How to assess · For hiring teams
How to Assess Content Strategy Skills When Hiring
The test formats that actually work for Content Strategy, what a strong answer looks like, sample questions and a scoring rubric you can use as-is.
The short answer
Assess Content Strategy with a task, not a conversation: strategy case, prioritisation exercise, ai-scored assessment (e.g. cohesyve) or content audit. Score it against written criteria you fix before you see any submissions, and weight the criteria that the role actually depends on.
- Starts from the audience and their questions, with evidence
- Chooses topics by intent, business value and winnability, not by what is easy
- Designs formats to fit the question and the channel
- Builds an editorial system — briefs, standards, workflow — that others can run
Paste a job description; Cohesyve generates a role-specific assessment and rubric. Ten candidates free, no card.
Content strategy is deciding what to make, for whom, and why, before anything is made — and it is the part most content programmes skip. The result is volume without direction: posts that rank for nothing, guides nobody needed, and a calendar that is full and useless. The skill is understanding the audience, choosing topics by intent and value, and building a system that produces and measures. This page covers how to assess content strategy for content lead, editorial and marketing roles: audience and intent judgement, prioritisation, editorial systems, and measurement.
Why Content Strategy is worth testing
Weak content strategy is expensive because content is expensive and slow to show results. Six months of the wrong topics is a lost half-year. Testing with a strategy case shows whether a candidate chooses topics from audience need and business value, builds a system that can be run, and measures honestly, and that predicts whether content compounds or accumulates.
What strong Content Strategy looks like
- Starts from the audience and their questions, with evidence
- Chooses topics by intent, business value and winnability, not by what is easy
- Designs formats to fit the question and the channel
- Builds an editorial system — briefs, standards, workflow — that others can run
- Prioritises ruthlessly and can say what not to make
- Measures with traffic, engagement and conversions attributed honestly
- Refreshes and prunes rather than only adding
Ways to assess Content Strategy
Strategy case
Describe a business, its audience, its existing content (with a performance summary) and its goals. Ask for the strategy: audiences, themes, ten prioritised pieces, what to prune, and how to measure. Ninety minutes or a capped take-home.
Pros
Cons
Best for Lead and manager roles.
Prioritisation exercise
Give twenty content ideas with intent, difficulty and value and ask for the top five with reasoning.
Pros
Cons
Best for Any level.
AI-scored assessment (e.g. Cohesyve)
Generate a content strategy task from the job description — a strategy case, a prioritisation exercise, a content audit — with a rubric. Each candidate receives a different variant; the work and the reasoning behind it are scored together.
Pros
Cons
Best for Screening an applicant pool fairly before interview time is spent.
Content audit
Show a list of existing pieces with performance and ask what to keep, refresh, merge or remove.
Pros
Cons
Best for Roles inheriting a library.
Cohesyve
Run a Content Strategy assessment on your next opening
Cohesyve generates a unique Content Strategy task per candidate from your job description, with the scoring rubric attached. Questions are different for every applicant, so they cannot be shared or looked up.
What to test
Audience and intent
Whether content serves real questions.
Prioritisation
Whether effort goes to value.
Editorial system
Whether the programme can run.
Measurement
Whether results are known.
Sample Content Strategy questions
How do you decide what content to make?
EntryLook for Audience questions with evidence, intent, business value, winnability; not the calendar or internal requests.
What is wrong with a content calendar that is full?
EntryLook for Fullness is not strategy; ask what each piece is for; a shorter list of the right pieces beats volume.
You inherit 300 posts and most get no traffic. What do you do?
MidLook for Audit by performance and intent, merge duplicates, refresh winners, remove or redirect dead weight.
Rank these twenty ideas and defend the top five.
MidLook for Explicit criteria applied consistently; says why the others lost.
How do you measure content that does not convert directly?
SeniorLook for Assisted conversions, engagement depth, audience growth among the right people, honest caveats.
Red flags
- Strategy is a calendar
- Topics chosen by internal requests
- Never prunes
- Measures by volume published
- Cannot say what not to make
Scoring rubric
| Criterion | Weight | What strong looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Audience and intent | 30% | Content serves real questions with evidence. |
| Prioritisation | 30% | Explicit criteria; says no. |
| System | 20% | Runnable by others. |
| Measurement | 20% | Honest and tied to outcomes. |
Mistakes hiring teams make
- Hiring on writing skill alone
- Not including a prioritisation exercise
- Rewarding volume
- Skipping the audit
- Confusing content calendar management with strategy
Roles that need Content Strategy
Common questions
Should the case use our content?
An anonymised summary of your library with performance works well and tests pruning judgement on real patterns.
What is the best single content strategy question?
Ask what they would not make. Strategy is exclusion; candidates who cannot answer are planners, not strategists.
How long should a content strategy assessment take?
Ninety minutes for a full case; thirty for a prioritisation exercise.
How is this different from assessing SEO?
SEO is one input. Content strategy covers audience, format, system and measurement across channels. Test both if the role needs both.
Cohesyve · Skill assessments for hiring
Test Content Strategy before the first interview
Generate a role-specific Content Strategy assessment from your job description and see who can do the work before you spend interview time on them.
1,500+
assessments completed
50%
faster time-to-hire
90%
completion rate
5 min
from JD to assessment
No credit card · 10 free candidates · Plans sized to your hiring volume
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