Hiring Qualified Writers Is a Challenge—We Learned How To Do It the Hard Way

As Content Distribution, we executed one of the greatest SEO campaigns ever—we grew our client from 0 to 1,000,000+ organics in just 18 months!

Achieving these results was far from a walk in the park. Growing organic visitors to such astronomical numbers required large quantities of excellent content. Only highly skilled writers can consistently produce quality content, and finding and hiring those writers was our greatest hurdle. 

We posted job ads on numerous hiring platforms, and candidates submitted their applications through various forms. As a result, they were inconsistent, and many lacked the information we needed to evaluate them properly, so we had to reach out to each candidates and request the missing information.

These applications were scattered across several platforms, and we couldn’t group them in a single place. Candidates contacted us through email and DMs, and responding to them manually was a nightmare.

Tracking where applicants were in our hiring funnel was impossible, and we constantly wasted valuable time. 

As we tried to get our grip, we lost many great writers. By the time we finally reached out to them, they had lost interest in us or were hired by another company with a more efficient hiring process. 

So, we started working on a system that would help us streamline our hiring process and get amazing writers before somebody else snatches them. And we succeeded—we scaled our content team from 1 to 45+ members in under two years. That team is responsible for our SEO achievements. 

In the next 10 minutes, you will find out:

1. Who are technical writers, and how they differ from others
2. Where to look for skilled technical writers
3. Why hiring competent writers is so challenging
4. How automation can help you make your hiring process more efficient

Who Are Writers for Technical Topics

Technical writers are not the same as any other writer. This is something you need to understand before you begin looking for them. 

These writers communicate complex topics using clear and concise language. Typically, they work on:

• Owners manuals
• Instruction manuals
• Process documentation
• Reference guides
• Journal articles
• White papers

Technical writers can also work on more common content forms, such as social media posts, blog articles, and web pages.

To be able to create high-quality content on technical topics, writers need to conduct extensive research. They need to study various processes or products and often have to consult with experts in the field.
It may also be necessary for these writers to have a particular educational background to be able to write about specific topics.

Good technical writers have the ability to break complex topics and present them in a way that an average person can understand. What allows them to do so is not only a deep understanding of the topic but also a superb knack for writing. 

When you write your job ad, you must highlight exactly what you need. Specify the topics a candidate would write about and list what knowledge they must possess. 

Where To Look For Skilled Technical Writers—Top Job Boards

The table below presents the most popular job boards for hiring technical writers, along with their pricing and positive and negative sides of using them:

Read on to discover more places where you can find writers for technical topics at every price point.

Why Is It So Hard To Find Writers for Technical Topics?

Hiring writers is easy—go to any job board, and you will find dozens of them. Hiring good writers with affordable rates is the problem. This is especially true when you are looking for specialized writers such as those for technical topics. 

One of the things successful companies have in common is that they share knowledge with their audience. This provides value and helps them position themselves as an authority in the field. As a result, they drive a ton of organic traffic to their websites and convert visitors into clients or customers more easily.

Get a technical writer who can present complicated topics in an easily digestible way, and you will attract  traffic to your website. 

The trouble is that the best writers go off the market in a blink of an eye. You will compete with numerous other companies because they all want a writer who can enhance their online presence. Hiring platforms can’t source these qualified candidates fast enough, and many companies end up hiring subpar ones because they have no other options.

You need an automated hiring funnel to get to those best candidates before others. Without one, your hiring cycle will always look the same. You will:

• Receive piles of applications, often incomplete
• Log each application manually
• Use several tools to keep track of candidates in your hiring funnel, often unsuccessfully
• Communicate with applicants inefficiently
• Struggle to filter out bad candidates (which will be most of them)

We’ve been there—too many times. We ended up hiring so many unqualified writers that we wasted considerable amounts of money and time. We had to come up with a different approach. 

Why You Should Test Technical Content Professionals Before Hiring Them

Hiring skilled members for your content team has never been an easy task, but the challenge is even bigger if you’re looking for an experienced technical writer or editor. It’s easy for candidates to amp up their resumes and portfolios with niche-specific samples that have been heavily edited by third-party collaborators, and you’ll be none the wiser about the quality of their work until you hire them. The only way to gauge their actual skills is to add pre-employment assessments to your hiring process.

Testing candidates is impossible without skill assessment software to keep everything organized and under control. Without it, you’ll have to communicate with candidates, send tests, collect and grade them, and keep track of what stage of the hiring process each candidate is in.

