I applied online. I interviewed at Tombras Group (Knoxville, TN) in Jun 2022
Interview
I was phone screened by a recruiter at least 3x over the course of 3-4 weeks. I then was invited to a panel interview with the hiring manager and the rest of the SEO team. It was a panel interview for a manager position so I chose to be professional and wear a blazer over my shirt. The rest of the panel was in baseball caps and t-shirts and the hiring manager, who had his own camera turned off during the entirety of the interview, had the gall to make a comment about me wearing a blazer. I should have stopped him then and told him he looked great, too. Anyway, the interview progresses and it's going great (if you consider playing a game of 20 questions "great" - they were not asked in a casual way, just a rapid fire Q&A) until abruptly the hiring manager blurts out they are looking for someone with 2-3 years of DEDICATED SEO experience. I had very in-depth SEO experience at this point, but it wasn't my only job duty at a small marketing agency which I explained to him. He abruptly ended the call there since I was no longer qualified. I sat stunned at my desk for approximately 5 minutes, until I then received a phone call from the rest of the team trying to scrape together the remaining pieces of the interview, which were personality based rapid-fire questions.
I ultimately did not get the job, but it begs the question - why did you even interview me in the process and waste hours of everyone's time when I was screened 3x beforehand and found to be a qualified applicant? Why would you make fun of what someone is wearing to an interview when your own camera was off?
And now that I've had time to observe Tombras as a company - why in the world are they hiring new clients that ultimately go bankrupt just 2 short weeks later (Spirit Airlines). Is the client vetting process just as bad as the interview "vetting" process I experienced? The rest of the recent reviews for this company that I read years later made me glad that my interview did not proceed to getting hired here.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
In rapid-fire succession:
How did you get started in SEO?
What’s your least favorite part of SEO?
Whats your favorite part of SEO?
Are you more experienced/comfortable with technical or content?
What are some examples of technical?
What are examples of off-page SEO?
Give us a listing you manage that we can look up right now.
How did you optimize this listing?
What are some backlink strategies you have used?
Give an example of an SEO project you’ve lead.
What KPIs do you measure?
Do you measure “schedule appointment” metrics from SEO efforts?
Do you do SEO every day in your current role?
How do you conduct keyword research?
Do you use the keyword planner tool in Google Ads?
Give an example of an enterprise SEO project you’ve worked on.
Wasn't necessarily a hard interview but it felt very forced & like I got battered with questions instead of a personable conversation. After the interview it took a while to hear anything back, and they sent me a rejection email for a completely different position I never applied for.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Tombras Group (Knoxville, TN) in Jun 2025
Interview
Overall, the interview process itself was great. Started with the recruiter, quickly moved on to three additional rounds. Within an hour of each interview I had the next one lined up. In the final interview, the interviewer used language like "this is for formality", "the team really likes you and feels you'll be a good fit", "we'll be in touch on final steps", and then three days later the initial recruiter said they went with "another candidate who has experience closer to our current needs." I reached out for feedback on how I could improve, and one of the other people I interviewed with told me "We have decided to pause hiring at this level." Would have appreciated more transparency in the interviewing process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What platforms have you had experience working in?