1. Tell us do you know something about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Although content writers aren't supposed to know much about SEO but if they do it's a added bonus because writing and SEO go hand-in-hand and website popularity depends on the right balance between the two and not just one of them. Obviously if you have mentioned SEO as one of your skills then be prepared for some searching SEO questions from the interviewer. Even if you mention SEO as a separate skill as distinct from SEO content writing, mention it after your writing skill and not before that. But handle all SEO related questions with tact. If the interviewer just has some basic SEO knowledge then you can convince him/her quite easily by talking about on-page and off-page optimization but if the interviewer has in depth knowledge then you will need more than just SEO basics. So it's advisable to state upfront your comfort level with all things SEO.
2. Please provide your resume and qualifications details?
It is imperative to know about the basic qualification of the person you intend to hire. If he/she is a graduate in English literature don't be too happy about it because they might not be able to write creative contents. Read through their resume and find out if they have been involved in writing or editing their work related documents. Sometimes this skill will help to know that they would be accurate in pinpointing grammatical errors. Besides, they would have an eye for reading each sentence word by word. Anyway, it is best if the writer is a graduate and has worked for few years.
While making selection for skilled writer, you would be willing to have someone in your team who takes feedback in a positive way. As most of the content work is a collaborative work, making the right changes to the content is based on way the writers incorporate the feedback into the articles. A writer who defends their work or not open to suggestions would be difficult to handle as it would cause lot of headaches. Especially when you are looking for content writers for marketing purpose you would need to be careful in hiring the right candidates. They need to be open to suggestions and positive in their approach, willing to make changes as per needs.
☛ Why it's important to ask this: Your content marketer will need to express a unique voice and opinion in their work. However, they also need to adapt their own style as a function of your company's needs, the audience, format of the content, person they're writing for, and so on.
☛ What to look out for: Look and ask for specific examples of how they modified their style, as well as asking them to identify why this is important.
☛ Why it's important to ask this: What drives a person to invest their time and effort into creating content? Is it anecdotal insight such as a hallway conversation with a sales person-which may be a good place to begin investigating an idea, but not the final driver for its execution? Or is creation more data-driven, such as through Google Analytics or insight from a content marketing platform?
☛ What to look out for: Be wary if your candidate indicates their past content development was primarily driven by what their boss told them to write about; or they have no understanding of what goes into content strategy. A follow-up question could be: “Describe your company's content strategy, including key steps in its development.”
6. Tell me after you have published your content, how do you promote it?
Mediocre Responses:
☛ I publish my content on WordPress, and then tweet it out as well.
Great Responses:
☛ I publish the post on our blog using WordPress.
☛ I then schedule a minimum of four tweets at different times of the day in HootSuite.
☛ I email coworkers to retweet and share my post as well.
☛ I ask the demand generation team to include it in the next email newsletter to our database.
7. Tell me are You Comfortable in Your Writing Skills?
This is perhaps the most important question, because if their writing skills aren't up to snuff, your content writer might succeed in driving people away from your site, not to it. While reading previous work will give you great insight into their writing level (they need to know the difference between “there,” “they're” and “their,” for one thing), also ask questions specific to online writing, such as Can you explain technical content without using meaningless buzzwords?
8. Tell me what ideas do you have?
Probably not the first question that comes to mind, but an important one nonetheless. The old saying goes that if you keep doing the same thing, you're bound to get the same results. There's a reason you're hiring someone else: you want a different perspective, a different voice, right?
This question can be answered by asking what blogs, books or magazines they read, who would play them in the movie version of their life or what profession they would choose if they could start all over. You might be surprised by the answers, but what you're really looking for is to be entertained by their responses and understand their personality.
9. Explain me about the process you went through to create this piece?
As you look through a prospective writer's “clips” or writing samples, select one to ask about in detail during the interview. The goal is to get an idea of how they go about getting to the final product.
The answer here should jive with the sort of working relationship your marketing team wants to have with its content marketing writer. If you want to be the ones coming up with ideas, then you need a writer who is happy to take assignments as they come. If you don't have the time or inclination to come up with ideas, then you need a writer who is happy to take on that task. When there is a mismatch here, it will cause frustration on both ends of the working relationship.
11. Can you describe the difference between “there,” “their,” and “they're?”?
Yes, it sounds asinine. But I see this mistake All. The. Time. And I know at least some of those errors are the work of allegedly professional content creators. A good writer knows that a spellcheck program can only get you so far.
12. Tell me do you use any tools or specific strategies when writing?
There are tons and tons of different tools that a writer can use. Mentioning any sort of social tools for promotion (Buffer, SocialBro, etc.) is a great way to show that he/she understands the industry. Any talk of using analytics and analyzing CTR is also a great (and fairly advanced) answer. This is one of those questions that you'll have a good feeling about right when it is answered.
13. Tell me how Comfortable Are You With SEO or Social Media?
Depending on your specific needs, you want to make sure your content writer can get you the results you're looking for. If you need someone with advanced SEO skills, or a social media guru, make sure they have these skills before work is done. If you want your content to go viral, make sure the writer has a large Twitter following and knows how to generate buzz for your site or business. Ask to see successful stats from the writer's previous clients. With Google changing search algorithms often, it's helpful to have a content writer familiar with the Google SEO Initiate. If the writer's still using old ways to build links, this could hurt you instead of help.
