{"id":4270126,"date":"2014-08-04T08:51:43","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T06:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deptagency.com\/insight\/three-questions-ask-every-sem-interview\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T13:45:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:45:00","slug":"three-questions-ask-every-sem-interview","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.deptagency.com\/en-au\/insight\/three-questions-ask-every-sem-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Three questions to ask in every SEM interview"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\n\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tBack to all articles\t\t<\/span>\n\t\n<\/button>\n\t\tThree questions to ask in every SEM interview\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/picture>\n\t\n\t<\/div>
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\n\t\tJoseph Kerschbaum\t\t
\n\t\tSVP, Search & Growth Labs\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\t
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\n\t\tThe folks who study and go into careers in HR perplex me. From my perspective, interviewing and the hiring process in general is hard, grueling, and anxiety-prone work. \u00a0It\u2019s even more so when you work in an industry that is emergent, constantly changing, and suffering from a shortage of talent.

This means there are no established educational or career paths that can be used as a \u201cstandard\u201d for good candidates. I\u2019ve made great hires who majored in biology and literature and another who changed careers from a previous life as an attorney. My degree is a Bachelor\u2019s in Fine Art.

There is also a lot of sifting through so-called \u201cexperts\u201d whose experience consists of parroting things they\u2019ve read in articles.

I\u2019ve interviewed hundreds of paid search people. I\u2019ve made a few hires that I\u2019m really proud of. I\u2019ve also made a few that I\u2019m not so proud of. In the process, I\u2019ve learned a good deal about quickly figuring out who is a viable candidate. My interview style is fairly relaxed, and I typically tune questions to the candidate\u2019s history and the specific needs of my role.

You probably already know the best interview questions are open-ended. I\u2019ve refined three open-ended questions that almost always get me all the information I need on if an SEM candidate has the chops to progress to the next consideration level in the hiring process.\t<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t