Workello is high-volume recruiting software that takes care of the entire process for you. After you sign up for free, you’ll find the perfect candidate by taking the following steps:

1. Launch your pre-configured hiring funnel in under 3 minutes
2. Add a Workello link to your job postings on all job boards you use
3. Wait for applications to come your way
4. Send tests to applicants to test their technical writing skills
5. Reject, interview, and hire candidates from your single-page dashboard

Test Candidates for Technical Roles Effortlessly With Workello

You can use Workello to test technical writers in any industry. The platform is not for technical writing only—you can use it to test content writers and SEO writers as well. With Workello, you can manage candidates through the entire selection process without ever leaving your dashboard. Use Workello’s free trial to sign up and see for yourself how fast you will identify the top 1% of technical writer candidates.

Hiring Funnel of a Top 1% Hiring Agency

We knew we had a problem, but we couldn’t put the finger on what exactly was causing us so much trouble. We took a breather and evaluated our work process. This was what we came up with:

1. To drive organic traffic to a website, we need a lot of top-quality content
2. To produce top-quality content, we need qualified technical writers
3. To find a single competent candidate, we have to evaluate dozens and filter out bad ones
4. To filter out unqualified candidates efficiently, we need a system that we don’t have

We will always have to deal with the first three points—content is the king, top writers are scarce, and finding them requires reviewing hundreds of applications. We needed something that would allow us to evaluate hundreds of candidates and identify the top-performers faster. 

We compiled a list of features that an efficient hiring system should have so we could do that:

• A unified platform that collects applications from numerous sources and displays them in a single dashboard
• A system that allows us to move candidates through our hiring funnel quickly and easily
• A single page that gives us an option to evaluate, test, reject, interview, and hire candidates
• A built-in testing feature that lets us evaluate chosen candidates
• An automated communication system that saves time and eliminates human error

We first came up with a combination of Google Sheets, Google Forms, and Zapier, and it was a significant improvement. But it was still far from perfect. After countless iterations, thousands of dollars, and endless hours, we developed a fully-optimized and automated hiring system—Workello!

A Detailed Job Description Is Half the Battle

You will receive many applications from unqualified candidates regardless of where you post your job ad. There is nothing you can do to prevent that entirely, but you can reduce the number of these candidates significantly with a super-specific and detailed job description.

A good ad provides an in-depth description of job responsibilities and lists all the necessary requirements. You need to mention the workload. Specify the word count that writers need to deliver every day. You should also include what additional duties they will perform. It is also critical to specify your industry and the topics writers will work on. 

Be precise with job requirements, too. Mention the type of education you expect candidates to have and years of experience. 

The more specific you are, the fewer bad applications you will receive. A detailed job description discourages unqualified candidates from submitting their applications—they will understand that it would be pointless. 

While it’s necessary to limit the number of bad candidates, it is also critical to sell yourself to the good ones. Competition is fierce, so you must convince a candidate to pick you over others. 

Highlight the perks you offer, such as PTO, bonuses, career advancement and learning opportunities, pension and health plans, and competitive salary. 

If you are having difficulties composing a job description for a Technical Writer or are looking for a specific writer, you can use some of our pre-made job description templates. Pick the template you like, modify it to suit your needs, and your ad is ready for posting within a few minutes.

1. Writer
2. Content Writer
3. Blog Writer
4. Freelance Writer
5. Senior Writer
6. Website Content Writer
7. Technical Writer Intern
8. Financial Writer
9. Case Writer
10. Quality Assurance Technical Writer
11. Junior Technical Writer
12. Technical Writer Healthcare
13. Business Analyst Technical Writer
14. Sr Technical Writer
15. Technical Writer for Cyber Security

Distribute Your Job Ad Across the Internet

We didn’t have a recruiter to handle job ads, applications, and testing when we started hiring writers. Our editors and content managers had to do it along with their regular responsibilities. While job ad writing and distribution wasn’t hard work, it took too much of their time.

As we grew and needed more writers, this practice wasn’t sustainable. It was necessary to hire a new person who would be responsible for hiring. To do so, we first had to document our entire hiring process. It was a necessary step because it would allow us to train the new employee.

It was not an easy task, but we did it—and now you don’t have to!

Sign up with Workello and access all our playbooks and knowledge base. You will learn how to delegate job ad distribution instantly.

See All Your AWorkellopplications in One Dashboard

If there is one thing that makes Workello great, it is the ability to see all your candidates in a single place—your dashboard. 

You can post job ads on as many hiring platforms as you like—all the applications will end up in the same place. They will also all be consistent thanks to the Workello-hosted application form. Candidates can only submit their applications after they have filled in all the fields. 

