How to hire a content marketer who can actually write
Most content marketer hires produce generic SEO filler. Here's how to find someone who can write things people actually want to read.
The problem with most content marketer hires
You hire a content marketer. They produce 4 blog posts a month. The posts are perfectly optimized for SEO, have the right headings, hit the right word count. And nobody reads them. Because they sound like every other blog post on the internet.
The hardest thing about hiring a content marketer isn't finding someone who can write. It's finding someone who can write things worth reading.
What to actually look for
A distinctive voice
Read their portfolio. If you can't tell their writing apart from ChatGPT output, that's your answer. Good content marketers have a voice. Their writing sounds like a specific person wrote it, not like it was generated from a template.
This matters because your content competes with millions of other posts. The only way to stand out is to say things differently than everyone else.
They understand your audience, not just SEO
Ask them who they'd be writing for. If they start talking about keyword volumes and search intent without mentioning the actual humans reading the content, they're an SEO technician, not a content marketer.
Good content marketers start with "what does this person need to know?" and then figure out how to make Google find it. Not the other way around.
They can show results, not just output
Anyone can write 20 blog posts a month. Ask what those posts actually did. Did they generate leads? Did they rank? Did anyone share them? A content marketer who can't connect their work to business results is just a writer with a content calendar.
How to evaluate candidates
Give them a real assignment
Don't ask for a "sample blog post about your industry." Give them a specific brief: here's our audience, here's the topic, here's what we want the reader to do after reading. Pay them for it. See what they produce.
This tells you more in 2 hours than any interview. You'll see how they research, how they structure arguments, and whether they can actually write for your specific audience.
Look at what they read, not just what they write
Ask them what content they personally consume. What newsletters do they subscribe to? What writers do they admire? Content marketers who don't read good content can't produce it. If they can't name specific publications or writers they follow, they're not investing in their craft.
Ask about failures
What content didn't work? What did they learn? The best content marketers have published things that flopped and can tell you exactly why. Someone who claims everything they've ever written was a success is either lying or has never tried anything interesting.
Where to find them
The best content marketers are usually already writing somewhere. They have a personal blog, a newsletter, or a Twitter account where they share ideas. They're visible because their whole job is creating things people want to read.
Look at who writes the content you enjoy reading. Check bylines on industry blogs. Ask your network who writes their best content. The best hires usually come from referrals or direct outreach, not from job boards.
Job boards work too, but you'll need to sort through a lot of "5 years of content marketing experience" CVs that all look the same. The writing test is what separates them.
Red flags in the interview
They talk about content in terms of volume. "I can produce 15 posts a month." Great, but are any of them good? Volume without quality is just noise.
They can't explain their strategy. If they can't tell you why they'd write about topic A instead of topic B, they're just filling a calendar. Content without strategy is expensive blogging.
Their portfolio is all the same. If every writing sample is a "Top 10 tips for X" listicle, they have one format. You need someone who can write long-form, short-form, case studies, emails, landing pages - whatever your business needs.
They've never measured anything. If they can't tell you the performance of their previous work - traffic, leads, conversions, whatever - they've never been accountable for results.
Getting the first 90 days right
Once you hire someone, set them up to win. Give them access to customers. Let them sit in on sales calls. The best content comes from understanding the audience firsthand, not from reading a buyer persona document.
Start with one piece of content that matters. Not 10 blog posts to fill the calendar. One really good piece that shows what your content can be. Use that as the benchmark for everything after.
And give them honest feedback. If something reads like generic filler, say so. Good content marketers want to be pushed. They'd rather rewrite something than publish something mediocre.