However the only reason I’d be tempted to ask “Do you know HTML?” would be to determine whether they actually knew what it was.

I mentioned why in the post:

“They usually have no problem naming off their favorite search engine (and yes, it is usually Google) but having them explain why usually gives me a good gage of if they have a top level understanding of what makes a search engine “good”.”

I can answer the questions but I’m unclear on the relevance of the ‘What is your favourite search engine and why?’ question.

Obviously the popularity of use is important but what other factors give you any indication of ability?

Thanks for the info

>>>but then I thought that most people don’t like their jobs anyway

That fault would lay with the employer… my employees seem to like their jobs and after several years as link builders, they don’t seem to get bored. That said, I treat them as marketing specialists and they far from send out boring link exchange requests all day. Link development was mind numbing years ago – not these days if you’re doing an effective campaign though, in my experience anyway.

One question is that if you hire link builders and train them and they become good at it, what’s stopping them from leaving your company and starting their own, or having been promoting their own sites on the side they may decide to leave? It’s a strong possibility I think

My other worry is also about link builders getting bored (cus it is!) and quitting, but then I thought that most people don’t like their jobs anyway but they stick around for the money so ideally a link building job should be the same?

By the time I finished reading the questions, I was more interested in reading your expectations to see if I was even qualified to get a job if I were looking. LuckilyI think I passed, except for the adult website question. I’m not sure my answer of spending a couple hours surfing the site was acceptable. Obviously I am only interested in understanding their internal linking strategies though.

Rae, try some behavioural descriptive interview techniques next time. Let your candidates focus on their stumbles and successes – how she/he handled something badly and well – while you get to see them reflect on those situations. Then just when she/he is feeling good about pulling through her/his recollection of past events **bam** hit them with the porn site question. (Even though I don’t use IE, Favorites should be an acceptable response as well…)