Questions to Ask Copywriters
For marketing leads and founders deciding what questions to ask in a copywriter interview, whether you are filling a staff role or shortlisting freelancers. The first group covers research habits, drafting, testing, feedback, workload, and how the writer judges their own work, and the second settles samples, revisions, pricing and rights with a freelancer. The last group is for the other chair: what a writer can ask the hiring team in a copywriting interview about briefs, sign-off and how the work will be judged.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Copywriting interview
What kind of writing do you do best, and what do you avoid taking on?
Why ask it
The avoidance list separates writers who know their range from writers who have never tested it. Someone who says they do everything equally well usually has one strong format and several imitations of it.
What is your process for learning a brand's voice?
Why ask it
Look for concrete inputs: reading past campaigns, interviewing the founder, collecting phrases customers use. Answers built on adjectives, friendly and bold and authentic, mean they will guess and hope you like it.
Walk me through how you start on a product you know nothing about.
Why ask it
The order matters. Writers who go to the product and its users before the competitor set tend to write specifics; writers who start with competitor sites tend to write category filler that any rival could publish.
Which piece in your portfolio are you least happy with, and why?
Why ask it
This is the fastest way to see their standards. A useful answer names a specific flaw, a buried lead, a claim they could not support, rather than blaming the client or the timeline.
How do you know whether a piece of copy worked?
Why ask it
Listen for whether they ever saw a result at all. Naming the metric they asked for, and admitting when nobody sent it, beats a confident percentage that cannot be traced to anything.
Tell me about a campaign that underperformed and what you did next.
Why ask it
Every writer with real volume has one. The signal is in the diagnosis: wrong audience, wrong offer, wrong stage of the funnel, or copy that was simply dull, and what they changed in their process afterward.
What has an A/B test taught you that you did not expect?
Why ask it
A specific surprise proves they have watched tests rather than read about them. Watch for whether they understand that a winning variant on a small sample often means nothing.
Which copywriting frameworks do you use, and when do you ignore them?
Why ask it
Naming a framework is easy. The useful half is when they abandon it, since formulas built for cold traffic tend to insult readers who already know and trust the company.
How do you write for a reader who does not believe the claim?
Why ask it
The answer shows whether they think in evidence, demonstrations, numbers, specifics, screenshots, or in intensifiers. Skeptical audiences are where weak copy fails most visibly.
How do you decide how long a page should be?
Why ask it
There is no correct length, so what you are testing is the reasoning: price, risk, how much the reader already knows. Anyone who answers with a fixed word count is following a habit rather than the reader.
How many headlines do you write before you pick one?
Why ask it
Volume here is a decent proxy for work ethic on the highest-leverage line on the page. Ask how they choose between finalists, because 'it felt strongest' and 'it was the only one the claim could support' are different answers.
What do you do when the brief and the performance data disagree?
Why ask it
This surfaces how they behave when a stakeholder is attached to something the numbers do not support. Watch for whether they propose a test rather than either capitulating or overruling.
How do you handle SEO requirements inside a draft?
Why ask it
Ask what they do with a required phrase that reads badly. Structural answers about headings, intent, and what the searcher wanted are the working kind; answers about density and repetition are a decade out of date.
How do you carry one message across email, social, web, and print?
Why ask it
The trap is a writer who reuses the same sentences everywhere. Good answers describe what changes per channel: how much context the reader has, how much they will read, and what the next step can realistically be.
How do you work with designers?
Why ask it
Copy that is written before the layout exists usually breaks the layout. Writers who ask for the wireframe, or who write to character counts, have worked in real production; writers who deliver a document and leave have not.
How would you keep voice consistent across a site several people write for?
Why ask it
Look for mechanisms rather than intentions: a short style guide, a word list, examples of right and wrong, a single editing pass before publication. Nobody maintains consistency by trying harder.
How do you approach plain language and accessibility?
