Effective Work Sample Exercises for Hiring a Senior Content Marketing Manager

Hiring the right Senior Content Marketing Manager is crucial for driving your company's content strategy and achieving marketing objectives. This role requires a unique blend of creativity, analytical thinking, strategic planning, and execution skills that can be difficult to assess through traditional interviews alone.

Work sample exercises provide a window into how candidates approach real-world content marketing challenges. By observing candidates in action, you can evaluate their strategic thinking, content creation abilities, analytical skills, and how they respond to feedback—all critical competencies for success in this role.

The exercises outlined below are designed to assess key skills required for a Senior Content Marketing Manager: content strategy development, SEO optimization, performance analysis, and cross-functional collaboration. Each exercise simulates actual job responsibilities, allowing you to evaluate candidates based on their demonstrated abilities rather than just their interview responses.

Implementing these exercises as part of your hiring process will help you identify candidates who not only understand content marketing theory but can also execute effectively. Additionally, these exercises give candidates insight into the type of work they'll be doing, helping ensure alignment between their expectations and the role's realities.

Activity #1: Content Strategy Audit and Recommendations

This exercise evaluates a candidate's ability to analyze existing content, identify gaps and opportunities, and develop strategic recommendations aligned with business objectives. It demonstrates their strategic thinking, analytical skills, and ability to connect content to business goals—all essential for a Senior Content Marketing Manager.

Directions for the Company:

• Provide the candidate with access to your company blog or content hub (or a selection of 5-10 recent content pieces if full access isn't possible).
• Include basic analytics data for these content pieces (pageviews, time on page, conversion rates, etc.).
• Share a brief overview of your target audience personas and 2-3 key business objectives.
• Allow candidates 2-3 days to complete this exercise.
• Prepare to spend 30-45 minutes reviewing their analysis and recommendations.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the provided content and analytics data.
• Conduct a content audit that evaluates:
• Content quality and relevance to target audiences
• Content performance against provided metrics
• Content gaps and opportunities
• Alignment with business objectives
• Prepare a 2-3 page document (or slide deck) that includes:
• Summary of key findings from your audit
• 3-5 strategic recommendations to improve content effectiveness
• Outline of one new content initiative that would support business objectives
• Metrics you would use to measure success

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the candidate presents their analysis, provide one piece of positive feedback about their approach or recommendations.
• Offer one constructive suggestion for improvement (e.g., "I'd like to see more focus on how these recommendations support our conversion goals").
• Ask the candidate to spend 5-10 minutes refining one of their recommendations based on your feedback.

Activity #2: SEO-Driven Content Brief Development

This exercise assesses a candidate's understanding of SEO principles and how they apply them to content creation. It demonstrates their ability to conduct keyword research, understand search intent, and create content that balances SEO requirements with engaging storytelling—a critical skill for driving organic traffic.

Directions for the Company:

• Identify a topic relevant to your industry that you'd like to rank for.
• Provide the candidate with basic information about your target audience and brand voice.
• Share access to SEO tools if possible (or allow them to use free tools of their choice).
• Allocate 2-3 hours for this exercise, which can be done remotely or on-site.
• Prepare to evaluate both their research process and the final deliverable.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Conduct keyword research around the provided topic to identify:
• Primary keyword target (with search volume and difficulty)
• 3-5 secondary keywords to incorporate
• Top-ranking competitors for these terms
• Create a comprehensive content brief that includes:
• Proposed headline and meta description
• Content outline with section headings
• Word count recommendation
• Key points to cover
• Internal and external linking opportunities
• Call-to-action recommendations
• Be prepared to explain your research process and strategic decisions.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide positive feedback on one aspect of their content brief (e.g., "I like how you've structured the outline to address the search intent").
• Offer one area for improvement (e.g., "The primary keyword might be too competitive; let's discuss alternatives").
• Give the candidate 10 minutes to revise their keyword strategy or content structure based on your feedback.

Activity #3: Content Performance Analysis and Optimization Plan

This exercise evaluates a candidate's data analysis skills and ability to translate insights into actionable content optimizations. It demonstrates their analytical mindset, performance measurement capabilities, and strategic approach to content improvement—essential for driving continuous content ROI.

