In this article:
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Common skills tested:
Writing skills
Ambiguity tolerance
Research skills
Customer empathy
Creativity
Time management
How to test for these skills:
Using a skills assessment to hire a copywriter/content writer should be general practice for organizations to ensure candidates can effectively deliver on the job in the way that they claim to be able to.
With a significant increase in the amount of content on the internet over the past five years, it’s important that copywriters are creating engaging, new and thought-provoking content that captures its audience. To be able to ascertain whether a content writer has the skills to do this will provide organizations with an unfair hiring advantage to hire the very best professionals in this space, by using a myriad of question and answer techniques in an online skills assessment.
Tolerance of ambiguity is a key skill for content writers to possess. Oftentimes, these individuals will be provided with a small brief or just a topic with little background and are expected to produce valuable content for organizations to use for marketing purposes. For this reason, it’s imperative that they have a high level of tolerance of ambiguity, which can be tested in ways similar to that of what they will encounter on the job.
Asking candidates to write a new article on a topic relevant to the organization in a document format is a great way to gain deep insight into how candidates will perform on the role and whether they can create a new piece of work from scratch, within a specified time period. Further, this will enable employers to assess their research skills, creativity and whether they make a compelling argument to the reader.
Creativity is an imperative skill for content writers to have, especially in industries where the topics typically aren’t interesting. For example, writing an engaging and interesting article on the oil industry may take some ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking. To assess for creativity, provide a generic topic for candidates to write a paragraph about and see what they can produce.
Content writers will be required to produce content on topics they know little about and create a compelling argument to engage readers and potentially sell products or services. In order to do this, content marketers are required to have customer empathy or high emotional intelligence in order to connect with readers on an emotional and personal level, as well as extremely strict time management. This can also be assessed by uploading previous work examples or providing candidates with a scenario or product to write about and compel readers to take action.
Providing candidates with a finished piece of work and asking for their feedback or editing is also a useful way to assess candidate’s ability to critically think about work and suggest improvements and gain an understanding of their work.
Lastly, content writers will need to be able to engage with clients and customers from various walks of life. Here, video or audio questions will provide insight into communication skills and how they interact with other people when representing the business.
You can also start from one of our premade assessments titled Digital Marketing Manager Assessment under the expert section in our library. You can use this template as-is or customize specifically to your organisation.
Follow Best practices for higher completion rates and AI accuracy:
- Use a variety of question types
- Include no more than 10 questions
- Include an intro about your company and the job role. This would be a great use of any company videos.
- Start with an easy question and build up to the more difficult ones later in the assessment
- Restrict the use of timers, only use them in scenarios where an employee would be required to react in a limited amount of time
Where in the funnel should I use an assessment?
Content writers / copywriters should expect to submit previous work examples or create new content as a usual part of the recruitment process. Using a skills assessment through Vervoe for these professionals is best done in the middle to end of the funnel to validate skills once candidates have been interviewed or engaged by someone within the organization. Producing content and taking assessments will require candidates to set time aside from their already full days so it’s advised to use this as a last check of skills, for more experienced candidates.
However, if candidates are new graduates or your organization is hiring a more junior content writer, a skills assessment can be utilized at the top of the funnel to direct hiring manager’s attention to the candidates who perform the best in the assessment.
Read more about how to craft the perfect job description to attract quality candidates here.