Why ask it
Practical answers mention link text that makes sense out of context, headings that describe the section, alt text, and cutting the reading level of important instructions. Vague answers about inclusive writing usually mean the work has never come up.
How do you take feedback from someone who rewrites your sentences?
Why ask it
It is a normal part of the job, and the response predicts how the first month will go. The workable answer is translating a rewrite back into the problem behind it and offering a fix, rather than defending the original line by line.
How do you handle a week with three deadlines?
Why ask it
You want the specific triage: what they flag early, what they hand back, what they deliver rough on purpose. Anyone who says they simply work late is describing a plan that fails on week two.
What would make you turn down a brief?
Why ask it
This is the closing question because it reveals judgment and self-respect at once. Answers about claims they cannot substantiate, or timelines that guarantee bad work, come from experience rather than from principle.
Hiring a freelancer
Can you show me two pieces where the brief was close to mine?
Why ask it
Portfolios are highlight reels spread across many kinds of work. Asking for two near matches forces a narrow claim, and a writer with no near match will either say so plainly or send something loosely related, which tells you how they will handle your brief.
Have you written for buyers like ours before?
Why ask it
Buyer experience travels better than industry experience. Someone who has written for procurement committees can move between sectors more easily than someone who has only sold impulse purchases to consumers.
What do you need from me before you can start writing?
Why ask it
The list they give, existing brand documents, customer interviews, access to sales calls, past campaign results, tells you how much of your own week the project will consume. A writer who needs nothing is planning to guess.
Walk me through your process from brief to first draft.
Why ask it
You want a sequence with checkpoints: brief, research, outline, draft. If the process is only 'send me the brief and I will send you copy', the first draft is where all the surprises arrive at once.
Do you work from an outline I approve first, or straight to a draft?
Why ask it
Approving an outline catches structural problems before they are dressed in finished sentences. Writers who resist it often compose while drafting, which makes every later change expensive.
How long does a page of sales copy take you, and what slows it down?
Why ask it
Speed claims are meaningless without the constraint. The useful half is what causes delay: waiting on interviews, legal review, or their other clients' deadlines.
Who will actually write this, you or someone else?
Why ask it
Some copywriters subcontract and some run a small studio. Neither is a problem if you know in advance, but you should establish whose writing you were looking at in the samples.
How many rounds of revision are included, and what counts as a new project?
Why ask it
This is where freelance relationships break. Get the definition in writing, and ask specifically what happens when your team sends three rounds of contradictory notes in one afternoon.
How do you want feedback delivered?
Why ask it
Some writers want tracked changes, others want a call, because written feedback tends to arrive as rewritten sentences rather than as a problem statement. Agreeing this in the first week saves several bad rounds.
How do you price: hourly, per project, or retainer, and what triggers extra cost?
Why ask it
Compare structures against your real scope rather than comparing rates. Ask what adds cost: extra pages, added rounds, rush timelines, strategy calls, or attending your internal meetings.
Who owns the copy, and will you use it in your portfolio?
Why ask it
Rights and portfolio use are simple to agree now and awkward to unpick later. If the work is confidential or under an agreement with your own client, say so before they publish a case study about it.
If this first project goes well, what would working together for a year look like?
Why ask it
This tests whether they think in campaigns or in single deliverables. Retainer-minded writers will start describing a content calendar and an ongoing review load you may not have budgeted time for.
Candidate's questions
Who writes the briefs here, and could I see a recent one?
Why ask it
A brief shows more about the job than the posting does: whether there is a named reader, a single aim, a deadline someone thought about. If briefs arrive as a chat message, expect to write your own.
Who signs off on copy, and how many people comment before it ships?
Why ask it
The number of approvers predicts how much of your wording survives. Ask what happens when two of them disagree, since that is the moment that shows who the writer really answers to.
How much of the role is new writing, and how much is editing or adapting what already exists?
