A hiring manager's question bank for content writers — writing craft, SEO fundamentals, research, editing, audience and tone, and whether the work actually drives results. Built to separate people who can string sentences together from people who make readers act.
Hiring a content writer is deceptively hard because everyone can write something, but few can write the right thing for the right reader with a clear purpose. A portfolio tells you about polish; the interview should tell you about thinking. The strongest signal is not whether a candidate uses pretty words but whether they start from the audience and the goal — do they ask who this is for and what it should make the reader do, or do they just start typing? You want to probe craft (structure, clarity, editing their own work ruthlessly, writing a headline that earns the click without lying), research (turning an unfamiliar topic into an accurate, useful piece without becoming a plagiarist or a fabricator), and SEO literacy (understanding search intent and keywords as a way to help readers find the piece, not as keyword-stuffing that wrecks the writing). Adaptability matters too: a good writer shifts tone and voice for a brand, a channel, and an audience, and can explain the difference between writing a technical guide, a landing page, and a social post. Because content is a business function, you also want signs they think about impact — that a blog post exists to rank, convert, or educate, and that they are comfortable being measured on more than word count. Finally, in an age of AI writing tools, the interesting question is how they use those tools without letting the work become generic. The questions below run from craft and process through SEO and research into audience, adaptability, and results. Pair a couple of craft questions with a short live or take-home writing task and one "how do you know your content worked" discussion, and you will quickly tell a real writer from someone who merely types.
Choose six to eight questions across two or three categories, and anchor the interview on real writing — a sample from their portfolio or a short exercise. Cover Craft & Process, then SEO & Research, then Audience and Results. Follow every answer with "who was this for and what did you want them to do?" — a strong writer always starts from the reader and the goal, not the words.
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