
How do you plan and organise your work?
General sense of working style and organisational skills.
Hard Skills
Do you have any experience with HTML or CSS?
All of these questions will give you a good sense of their hard skills – what tools they already know how to use, their general level of seniority, and ability to formulate strategies and track KPIs.
Operational / Situational Questions
How do you see SEO changing in the future?
Shows what kind of scope they have of the industry and how aware they are of future changes.
Could you talk about a time that you took the lead on a team project? What was the outcome of the project and what did you enjoy most about the project?
Shows how they work as a leader and what projects they have been a part of in the past.
Have you ever had to deal with a site you were managing being penalized by Google? How did you recover from that?
How they work under pressure and deal with issues at work, will give you an idea of their seniority.
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It should be clear from the answer that they have worked in cross-functional teams before and they know the general development process.