You’re applying for a Content Strategy job. How can you prove your writing skills in the interview?

During my pre-interview research, I delve into a company's online presence, analyzing their website, social media channels, and even their advertisements (if readily available). This comprehensive examination allows me to not only understand how they present themselves across various platforms, but also to decipher their underlying goals for each channel and the strategies they employ to achieve them. Furthermore, prior to the interview, gaining a deep understanding of the company's target audience and their specific pain points becomes paramount. By equipping myself with these insights, I'm able to propose content improvements that directly address the audience's needs and resonate with the company's objectives, right from the outset.

If SEO writing is part of the job, you can run the company website through an SEO audit and come up with some ideas for search terms they could go after.

Align your research to the companies hiring goals. Look for keywords in job description and then analyze the companies current content (at a high level). There are a lot of free tools (either freemium or free trial) you can run their domain through to get ideas to talk about during the interview. Always do your homework before meeting the recruiter.

Remember to save everything and keep back up PDFs of your online clips in case the company takes down your work. Tailor your portfolio to the job, so you're presenting the most relevant clips.

I like to store work case studies on my own drive, tagged for the type of work it is for. It always includes context around a project, what the goals were and any outcomes that can be stated. Its important to show your work and have it tied to impact.

In that case, all our focus should be on explaining the whole process and strategizing better. I will explain everything from competitive analysis, latest trends, style guides, and SEO tools to the analytics tool to show my interviewer a clear picture of me as a Content Writer and Strategist. Along, with this if needed I will research their website and point out the areas that needs improvement. All in all, I have to make them understood about my writing, strategies to its performance analytics in the most simplest way.

This is a red flag in a writing job. Quality content and copywriting take time and requires context and research, which you won't have in an interview and an on-the-spot writing assignment. This won't show an interviewer your content writing abilities because this differs from how you work. After you've been at the job a few months, had a chance to learn the style guide, and understand the products and the business, you'll be able to bust out fantastic tweets in minutes, but before you have historical knowledge and context, this tests nothing. If an interviewer can't look at your portfolio and see you can write, they shouldn't be hiring writers. Seriously, shame on them!

At the end of the interview, I always thank the interviewer for their time, and if the interview went great I thank them for the great vibes as well. This usually leads to me asking them this question - I wanted to ask if you have any reservations or lingering questions concerning me being successful in this position? This way, if the interviewer does have a concern, I can address it right at the spot. Once, this question even helped me get the job offer, since the interviewer completely changed her mind about me after we discussed the potential red flag.

This is only if you REALLY want the job. Before you go to the interview, research the niche of your potential client /employer, find topics that are currently trending. Dive deep. No shallow, 5min research here. Come up with an original angle and write an article addressing the trending topics within the industry, utilizing reliable data sources, and adding a segment to tie it in well with the brand of your potential client/employer.

I'd say it's crucial the analyze their website, using free tools such as Ubersuggest, etc. This will help you get insights into their website analytics, how they rank amongst their competitors, and which market share they own on the internet. This analysis will give you insights on how can they improve their website content, so you can actually make good suggestions and show your research skills. Moreover, you can conduct a website visitor journey analysis, and suggest content improvement where it's needed based on their website as well as their best-performing competitor.