Essential Work Samples for Hiring a Content Marketing Manager: Practical Exercises to Evaluate Top Talent

Content marketing has become a cornerstone of modern business strategy, making the role of Content Marketing Manager increasingly critical for companies looking to build brand awareness, engage audiences, and drive conversions. This position requires a unique blend of creative storytelling, strategic thinking, analytical skills, and project management capabilities that can be difficult to assess through traditional interview questions alone.

While resumes and portfolios provide a glimpse into a candidate's past work, they often fail to demonstrate how someone approaches new challenges or adapts to your specific brand voice and audience. Work samples bridge this gap by allowing you to observe candidates applying their skills to realistic scenarios they would encounter in your organization.

The exercises outlined below are designed to evaluate the essential competencies of a Content Marketing Manager: strategic thinking, content creation and editing, analytical skills, and planning abilities. By implementing these practical assessments, you'll gain valuable insights into how candidates approach real-world content marketing challenges and their potential effectiveness in your organization.

Most importantly, these exercises move beyond hypothetical discussions to reveal how candidates actually perform tasks central to the role. This approach aligns with research showing that past behavior and demonstrated skills are far better predictors of future performance than self-reported abilities or hypothetical responses.

Activity #1: Content Strategy Development

This exercise evaluates a candidate's ability to develop a strategic content approach aligned with business objectives. Content marketing requires more than just good writing—it demands the ability to create content that serves specific business goals while meeting audience needs. This exercise reveals how candidates think about content in the broader marketing ecosystem.

Directions for the Company:

• Provide the candidate with a brief overview of a fictional (or anonymized real) product or service, including target audience information, key differentiators, and business objectives.
• Include any relevant brand guidelines, competitor information, and current content performance metrics.
• Allow candidates 24-48 hours to prepare their strategy.
• Schedule 30 minutes for presentation and 15 minutes for questions.
• Ensure the evaluation team includes stakeholders who would typically collaborate with the Content Marketing Manager.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Develop a one-page content strategy outline for the provided product/service that includes:
• Content goals and KPIs aligned with business objectives
• Target audience segments and their content needs
• 3-5 content themes or pillars
• Content types and distribution channels
• Approach to measuring success
• Prepare a 15-minute presentation explaining your strategy and rationale
• Be prepared to answer questions about your approach

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the presentation, provide specific feedback on one strength of the strategy (e.g., "Your audience segmentation was particularly insightful because…").
• Offer one area for improvement (e.g., "The measurement approach could be strengthened by considering…").
• Give the candidate 5-10 minutes to verbally explain how they would incorporate the improvement feedback into their strategy.

Activity #2: Content Editing and Optimization

This exercise assesses a candidate's ability to improve existing content for clarity, engagement, and SEO performance. Editing is a fundamental skill for content marketing managers who often need to refine content created by others or optimize underperforming assets. This activity reveals their attention to detail, understanding of SEO principles, and ability to maintain brand voice.

Directions for the Company:

• Select an existing piece of content from your organization that could benefit from improvement (a blog post, landing page, etc.).
• Remove any identifying information if necessary.
• Provide the candidate with the content, along with:
• The intended audience
• The primary goal of the content
• Current performance metrics (if available)
• Brand voice guidelines
• Allow 60-90 minutes for completion during the interview process.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the provided content and improve it by:
• Editing for clarity, flow, and engagement
• Optimizing for SEO (suggest a title, meta description, and keyword strategy)
• Restructuring as needed for better readability and conversion
• Adding or modifying calls-to-action
• Provide a brief explanation (1-2 paragraphs) of the changes you made and why
• Be prepared to discuss your editing process and rationale

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide specific feedback on one aspect of their edit that was particularly effective.
• Offer one suggestion for further improvement.
• Ask the candidate to spend 10 minutes implementing the suggested improvement or explaining how they would approach it.

Activity #3: Content Performance Analysis

This exercise evaluates a candidate's analytical abilities and data-driven decision-making skills. Successful content marketing requires continuous optimization based on performance data. This activity reveals how candidates interpret metrics, identify insights, and develop actionable recommendations to improve content effectiveness.

