With the increasing demand for professional websites, webmaster applicants are getting more competitive. Aside from having the right credentials, such as a bachelor’s degree and certification, you need to ace your job interview. Whether you want to work for a school, Internet business or the government, you need to show employers why you’re better than the rest. To do that, you need to answer the most essential questions skillfully.
Key Tasks
Just as with any job interview, the interviewer needs to know your familiarity with the position. So, get acquainted with the key tasks of a webmaster. These include website implementation, website content, web design and search engine optimization. You might need to work on pay-per-click campaigns, so make sure you know how to manage these campaigns and get the most out of these strategies. Know the key persons with whom you’ll need to work. For example, you might need to work with the operations director because you need to make sure that the marketing campaigns jive with budgeted targets.
Experience
Be prepared to talk about your past experience -- a lot. Interviewers will likely ask you about websites you helped create. This is the time to show off your creativity. Don’t just tell them about the websites, show them. Be specific about your participation and the time involved. Talk about your work in areas such as content updates and keyword research. Also talk about design improvement, security and debugging. Don't forget specifics such as logos, animations, graphics and style sheets. If you encountered hacker and malware threats in your previous job, tell them about the tools you used to counter these threats and protect the website.
Technical Questions
The technical part of the interview might be easy for you if you’re an expert in the field. But, you still want to review some of the emerging technologies and the related terms. For example, the interviewer might ask you about the most important factors in ranking a site. You’ll need to talk about things like domain name, keyword density, title tags and backlink anchor texts. Be really familiar with common techniques for content quality and originality, submitting to search engines, and link bait. For example, if you can talk confidently about processes such as Google’s phrase-based indexing and retrieval system, you just might impress the interviewer.
Situational Questions
It never fails. The strengths and weaknesses question seems to always come up. But, your interviewer might throw you for a loop and ask you to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the company’s website. Remember, this is your future employer. Talk about how you can contribute to the site’s overall improvement. You’ll ace this question if you studied the company’s website before the interview. You’ll not only sound like you know what you’re talking about, you’ll show genuine interest in the company. They might be considering a logo change, so be ready to show off some of your designs. Another topic that always seems to come up is the one about teamwork. So, be ready to discuss how well you work with other people.