26 Interview Questions for a Content Writer
By Mairi Bunce
Even with dozens of modern SEO optimisation tools and AI software, working with a skilled writer is still the best way to get measurable results from your content.
But how do you determine who’d be a good fit for your business?
Asking these content writer interview questions will help you find a specialist who’s the perfect match. It’ll save time and resources during the hiring process, and get your new content marketing strategy off to the best possible start.
How to prepare to interview a writer
Before you start to meet writers (and ideally before you advertise the job), you need to be clear on whether you want a content writer, a copywriter, or a content strategist.
Content writers research and write longer pieces of informative or educational content like blog posts, white papers, articles, ebooks, and case studies. These pieces will appear in organic searches, driving traffic to your site and building your authority on the topic.
Copywriters hone shorter pieces of content like your website, landing pages, and advertising. Their writing should be persuasive, selling your brand to your target audience and keeping people on your site once they’ve found you.
Content strategists analyse your content, keep an eye on how it’s performing, and use this information to plan what the writers should create next.
Unless you’re a small business with a marketing person rather than a marketing team, it’s unlikely that one writer can wear all these hats. Most experienced writers will also specialise in one role.
Ultimately, the best way to prepare to interview writers is to clarify your expectations and make sure they’re realistic. You’ll save time by getting everyone on the same page, and you’ll attract the candidates who really know their onions.
Assigning a test piece
Before you start interviewing, you should also prepare a writing assignment for the candidates who pique your interest. Setting a test piece similar to what they would be writing for you will give you some important information:
It showcases their writing skills
It shows that they can respond to every part of a brief
It gives you an idea of their voice, their style, and how well that fits with your brand
Content and copywriters are used to producing test pieces. It’s also one of the most important steps for them. Seeing your briefs and the way that you give feedback gives them an idea of whether they’ll enjoy working with you too.
Just make sure that you pay the writer fairly for the work they produce as a test. For many experienced writers, an unpaid test piece is a massive red flag. You’ll significantly narrow the pool of qualified applicants if you ask potential writers to work for free.
Job interview questions for writers and strategists
The right questions let you know how experienced a candidate is, how interested they are in working with you, and what the working relationship will be like.
Whether you’re looking for a content writer, a copywriter, or a strategist, the following questions are a great way to open an interview:
How would you define good content?
How would you improve our current content?
Tell us about your research process.
How do you plan to find out about our audience?
What makes you qualified for the position?
Which platform do you feel most confident writing for?
How do you handle feedback and criticism?
How do you handle mistakes as a writer?
How do you manage your workload?
Which project in your portfolio has been the biggest challenge?
Which project are you proudest of?
Describe your dream project or client.
Here’s what to look for in their answers:
Knowledge of what ‘good content’ is (and what ‘bad content’ is, too!)
At KYO, we think online content should be:
Engaging. A longer piece of writing should be easy to follow and interesting to read.
Useful. The writer should understand their audience and answer the question the reader is asking.
Technically accurate. Writers should write consistently, in an appropriate style, and without spelling and grammar mistakes.
Factually accurate. The finished piece of content should be informed by credible sources like industry magazines, .gov websites, and research published by industry leaders. It should also be free from plagiarism and duplicate content.
By the way, it’s not just human beings who like this kind of content. It also makes a good impression on search engine algorithms and gets your page ranking. Finding a writer who understands how to tick these boxes will help you to appear in more organic searches, increasing traffic to your website and driving conversions.
It’s also important to consider what platform they’ll be writing for, since quality content to be shared on LinkedIn, for example, looks different to the content that drives sales on your website. Finding out about their approach to writing for different platforms tells you whether a writer will be playing to their strengths or learning as they go if they join your organisation.
Openness to feedback
There’s bound to be a learning curve as someone gets to know your company. The most important thing is to find a writer who’s open to criticism and can implement feedback in their future pieces.
Time management skills
A freelance writer will often work with multiple clients and juggle deadlines. To an extent, their time management strategies are up to them, but if you need someone who’s going to be available to take calls during your core hours, or if you have a certain time frame in mind for your project, it’s best to clarify this during the interview.
