Interview questions
Content Strategist Interview Questions (and How to Answer Them)
Content strategist interviews test how you decide what content to make and whether it worked. Expect to walk through a program you planned, explain how you research an audience and measure results, critique the company's own content, and often complete an audit or content plan exercise.
Key takeaways
- Content strategist interviews focus on judgment: how you decide what to make, for whom and why, and how you know it worked.
- Expect to walk through one content program end to end: the goal, the research, the plan, what shipped and what changed.
- Many content strategist interviews include an exercise, such as an audit of the company's own content or a short content plan.
- Interviewers ask how you brief and give feedback to writers, and how you handle stakeholders who want content that doesn't serve the plan.
- Coming in with a specific, kind critique of the company's content is one of the strongest things a candidate can do.
What does a content strategist interview look like?
Usually a recruiter screen, a conversation with the hiring manager (a head of content, content marketing manager or UX lead), meetings with the people you’d work with (writers, SEO, design, product or product marketing) and often an exercise. SEO-focused roles lean on search data and topic planning; UX-focused roles lean on research, terminology and interface text; marketing roles lean on campaigns and pipeline.
The common thread is judgment. Writers get asked about their best pieces; strategists get asked why those pieces existed at all. Our guide to how to become a content strategist covers the role, and the content strategist job description explains how postings at each level differ.
Questions about your work
These questions test whether you can explain a program you planned, not only content you made.
Walk me through a content program you planned.
What they’re checking: that you can connect a business goal to an audience, a plan and a result. How to answer: the goal, what you learned about the audience, what you decided to make (and not make), what shipped and what changed.
The goal was [business goal: e.g. more qualified sign-ups from search / fewer support contacts about billing]. I started with [research: search data, sales calls, support tickets, interviews] and found [the insight: what people were really asking or struggling with]. So I planned [the program: number and type of pieces, channels], and chose not to [something you cut and why]. We shipped [what] over [timeframe], and [what changed: the result, and what you'd do differently].
Use the template to remember the beats, then tell it the way you’d tell a friend over coffee, including the part where you changed your mind. A strategist who sounds scripted is a hard sell; the way you think out loud is part of what they’re hiring.
Tell me about a content audit you ran.
What they’re checking: whether you can make tough calls about existing content. How to answer: the scope, the criteria you used (traffic, accuracy, overlap, business value), what you kept, updated, merged and retired, and what happened afterward. Mention one piece you were sorry to cut; it shows you made real decisions.
What’s a piece of content you decided not to make?
What they’re checking: prioritization. Saying no is a big part of the job. How to answer: the request, why it didn’t fit the audience or goal, what you offered instead and how the conversation went.
Which result are you proudest of, and how much of it was yours?
What they’re checking: honesty about shared work. How to answer: name your part plainly: “I set the plan and wrote the briefs; three writers did most of the writing.”
Research and planning questions
How do you figure out what an audience needs?
What they’re checking: your research habits. How to answer: name the sources you use and when: search data for what people ask, sales and support conversations for what blocks them, analytics for what they actually read, interviews for why. Give one example where a source changed your plan.
How do you prioritize topics?
What they’re checking: a method you can explain. How to answer: describe how you weigh demand, business value, how well you can answer it and effort. A simple scoring sheet you’ve used is a good thing to describe.
How do you build an editorial calendar?
What they’re checking: whether your plan survives contact with real teams. How to answer: how you set themes or clusters, how you balance new pieces with updates, how you leave room for launches and reactive work, and how you keep writers and reviewers on schedule.
How do you think about AI-generated content in a content plan?
What they’re checking: judgment, not enthusiasm or fear. How to answer: where AI tools help (research, outlines, first drafts, repurposing) and where you’d keep people in charge (original insight, accuracy, voice). It’s worth knowing that Google’s guidance warns that using generative AI to produce many pages without adding value for users may violate its spam policy on scaled content abuse.
Measurement questions
How do you know if content is working?
What they’re checking: that you measure against the goal you set. How to answer: tie the metric to the job the content had. Search content: organic traffic and the actions it drives. Sales content: pipeline influenced, use by the sales team. Help content: task success and support contacts. Name one metric you stopped trusting and why.
A piece you’re proud of didn’t perform. What do you do?
What they’re checking: whether you learn from data or defend your work. How to answer: how you’d diagnose it (wrong audience, wrong format, not found, wrong promise in the title), what you’d change and when you’d retire it.
What does a good content report look like to you?
What they’re checking: whether you can explain results to people who don’t work in content. How to answer: a few numbers tied to goals, what changed, why, and what you’ll do next. One page beats a dashboard export.
Working with writers and stakeholders
What goes in a good content brief?
What they’re checking: whether writers will do their best work for you. How to answer: the audience and their question, the goal and the action the piece should drive, the angle, must-cover points, sources and experts, structure, length, voice notes and how the piece will be measured.
How do you give feedback to a writer?
What they’re checking: whether you make writers better or just rewrite them. How to answer: feedback tied to the brief and the reader, the biggest issue first, and explaining the why so they don’t need the same note twice.
A senior leader wants a piece that doesn’t fit the plan. What do you do?
What they’re checking: influence. How to answer: ask what problem they’re trying to solve, show where it sits against the plan’s priorities, and offer a version that serves both, such as a smaller piece, a different channel or a later slot. Give a real example if you have one.
How do you keep voice and tone consistent across many writers?
What they’re checking: governance. How to answer: a style guide people actually use, templates for common content types, good examples, and editing that explains the reasoning.
Exercises and take-home tasks
Many content strategist interviews include a task. Common versions:
- Audit our content. Review a section of the company’s site or blog and say what you’d keep, fix, merge or cut.
- Build a short content plan. Pick a goal and audience, then outline topics, formats, channels and how you’d measure it.
- Write a brief. Turn a topic into a brief a writer could pick up.
- Rewrite a page. Especially for UX roles: improve a help article or a flow’s interface text.
Keep it focused: a few well-argued recommendations beat twenty bullets. Show your reasoning, and say what you’d want to check with data you don’t have. Our guide to marketing take-home assignments covers scoping, time limits and presenting.
Questions about the company
What do you think of our content?
What they’re checking: preparation and tact. How to answer: one thing they do well and why it works, one gap or opportunity with a specific example, and what you’d look at first. Be kind and concrete; they probably wrote it.
Why do you want to do content strategy here?
Connect something real about the company (its audience, product or content problem) to work you’ve done and want to do more of. Our guide to why do you want to work here has more structure.
Questions to ask in a content strategist interview
- Who writes and publishes the content today, and how much will I write myself?
- What is content expected to do for the business this year?
- How is content success measured now, and who looks at it?
- What’s the biggest content problem you’d want solved in the first six months?
- How do content requests from other teams get prioritized?
- Is there a style guide or content governance today?
More ideas in our guide to questions to ask the hiring manager.
Recon can help you prepare: its interview prep builds answers from the lines on your real resume, and a mock interview gives you feedback on what you say out loud.
FAQ
Do content strategist interviews include a test?
Often. An audit of the company’s own content, a short content plan or a brief are the most common. Some are take-home tasks; others are discussed live.
What should I bring to a content strategist interview?
Two or three examples that show your planning: a brief, an audit summary, a content plan or a before-and-after page, with a line on what changed. Check that anything you share isn’t confidential.
How are UX content strategist interviews different?
They focus more on research, interface text, terminology and working with designers and product managers, and the exercise is often a rewrite of a flow or help article. Our UX writer guide explains the overlap.
How much does a content strategist make?
It varies by level, industry and location. Our content strategist salary page has BLS figures by state for the occupation the role falls under.