How to Write a Content Strategist Job Description and Interview Questions

As an essential part of your growing marketing team, you’ve likely decided that you’ll need a content strategist to figure out your go-to-market strategy across marketing, sales, customer success, and product marketing.

But how do you find the right strategist for your company, business model, industry, niche, company size, and available resources to invest?

This blog post will teach you how to write a content strategist job description and some common interview questions.

Writing a Job Description for a Content Strategist Role

So what qualities should you look for when recruiting for a content strategist role on your team?

For a content strategist role, the candidate should have impeccable written and verbal communications skills, be a lifelong learner, be detail-oriented, and be a self-starter. 

Look for evidence of relevant, formal third-party training on topics such as content marketing or user research. 

In terms of relevant job experience, a content strategist should be well-versed in customer insight research -- including developing buyer personas, buyer's journey maps, and job cards (jobs theory/jobs-to-be-done).

A content strategist should also have a solid understanding of on-page and off-page search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), keyword research, social media marketing, paid social platforms, blogging, lead generation, conversion rate optimization (CRO), marketing automation (martech), email marketing, event marketing, and sales enablement. 

Preparing Your Interview Questions for Content Strategist Job Candidates

Now that you’ve written your content strategist job description, posted the job opening in relevant channels, shortlisted candidates, and booked interviews, it’s time to get prepared for your interviews with insightful and revealing questions to ask each candidate:

• What is your process for conducting customer insight research?
• What buyer personas have you found most fascinating? And why?
• How do you deploy calls to action (CTAs) to support goals?
• What would you do next if you're generating many leads that aren't advancing to sales opportunities?
• What would you do next if you're generating many leads that your sales team is complaining are of low quality?
• What kind of event marketing strategy have you used in previous roles to support goal attainment?
• Have you worked primarily with internal or external subject matter experts? Why?
• Can you take me through a situation when you've had to operate in an environment where you didn't have a high level of buy-in from your company's leadership?
• How do you feel about content repurposing?
• What have you learned about content strategy that most colleagues don't know about?

What challenges have you faced when writing job descriptions for content strategy-related roles? What questions have you found most helpful when interviewing strategists? Let me know in the comments section down below.

And if you're about to grow your content team and want to make sure that you nail your go-to-market strategy, enroll now in our free 7-day eCourse: Go-to-Market Strategy 101 for B2B SaaS Startups and Scaleups.