A good fit
The candidate’s answers to the final questions about their best and worst experiences will tell you about their strengths, weaknesses, personality, and passions. It’s a good way to tell whether they’ll be the right person for your organisation in the long term.
Interview questions for content writers
Content creators should be diligent researchers and engaging writers. They also need to be able to stay motivated as they write potentially hundreds of thousands of words for your project.
Ask these questions to find the best of the bunch:
Tell us about your content writing process.
How do you edit and proofread your work?
How do you adapt your writing style and the tone of the content to different industries or platforms?
How do you write about dry subject matter while still being engaging?
How do you stay motivated when writing a large number of articles?
Interview questions for copywriters
On the other hand, most of the content that copywriters write is concise. This means that the most important copywriter interview questions focus on their tone, style, and understanding of what makes your brand unique:
How would you define our brand’s voice?
How would you use this voice across different platforms?
How do you choose and implement calls to action in your work?
What SEO content writing experience do you have?
No matter the specialism, here’s what to look for in a writer’s answers
Efficiency and accuracy
You want to know that a writer will study the brief, write more than one draft to clarify their ideas, and check their work for errors before they submit it.
All the content we produce at KYO is checked by an editor for tone, content, and formatting. But our writers still have their own tricks. Some use additional spellchecker tools, some print the article and proofread a physical copy, and others read the final draft out loud to make sure that it sounds like it was written by a human.
Understanding of tone of voice
Content writers can be chameleons when it comes to writing for different brands. Still, if your company’s style is drastically different to the work in the writer’s portfolio of content, it’s worth looking for reassurance that they understand the tone of your project.
Self-motivation and enthusiasm
When you scale up, especially when you want to rank for clusters of keywords, there can be a lot of articles to write. It’s important to check that your writer will be able to give their all to each piece.
In our experience at KYO, writing engaging content across hundreds of articles comes from knowing the product, empathising with the needs of the readers, and knowing how to structure content so that it’s easy to read and digest.
SEO writing experience
Search engine optimisation can be a separate role within a marketing team, but it’s still reasonable to expect a copywriter or content writer to take a few basic steps:
Use keywords and check their frequency so an article falls in the sweet spot between being findable and being over-stuffed with keywords
Choose appropriate titles and headings within an article
Use internal and external links
Add alt descriptions to images and graphics
Check an article for duplicate content that may have snuck in during the research process
And if you’re writing any kind of persuasive copy, you also need to make sure that a writer knows how to close the deal by using calls to action on their web pages and in their articles to encourage the reader to take the next step — whether that’s buying, signing up, sharing your content, or getting in touch to find out more.
Content strategist interview questions
Content strategists should be fantastic writers and editors, so the questions above are still relevant.
As well as this, you’ll want to make sure they’re able to plan and organise lengthy projects and keep an overview of the process. They should be able to report back from the point of view of the writers, the audience, and the analytics data.
Many content strategists also have a deeper working knowledge of content SEO and technical SEO (that is, what’s going on behind the scenes of a website to make the content searchable). If they have prior experience with the content management system you already use to publish your content, so much the better.
And, since the content strategist is usually the main point of contact between the writers and the client, you’ll also want to get a sense of what that working relationship will be like.
These questions can be a good place to start:
How do you choose what to write about?
How do you respond to current events within the industry?
What content management systems are you familiar with?
How do you monitor how the content is performing?
A closing question for all your candidates
What would you need to know before you start writing or strategising?
While you want your writer or strategist to be enthusiastic, you also want someone who likes to have all the information in place before they put their hands to the keyboard. It’s all very well having the first draft on your desk in a flash, but if you have to put more effort into the feedback, you haven’t saved time at all.
If you want a well-researched piece that responds to your customers’ pain points, your writer will need a thorough brief — often produced by a content strategist. And if you want your content to be consistent with a previous writer or within a team, a written tone and style guide is a great resource to have.
Why hire one writer when you can work with a whole content marketing team?
Get in touch today to find out how KYO’s writers, editors and content strategists can take your online content to the next level.