You’re here because your organization is hiring (or thinking about hiring)
a content strategist 🤔.

Post a job ad. Interview strong candidates. Test your promising prospects.
Make the final decision and…voila!

Unfortunately, hiring a strong content strategist isn’t so simple because it’s a complex discipline that draws from multiple skills and traits.

The good news is that you can increase your chances of recruiting the best content strategist for your organization with a few tweaks to your hiring process.

Speaking from my own professional experience, the companies that I ended up
working with — and delivering massive value for — followed a similar approach to hiring and vetting my skills.

As a potential hire, their approach encouraged me to:

• Deem the hiring company’s a fit for me and invest time into applying

• Remain engaged throughout the recruitment process

• Champion the company’s mission and vision (before I even met a single recruiter or hiring manager)

• Hit the ground running and aim to dominate the competition

In this post, I’ll share how to be smarter with your hiring strategy to find a game-changing hire for a content strategy position.

Table of contents:

• What does a freelance content strategist do?

• When should you hire a freelance content strategist?

• 5 key qualities to look for when hiring a content strategist

• 9 important content strategist interview questions

• Tips for hiring a content strategist (from a content strategist)

What does a freelance content strategist do?

Generally, a full-time or freelance content strategist will create
strategic and tactical content marketing plans based on your high-level business goals, positioning, and available marketing resources.

👉 A freelance content strategist should do these three things
exceptionally well: plan content, research (SEO/non-SEO), and
report/analyze.

Content strategy is a relatively new field with specialties and titles still emerging. Examples include:

• Content Marketing Strategist

• Content Marketing Manager (my current title ❤)

• Inbound Marketing Consultant (or Strategist)

• Content Marketer

• SEO Content Strategist

I, for example, specialize in B2B & B2C SaaS content strategy with a focus on organic lead generation and traffic growth. Other strategists might work exclusively on video-based content that aims to educate existing customers and improve retention.

So what deliverables can you expect when hiring a freelance content strategist?

This will obviously depend on your arrangement, but most strategists offer a combination of the following:

• Content audit: An analysis of your existing content to measure
  performance and identify new opportunities

• Editorial management: Managing content producers, creating briefs,
  aligning voice & tone, copyediting, etc. to help streamline
  your content operations

• Content ideation: Generation of new content ideas that are aligned
  with business goals and objectives — and SEO’d when necessary

• Hiring content creators: Hiring and vetting of new writers,
  editors, and producers to generate more content assets

• Measuring and reporting: Pretty self-explanatory, but you’d be
  surprised at the number of times I’ve received vacant stares as a
  response to the question “so what new leads or traffic did the xyz
  content campaign bring?”

👉 Important note: Hiring a content strategist — who probably has a writing
background — doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll write content for you.

Some content strategists will dive into the weeds and create content,
others won’t — usually due to bandwidth reasons depending on the scope of
work.

You’ll typically find that with larger and more complex operations,
strategists will need more time for project management and, you know…actual
thinking time to strategize 🧠.

When should you hire a freelance content strategist?

The clear answer is when the revelation strikes you via a talking pink
unicorn in a lucid dream you get spammed with requests to “maybe hire a
dedicated person for the blog.”

You should also consider hiring a freelance content strategist when👇

• Looking to scale organic channels to fuel demand generation.
  Content fuels the marketing engine, so you’ll need more of it (at a
  high caliber) to generate revenue with SEO

• Struggling to prioritize a deluge of content marketing
  ideas. (“Spray and pray” content generation that’s not scrutinized
  for potential ROI often leads to “fluff” content clogging your
  editorial pipeline with expensive, low-yield content assets)

• Content isn’t scaling effectively. There’s no consistent rhyme
  or reason to your content marketing operations — even though you
  and your team agrees content is a critical piece of your marketing
  puzzle

• Seeing little to no ROI from your current content marketing
  strategy. Asking the technical writer on your team to lead content
  strategy didn’t work out. As a result, most of the content you
  create barely scrapes any view or conversions. (Not bashing any
  technical writers out there, just providing an example based on my
  experiences!)

5 key qualities to look for when hiring a content strategist

Recruiters and senior marketers hiring a content strategist should target
these key traits and qualities in applicants and interviewees👇

1. Strong communication and writing chops (of course!)

2. Excellent project management (content strategists will have to
   manage multiple deadlines and source expertise
   cross-departmentally)

3. Great people skills (working with content producers requires
   sensitivity to encourage, fuel creativity, but also correct
   creators when mistakes are made)

4. 1-3 years of relevant experience in a similar role (or 1-3 years of
   relevant experience in a content creation role if you’re looking
   for a junior content strategist that fits a limited hiring budget)

5. Working knowledge of SEO and Google Analytics (enough to report the
   effectiveness of their content campaigns)

Overall marketing acumen in a content marketing strategist can’t be
overstated.

Your hire should have a firm grasp of:

• How and where content fits in the wider marketing funnel

• The customer journey from potential lead to acquired user

• And how content serves different purposes across various platforms
  (paid media, infographics, podcasts etc.)

Expect them to highlight how previous content marketing campaigns
successfully supported the goals of a business they worked with. (Bonus
points if they showcase stats and numbers to prove results.)

9 important content strategist interview questions

Asking the right questions ensures that you’re mining for appropriate
traits in a potential content strategist. Include these essential questions
in your content strategist interview:

• Technical skills: How do you ensure that your content generates ROI
  for a business?

• Knowledge of tools: What content management systems and tools have
  you used? Which is the most important in your opinion?

• Versatility: Aside from (blogs/videos/graphics), what content
  assets have you worked on in the past?

• Eye for content: What is your favorite example of a company that
  gets content strategy?

• Creativity: How do you make technical subjects more interesting to
  beginner-level audiences?

• Brand and content analysis: What do you think of our company’s
  content at the moment? What would you improve?

• Measurement: How would you measure the performance of your content
  and determine it a success or failure?

Practical hiring tips (from an in-house + freelance content strategist)

As a content marketing manager and freelance content strategist, I’ve
picked up exciting insights working on content campaigns with brands like
QuickBooks, Totara Learning and most recently, Hack The Box.

Here are my 3 biggest takeaways👇

✅ Treat test projects as gospel

Failing to test potential content marketing hires is a common (and costly)
mistake when hiring content strategists.

Assign a presentation, a written test, or a mini strategy brief — just for
the love of God pick a test that qualifies candidates for the qualities and
skills you’re searching for!

✅ Communicate your content culture

Culture is critical to most employees. Similarly, content culture is a big
deal for content strategists.

Be upfront and communicate your company’s content culture early in the
hiring process.

If the current process is a little chaotic or the existing content team
needs to rebuild from the ground up, inform your candidate.

Being open ensures that your future content strategist is poised for
success and prepared for the road ahead.

✅ Look for a balanced skill set (unless you need a specialist)

A content strategist role bridges marketing, editorial, and project
management. Wearing such a diverse range of hats requires an understanding
of multiple disciplines such as writing, editing, SEO, positioning, and
analytics.

Hence if you’re not sure what skills you should emphasize, look for a
balanced skill stack.

I’d recommend hiring a specialist when you’re certain that you’ll need them
to support business objectives.

For example, prioritizing SEO makes sense when reviewing a candidate’s
wheelhouse if your existing team’s content fails to attract organic leads
but at the same time excels at engaging loyal customers.

Make a conscious decision to hire for skills and traits that are missing internally.