Why ask it
Postings tend to describe the campaigns and leave out the product descriptions and the terms updates. Neither mix is wrong, but a week of adapting other people's lines is a different job from a week of concept work.
How will you decide, six months in, whether hiring me was the right call?
Why ask it
Listen for whether the answer is about results, about volume, or about keeping stakeholders happy. All three are real jobs that reward different habits, and it is better to know which one you are accepting.
Will I get to see how a piece performed after it goes out?
Why ask it
Some teams share the numbers with their writers and some never think to. Without them you cannot learn which of your instincts were right, and you leave with a portfolio of pages and no outcomes to describe.
Is there a style guide or voice document, and who keeps it current?
Why ask it
A maintained guide means the arguments about tone were had once and written down. Where none exists, ask whether writing one would fall to you, because it often does without being in the job description.
Who would edit my drafts, and what do their notes usually look like?
Why ask it
An editor who names the problem makes you better within a year; one who silently rewrites teaches you only their preferences. If nobody edits the writers at all, you will be the only check on your own work.
How does the team use AI drafting tools, and what is the writer expected to do with them?
Why ask it
Employers range from banning them to requiring them, so ask how it works there instead of assuming. The answer also shows what the team thinks a writer is for: producing first drafts, or exercising judgment over them.
Is there a writing test, and is it paid?
Why ask it
Asking early is normal and saves both sides time. Practice differs by employer and country, so find out how long the task should take and whether the company could publish what you write before you agree to it.
Which recent piece of copy is the team proudest of, and why that one?
Why ask it
The piece they pick shows the house taste more reliably than any description of the brand voice. Notice whether the reason given is a result, a clever line, or that the founder liked it.
Interviewing copywriters
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Structuring the interview
Start from their work, not your questions
Pick two pieces from their portfolio before the call and ask what the brief was, who signed off, and what they would change now. Most of the interview can grow out of those answers.
Give the same brief to everyone
Comparing candidates is only possible if they were answering the same question. Write one short scenario from your actual work and use it with the whole shortlist.
Include whoever will edit them
The person who gives daily feedback will notice things a hiring manager misses, and the candidate gets to see what working here would feel like.
What to look for in a portfolio
- One specific, checkable claim per piece. Copy made entirely of adjectives is a warning sign whatever the design looks like.
- Evidence they understood the buyer: objections answered, jargon used correctly, an offer that matches the reader's stage.
- How the piece opens. Weak writers spend the first paragraph warming up.
- Range across constraints, not just across industries. A tight banner and a long sales page test different skills.
- Whether they can tell you which parts were theirs when the piece was a team effort.
Running a written exercise
- 1Pay for anything longer than an hour, and say up front whether you will use the work.
- 2Use a real brief with real constraints, including the awkward legal or compliance line.
- 3Ask for the outline and the questions they would have asked you, alongside the draft.
- 4Score it against criteria you wrote down before reading, so voice preference does not swamp judgment.
- 5Discuss the draft live. How they explain a choice, and how they take a challenge to it, matters more than the draft.
Common interview mistakes
- Quizzing on framework acronyms. It rewards reading rather than writing.
- Judging a sample without knowing the brief or the approval chain behind it.
- Hiring for the portfolio when the job is mostly editing other people's drafts. Say so if that is the actual work.
- Skipping the question of how they take feedback, which is the most common reason these hires fail.
- Treating claimed conversion lifts as verified. Ask what was measured, over how long, against what baseline.
When you are the one being interviewed
- Bring three or four questions and put the ones about briefs and sign-off first. A job posting never answers those.
- Ask the person who would edit you about feedback, and the hiring manager about how the work is judged. Putting one question to both is worth it when the answers differ.
- Read the company's live copy beforehand and ask about one specific page. A question about a real headline shows more than a compliment about the brand.
- If the role is a contract, expect the freelance questions to come at you in reverse, so have your own answers on revisions, rights and pricing ready.