Directions for the Company:

• Prepare a dataset showing performance metrics for 5-10 content pieces (can be anonymized if needed).
• Include metrics such as traffic, engagement, conversions, bounce rate, and social shares.
• Provide context about the goals for these content pieces.
• Allow 60-90 minutes for this exercise.
• Be prepared to discuss their analysis approach and recommendations.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the provided content performance data.
• Identify patterns, trends, and outliers in the performance metrics.
• Prepare a brief presentation (5-7 slides) that includes:
• Summary of key performance insights
• Analysis of what's working well and what isn't
• Identification of 2-3 underperforming pieces with the greatest optimization potential
• Specific recommendations for optimizing these pieces
• Expected outcomes of these optimizations
• Be prepared to explain your analytical process and how you prioritized recommendations.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Highlight one insightful observation or recommendation from their analysis.
• Provide one suggestion for deepening their analysis (e.g., "I'd like to see how you might incorporate audience segment data into your recommendations").
• Ask the candidate to spend 10 minutes expanding on one of their optimization recommendations based on your feedback.

Activity #4: Cross-Functional Content Campaign Planning

This exercise assesses a candidate's ability to develop integrated content campaigns and collaborate across teams. It demonstrates their project management skills, cross-channel thinking, and collaborative approach—crucial for leading successful content initiatives that involve multiple stakeholders.

Directions for the Company:

• Create a brief for a hypothetical product launch or marketing initiative.
• Include basic information about the product/initiative, target audience, and business objectives.
• Provide an overview of available channels (website, email, social media, etc.).
• Allow 2-3 hours for this exercise.
• Optionally, include team members from other departments (social media, demand gen, etc.) for the presentation portion.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Develop a content campaign plan that supports the provided initiative.
• Your plan should include:
• Campaign theme and messaging framework
• Content types and assets for each stage of the customer journey
• Channel distribution strategy
• Timeline and dependencies
• Required resources and team members
• Success metrics and measurement approach
• Create a one-page brief for one key content asset from your plan, detailing its purpose, audience, key messages, and distribution.
• Be prepared to present your plan and explain how it supports business objectives.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide positive feedback on one aspect of their campaign plan (e.g., "I appreciate how you've aligned content assets to different stages of the customer journey").
• Offer one constructive suggestion (e.g., "I'd like to see more consideration of how these content pieces could be repurposed across channels").
• Ask the candidate to spend 10 minutes refining their channel distribution strategy based on your feedback.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should we allow candidates to complete these exercises?
For take-home exercises (like the Content Strategy Audit), allow 2-3 days from assignment to submission. For on-site exercises, allocate 1-3 hours depending on the complexity. Be respectful of candidates' time—excessive time requirements may cause strong candidates to drop out of your process.

Should we compensate candidates for completing these exercises?
For exercises requiring significant time investment (more than 2 hours), consider offering compensation, especially for senior roles. This demonstrates respect for candidates' time and expertise while ensuring you receive thoughtful submissions.

How should we evaluate candidates across different exercises?
Create a standardized rubric for each exercise that aligns with the key competencies in your job description. Rate candidates on specific criteria rather than making holistic judgments. This approach reduces bias and enables more objective comparisons between candidates.

What if a candidate doesn't have experience with our specific industry?
Focus on evaluating their process and strategic thinking rather than industry-specific knowledge. Strong content marketers can apply their skills across industries. Consider providing additional context about your industry if needed for the exercises.

How do we incorporate these exercises into our broader interview process?
These exercises work best when positioned between initial screening interviews and final-round interviews. Use insights from the exercises to inform more targeted questions in subsequent interviews. Share exercise results with the hiring team to provide a comprehensive view of each candidate's capabilities.

Should we share real company data for these exercises?
You can use real data if it's not sensitive, but anonymized or modified data works well too. The key is providing enough context for candidates to demonstrate their skills while protecting confidential information. For public companies, using publicly available content and data is often sufficient.

The right Senior Content Marketing Manager can transform your content strategy and drive significant business results. By incorporating these practical work samples into your hiring process, you'll be able to identify candidates who not only talk a good game but can actually execute at the level your organization needs.

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