How to Hire a Great Content Manager

3 minute read

Team Kapost

content word in letterpress type for The Content Marketeer

The larger your web presence becomes, the more reasons for hiring a content manager, someone who can keep track of all of your content—static, active, or time sensitive as it may be—and who can make sure that content never becomes stale, outdated, or irrelevant.

If those issues are familiar to you, it’s time to hire a content manager.

What they do

Content managers are often responsible for the day-to-day oversight of your digital content. Responsibilities may include managing an editorial calendar, uploading content into a content management system, tracking content goals and conversions, and making sure content is always up-to-date (when you change your phone number, the content manager is the person who will make sure it’s updated across every digital channel associated with your business). Often, content managers are also writers or editors.

What to look for

Requisite skills will vary from company to company, but in general, a great content manager will have:

  • A highly organized, detail-oriented work style. Remember, this person will be responsible for knowing where everything is, when it needs publishing, when it needs editing, etc. Organization is a must!
  • Some writing or editing skills. Even if your content manager isn’t writing on a daily basis, he or she should be able to catch typos and perform basic reviews or edits.
  • Experience with a variety of content management tools. This person will probably be responsible for working with your content management system, editorial calendar tool, email marketing tool, and any other technical systems. She should be tech savvy. And basic HTML and CSS experience is a strong plus, if not a must.
  • A not-so-secret love of things like spreadsheets and alphabetization. Editors love reading. Writers love writing. And your content manager should love systematizing things, making life simpler for you and everyone on the team.

Where to look

When you’re looking for one of these uber-organized professionals, we suggest you start with:

  • The Creative Group: With offices in various states across the U.S., this division of the staffing firm Robert Half International, Inc. is focused on connecting employers with talented creatives who have experience in communications.
  • LinkedIn: This social media site is all about business and attracts a large number of content professionals.
  • Mediabistro: A must-read for many media professionals, Mediabistro’s job listings are the place to advertise for a content manager with quality editing and/or writing skills.

What to ask

Now that you have a few good candidates, it’s time to consider what questions you’ll ask during the interview process. Here are a couple to get you started:

  • What content management or technical systems have you worked with in the past? How would you rate your experience level with those programs, as well as HTML and/or CSS?
  • Tell me about past projects: How large were the web presences you’ve been responsible for? How many websites, pages, social media networks, etc. did you manage at one time?

For this position, I’d also ask for a couple writing or editing samples. Or give a quick copy-editing test to see if your candidate can catch basic typos, inconsistencies, and errors.

Have some hiring tips and tricks of your own? We’d love to hear them! Please share them in the comments below.

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Check out what we’ve found to be the best things to look for when hiring for content marketing.

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