Screening candidates who are new to UX Content Strategy
This article is Part 2 of 3 on finding great UX Content Strategists for your team!
About 2 years ago, I was brought on to build a UX Content Strategy team at Chegg®. Building a team from scratch is no small feat. From integrating into the existing design process and creating guidelines for content strategy, to helping design a great user experience and writing clear, concise copy, the biggest challenge can be growing the team.
This is a fairly new field, so managers often find themselves sourcing talent from the same small pool of experienced candidates. We often need to expand our searches to people with related, but not direct, experience. Since starting my team at Chegg, I’ve hired several content strategists this way.
There are 3 steps to my process:
- Pre-qualifying. I look for candidates with creative background and experience writing user-facing communication. I ask them to answer 3 questions in writing to determine their interest in user experience and ability to apply content to it. Read article 1 of 3 in this series for more!
- Phone screen. The next step is to dig deeper into whether they have the right skills. I do that with a phone screen to talk about their experience, and follow up by asking for writing samples. This article is about what kind of questions I ask and what I look for in their portfolio.
- Interviewing. At this point, I believe I’ve found candidates who can do the work. Now, it’s a matter of how they present themselves and whether I, and others on my team, believe they will succeed at Chegg. That’s what my next article is about.
PRE-QUALIFYING RESUMES
I’ve considered candidates with a variety of backgrounds including marketing, SEO, conversion optimization, community management, and customer service. Each of these positions contains a critical aspect of content strategy such as talking directly to users, listening to what they want, aligning with what they’re looking for, and solving their problems.
But a job title doesn’t guarantee demonstrated skills and the ability to use those skills as a UX Content Strategist.
It’s a very good sign if candidates have already thought about how to use their experiences in the new role. It shows me that they’re motivated, have done their homework, and will likely be good at the job.
It’s quite common to see a wide range of strengths among content strategists based on their experience and interests, but there are a few demonstrated skills that I feel are critical to success.
The demonstrated skills I’m looking for are:
- Advocating for the user
- Making a business case for content strategy
- Collaborating with designers
- Designing or utilizing content tests
DIGGING DEEPER IN THE PHONE SCREEN
After reviewing resumes, I set up a 45-minute phone screen with candidates to get to know them and dig into their experience.
The first question I ask is “Why do you want to be a UX Content Strategist?” The answer to this question alone can often give me enough context to know whether they can apply their experience to content strategy.
I’ve found that best candidates have had a experience doing what’s best for the user and realized that it’s something they have a passion for. Then, I walk through their resume with them to try to assess the demonstrated skills.
Advocating for the user
There’s nothing more important to UX Content Strategy than being able to advocate for our users. I’m looking for fierce advocates and defenders of positive human experiences.
Working on the art team at a big publishing company, one of my hires had noticed that art content (which is usually in a horizontal, rather than vertical format) didn’t display well in their eReader. Without a user experience team, she and a few co-workers built a prototype of how the eReader could be modified for art books and got approval from the business leads to test it with students at a local university.
By identifying ways to improve an experience and taking the initiative to get validation from real users, she demonstrated that she would do what’s best for the people who use our products.
Making a business case for content strategy
My second hire came from an online education company as a community manager, where she heard from users about the problems they were having with the product. She rewrote instructional copy to improve usability, and in cases where users were happy, she made recommendations on how to use that momentum to deepen engagement.
When she noticed a lot of questions about how it worked, she proposed a redesign of the homepage to feature the overview video, that had previously been a few pages in. To get the change made, she had to build a business case and demonstrate how she would measure success.
Being able to articulate the impact communication changes can make, and convince product leaders in the language of business, is critical to being able to advocate for users.
Collaborating with designers
Because content strategists work closely with designers, one of my requirements is experience giving design feedback, taking feedback on their writing and ideas, and being able to collaborate with designers asynchronously and in real time.
One candidate I interviewed had worked extensively in journalism. She described her process of ideating with designers, writing copy and making suggestions for imagery, and then reviewing the final product together for any additional updates. It was clear that she understood the importance of getting alignment, being accountable to a team member, and working together to find the best solution.
A candidate who hasn’t had experience iterating with designers is one I probably would not consider because that relationship is too important.
Designing or utilizing content tests
While it’s certainly not a deal breaker, I prefer candidates who have had some experience testing copy, or getting feedback from users on their copy, in terms of performance and comprehension. I want to know that they can use data to improve their writing.
With a background in marketing, my first hire had a lot of experience working with conversion funnels and had regularly written and A/B tested copy variations. Tweaking copy based on the results and applying those learnings to future copy was a regular part of her work. Her ability to plan, execute, and track copy tests and leveraging results over time showed me that she could systematically find the right wording for an audience.
She later used that skill on the job when she pored through student’s tweets about Chegg and mirrored their language in a rating modal. She tested four versions on a scale from neutral to 100% student to find which they would respond to, and the result was a 2-fold increase in our app store rating.
THE ROOKIE PORTFOLIO
Next, I’ll ask for their portfolio. But what kind of samples should writers provide if they haven’t done UX content strategy?
Primarily, I’m looking for short form content to make sure they can write clearly and concisely, bonus if it’s in a digital medium. It could be website copy, emails, social posts, banner ads, articles, or even a personal blog. Sometimes they’ve even “dabbled” in UX writing with an error message, banner, tooltip, or form. All of that is good to include.
I may ask for specific pieces that they mentioned on our phone call — such as a spreadsheet where they documented subject lines to test and the outcomes of those tests, or a piece of instructional copy that they wrote for an internal team.
Though the samples can vary, candidates should be able to talk about how their work has helped people understand, use, and enjoy a product or experience.
If candidates don’t have any of these samples, it will be hard for me to consider them so it makes a difference whether they’ve made an effort to advance their understanding of UX content strategy by joining Meetups, online groups, or taking classes.
One person I screened was doing a daily UX challenge and had included that work in her portfolio. The sample work demonstrated her thought process, ability to do UX writing, and interest in learning and improving.
These are the qualities I’m looking for in writing samples:
- Concise and clear writing
- Good grammar and consistent usage of punctuation, capitalization, and terms
- Straightforward, conversational language
- A personality or brand voice
I often ask for a quick follow-up call to discuss their samples. In that call, I’ll want to know more about how the problem they were solving, how they approached it, and their explorations. I may ask about any guidelines they followed, what kinds of testing they may have done, and the copy decisions they made.
Finally, I’m ready to bring candidates in to meet the team in person for a portfolio presentation and 1:1 interviews!
Check out Part 3 of 3 on finding great UX Content Strategists for your team!