14. Explain me how does Google rank content?
☛ Why it's important to ask this: I am always surprised by how few marketers at any level understand how Google really ranks content. Though you're not interviewing for an SEO position, content marketing is intrinsically tied to search engine optimization; everyone should know the basics when creating content.
☛ What to look for: You don't need a candidate to know the PageRank formula, but rather the basic premise behind Google's ranking algorithm, along with other auxiliary factors that help with SEO. For example, many naive marketers think Google ranks content largely on meta tags and keyword stuffing. In reality, Google primarily ranks content on inbound links, and the authority of the sites doing the linking. It's a bonus if a candidate can mention other contributing factors such as the text of the hyperlink, the title tag, keywords in the URL, and others.
15. Can you please walk me through how you create a blog post?
☛ Why it's important to ask this: This is a good question to tease out which parts of the content lifecycle the candidate is familiar with. Do they only have experience with copywriting, or can they come up with blog ideas themselves? Do they stop at writing the blog post, or do they keep promotion on social media in mind as well?
☛ What to look out for: You should look for a response that captures the whole process from start to finish, from ideation to production to distribution to analytics. A great answer will include specific tools and details. Here's an example of great and mediocre responses.
16. Explain me what type of audiences have you been involved with or associated with?
Many writers keep in mind their certain set of target audience to get to write their content. Having being exposed to variety of audiences will help one to know how to manage writing articles. Certain set of audience require little more explanation while certain set of audience who are professional will be conversing in professional level. Some may be targeting younger age groups, while some middle age groups. Some target college graduates, while some working professionals or those seeking career changes. Be it for marketing or for blog, each writers has their own style of writing which is unique to them. Hence, take care to select writers on the type of contents.
17. First of all tell me something about yourself?
This is the most common interview question which will almost certainly be asked to any candidate. While it seems a pretty straightforward question many find it the toughest as it's quite open ended and people fumble when required to speak about themselves rather than about their work and/or skills. But fear not friends. The question is asked merely to know more about your personality than actually seeking your personal details. The best way to approach this question is to start with your high school, go up to graduation/post graduation and move towards your work experience. If the interviewer seeks family details only then you should provide it, otherwise it's not necessary.
18. Tell me what sort of social media tools do you utilize to get help for content writing?
Most of the writers do use the common social media tools to get help with writing. Each writer would have specific flair for topics of their interest. Those writers would have books or magazines related to the topic. There could be some who are tech savvy and depending on the type of articles they would know where to get access to reference subjects. This question will allow you to know whether he/she will be referring to the right site or will be able to bring out genuine or relevant contents. You could also make sure of their capability to handle topics assigned.
☛ Why it's important to ask this: Content marketing is about adding value to your readers, such as providing an infographic that educates about their industry, or creating an entertaining video that helps them with their job or career. Your team needs to create content that provides entertainment such as through story-telling or comedy in order to stand out from the crowd, and to capture and sustain their attention.
☛ What to look out for: Look for examples of their content that told a story, used humor, and/or educated their audience about something other than a company's products. Bonus points if the candidate has delivered more unique formats of content, such as infographics, podcasts or interactive content. Ask for examples of where they've used visual content, including why they were or weren't successful.
This will help you get a better idea of the quality of the writer's raw work. Every writer needs some editing, but you want to find a content marketing writer whose work will need as little editing as possible. The less time and money you spend on editing, the better.
A good answer would be something about taking time to get to know the site by commenting and sharing content, and then sending a pitch complete with sample articles for the editor to check out. A great way to find new sites is to continually keep up with social media and check out the sites that your connections are associated with. Understanding PageRank is also a plus.
From this question you would be able to judge the type of articles that they are ‘interested' to write. Then you would be able to allocate specific contents to such persons depending on their interests. But sometimes, there are writers who do manage to write a variety of topics. This would mean that they have habit of reading and gathering information. Based on the type of contents that you are interested to display, you need to be careful in selecting writers. By reading the articles you would be getting to know on how much depth they are involved in the related subject. Besides, getting writers for writing technical related subjects needs to be based on their technical writing skills and their education qualification.
This question would help to get in contact with writers who are well versed in writing different styles. When we say style, it means the way the writer writes and the technique the writer uses mainly the word choice, the syntax, the tone. Sometimes, it is also considered as voice that readers listen when they read the content work. Get to know whether the writer uses descriptive style, narrative style, argumentative style or persuasive style. From that you would get to know how they put use of their words, structure their sentence, whether logics are used. Each writer creates their own niche.
Creating content for marketing purposes requires a collaborative effort. You want a content marketing writer who is open to receiving feedback - both positive and negative - on their work, and who is willing and able to incorporate that feedback into their future writing efforts. A writer who gets defensive or isn't open to suggestions will just cause you headaches.
25. Tell us what operating systems and programs do you use?
True story: On two occasions at my last corporate job, we hired writers who showed up on their first day, took one look at their computers, and said, “Oh, you use PCs.” Yep, they'd only ever used Macs. Each assured us it wouldn't be a problem, but … yeah, it was. So if you're hiring a content creator to work on-site with your team, make sure he or she is hip to the program-literally.
