He was the Minister of Education under former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

[2] From 1996 to 2000, he was the Tunisian Ambassador to Senegal, then Guinea, Gambia, Cap Vert, Turkey, and then to the United Nations in Geneva.

[2][3] In 2008, he was appointed as Minister of Education,[2] until he was deposed in the aftermath of the 2010–2011 Tunisian protests.

On 6 July 2015, Ben Salem was appointed as Director of the Tunisian Institute for Strategic Studies.

In 2017, Hatem Ben Salem was appointed for the second time as Minister of Education of the Republic of Tunisia.