When you’re looking to hire a digital content specialist, it’s important to consider soft skill qualifications, in addition to looking at a candidate’s experience and education. While candidates need to work closely with blogging tools, social media, and more, it’s essential that their personality also aligns well with the role. When an employee’s personality fits with their job’s responsibilities, they’re more likely to thrive in the role.
Key personality traits for digital content specialists
Digital content specialists need to plan and execute effective campaigns, often on a large scale. Because of this, candidates must be well-organized and enjoy following set plans. Those who prefer making things up as they go will have a more difficult time with the day-to-day processes involved in content planning, especially when a project requires patient, long-term organization. Naturally organized candidates will both be more effective planners and enjoy the work more.
The best candidates can also think outside the box and come up with new ways to reach audiences. Digital content marketing isn’t always an exact science - it requires quite a bit of creativity to create engaging posts, explore options for content, and increase brand awareness across multiple platforms. While this work may be frustrating for those focused on logical, consistent solutions, people who enjoy trying new ideas are likely to enjoy the creative challenges they’ll face in this role.
Because the role requires a lot of face time with other team members, especially for bigger teams with multiple content writers, designers, marketing leads, and more, digital content specialists should be people-oriented, collaborative leaders. This role requires insightful knowledge about the target audience and close cooperation with other team members to imagine, plan, create, and publish great content. Without people-skills, a digital content specialist is likely to miss the mark.
Asking the right questions
When approaching interviews with potential candidates, focus your energy on asking the right questions for each candidate. Instead of asking irrelevant, cliche questions, prioritize questions that help you identify the key traits you’re looking for from a candidate so you can learn how each candidate aligns with your expectations for the role.
Here are examples of questions to ask:
- What past ideas of yours are you most proud of?
- Do you enjoy working closely with others, or would you instead work alone?
- How do you plan and organize strategies for content?
- What brands do you look toward for inspiration?
- How do you view our team’s branding now? From the outside looking in, who would you think our target market is?
Quick tip: Want more examples of questions you can ask potential candidates? Create a job on Crystal. to get personalized interview prep kits catered to each candidate.
Talk to other team members
Introducing new members to the team can be difficult, but one way to make sure all new hires fit in is to include others in the hiring process. When hiring a digital content specialist, it’s important to invite other stakeholders in the position, mainly those who would work closely with the new hire, to share their thoughts and expectations for the role. Crystal’s Jobs tool allows you to create a Job and invite stakeholders to take a role expectations survey to share their hopes for the role honestly. You can then view the ideal personality for the position, based on the traits mentioned in the job description and identified through a combination of stakeholders’ survey results.
Hire the best digital content specialist for your team by using Crystal Jobs.