Directions for the Company:

• Create a mock content performance report with data from multiple channels (blog, social media, email, etc.).
• Include metrics such as traffic, engagement rates, conversion rates, and time on page.
• Ensure the data contains some clear patterns and anomalies for the candidate to discover.
• Provide context about content goals and any relevant benchmarks.
• Allow 45-60 minutes for completion during the interview process.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the provided content performance data.
• Identify 3-5 key insights from the data.
• Develop specific, actionable recommendations to:
• Improve underperforming content
• Scale successful content approaches
• Adjust the content strategy based on audience behavior
• Prepare a brief summary of your findings and recommendations (1 page maximum)
• Be ready to explain your analytical process and how you prioritized recommendations

Feedback Mechanism:

• Highlight one particularly valuable insight or recommendation the candidate identified.
• Suggest one additional area of analysis or a different interpretation of the data they might consider.
• Give the candidate 10 minutes to incorporate this feedback by explaining how they would expand their analysis or adjust their recommendations.

Activity #4: Content Calendar Planning

This exercise assesses a candidate's project management abilities, strategic thinking, and understanding of content production workflows. Content marketing managers must balance multiple projects while ensuring consistent publication and alignment with marketing initiatives. This activity demonstrates how candidates approach planning, resource allocation, and cross-functional collaboration.

Directions for the Company:

• Provide information about:
• Upcoming marketing campaigns or initiatives (2-3 months)
• Available content creation resources (writers, designers, etc.)
• Content channels and publication frequency
• Any seasonal factors or important dates
• Include any templates or tools your organization typically uses for content planning.
• Allow candidates 24 hours to prepare their plan.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Create a two-month content calendar that includes:
• Content themes aligned with marketing initiatives
• Specific content pieces for each channel
• Content types (blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.)
• Publication dates
• Required resources for each piece
• Brief description of each content piece (1-2 sentences)
• Prepare a 15-minute presentation explaining your calendar and planning process
• Be ready to discuss how you would adjust the plan if resources changed or new priorities emerged

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide feedback on one strength of their content calendar (e.g., "Your approach to theme integration across channels was particularly effective").
• Offer one challenge scenario (e.g., "What if the budget for freelance writers was cut by 50%?").
• Ask the candidate to spend 10 minutes explaining how they would adapt their plan to address the challenge.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should we allow for these exercises?

For take-home exercises like the content strategy and calendar planning, we recommend giving candidates 24-48 hours to prepare. For in-interview exercises like editing and analysis, allocate 60-90 minutes. The total interview process including feedback should not exceed 3-4 hours across multiple stages to respect candidates' time while still gathering meaningful insights.

Should we use real company data for these exercises?

You can use anonymized real data or create realistic fictional scenarios. Using actual company information provides more relevant context but requires careful preparation to remove sensitive details. If using real data, ensure it's representative of the actual work the candidate would do but doesn't reveal confidential information.

How do we evaluate candidates consistently across these exercises?

Create a scorecard for each exercise with specific criteria aligned with the competencies you're assessing. Have the same evaluators review all candidates using these criteria. Focus on both the quality of the work and the candidate's process, including how they incorporate feedback, which demonstrates adaptability and coachability.

What if a candidate doesn't have experience with our specific industry?

These exercises are designed to evaluate fundamental content marketing skills that transfer across industries. Provide enough context about your audience and business to give candidates a fair chance. Evaluate their approach and thinking process rather than specific industry knowledge, which can be acquired on the job.

How should we compensate candidates for take-home assignments?

For exercises requiring significant time investment (over 2 hours), consider offering compensation, especially for more senior roles. This demonstrates respect for candidates' time and expertise while ensuring you receive thoughtful, quality submissions. Alternatively, you can design simplified versions of these exercises that require less time commitment.

Can these exercises be adapted for remote hiring processes?

All of these exercises work well in remote settings. Use video conferencing for presentations and discussions, and collaborative tools like Google Docs for real-time editing exercises. For the analysis exercise, screen sharing can allow you to observe the candidate's approach to interpreting data.

The right Content Marketing Manager can transform your organization's content strategy and execution, driving meaningful business results through effective storytelling and strategic content deployment. By incorporating these practical work samples into your hiring process, you'll gain deeper insights into candidates' capabilities than traditional interviews alone can provide.

Remember that the best candidates will be evaluating your organization as much as you're evaluating them. A thoughtful, well-structured assessment process demonstrates your commitment to quality and can help attract top talent to your team.

For more resources to improve your hiring process, check out Yardstick's AI Job Description Generator, AI Interview Question Generator, and AI Interview Guide Generator.

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