See an example of the application form here.

Watch Candidates Stream In

When candidates start applying, you can easily move them through your hiring funnel. Next to each name, there will be a drop-down menu with the following options:

1. Application Received
2. Application Rejected
3. Test Candidate
4. Test Complete
5. Reject Candidate
6. Invite for Interview
7. Send Offer

When you select an appropriate application status option, the candidate will receive an automated email. This means that applicants will always know what the next steps are, and you won’t have to waste time on manual correspondence. 

To make the entire process even easier for you, we color-coded each application status. You can evaluate how many candidates you have in each stage just by taking a glance at your dashboard. 

Reject Unqualified Writers for Technical Topics

Some candidates won’t meet your basic requirements. There won’t be a need to test those applicants, so your editors can immediately remove them from your hiring funnel by selecting the “Reject Candidate” option. 

The applicant will receive an automated rejection email. 

Point, Click, Test

Basing your decisions on portfolios alone is strongly ill-advised. Candidates will submit only the best samples of their work. In many cases, those will be heavily edited versions of their articles, which means you won’t know what their first-draft capabilities are. 

If you want to gain insight into a candidate’s actual style, language proficiency, and writing skills, you must test them.

With Workello, you will quickly spot bad writers with fantastic portfolios. When you select the “Test Candidate” option from the drop-down menu, the candidate will receive an automated email that:

1. Congratulates them on making it to the next step
2. Gives them a link to the writing test
3. Provides them with the necessary instructions

Once candidates click on the link, they will open a tab that looks like this:

How To Make a Good Test

A good test is imperative, particularly when you need to hire writers with a specific set of skills. When looking for technical writers, a test must reveal their:

1. Language proficiency
2. Research skills
3. Knowledge of the specific industry
4. Formatting skills
5. Understanding of SEO

Although writing candidates are used to doing tests before they are hired, you can’t ask too much of them. You must find a perfect balance between how detailed and demanding a test is and how willing candidates are to complete it.

You can’t expect anyone to be happy to produce a 2,000-word article on a complex topic and spend an entire day working on it, only to receive a rejection email. 

Thankfully, Workello allows you to tip the scales a bit in favor of test thoroughness. The first contact candidates have with your company is your ad. If you have done a great job, you have already managed to attract them. Thanks to email automation, they receive notifications the moment their status in your hiring funnel changes. Candidates value such transparency and efficiency. They will see you are a well-organized company and be motivated to complete the test and stay with you until the end of the process. 

If you are unsure how to compose a test, you can use ours as a starting point. It’s the same test we used to scale our team. Tweak it a bit, and you are good to go!

Interviewing Candidates

When candidates submit their writing tests, their status changes to “Test Complete,” and your editors can review them. Depending on how well they did, your editors can choose one of the following two options:

1. Reject Candidate—If the test article doesn’t meet your standards
2. Invite for Interview—If the test article is satisfactory

Both of these actions trigger an automated email. The former notifies the candidate that they won’t be moving forward in your hiring process and thank them for their time. The latter option congratulates the candidate on the test well done and provides them with a Calendly link to schedule a video interview at their convenience.

The Candidate Status Page

We did our best to optimize our hiring process and be as efficient as possible, but we still received dozens of emails every day, and they all revolved around the same questions:

• Have you received my application?
• Have you reviewed my test?
• What happens next?
• When will you get back to me?

Responding to these emails is incredibly time-consuming, and if we were too late to respond, we often lost great candidates. 

So we implemented a Candidate Status Page, where candidates can track their status in our hiring funnel. There is also the What happens next section that details our hiring process. 

The Candidate Status Page ensures you don’t lose qualified candidates because you failed to reach out to them on time. 

Click here to see what a Candidate Status page looks like.

Our Investment Paid Off Big Time

At first, our hiring experience was a nightmare. Without an automated hiring system, we were trapped in a never-ending loop:

1. Publish a job ad
2. Receive piles of applications
3. Hire writers 
4. Train them
5. Realize they were subpar
6. Stop cooperation
7. Repeat

Not only was this a colossal waste of time, but it also cost us tremendous amounts of money. We realized that the only reason we were so successful with our SEO projects was that we invested a lot of effort and resources in creating top-notch talent. 

We invested a fraction of it into optimizing our hiring system, and we paid the price. That had to change, so we invested thousands of dollars and created Workello—an fully optimized and automated hiring system that has solved all of our problems at once:

• Keeping track of where candidates are in our hiring funnel is not a piece of cake
• Incomplete submissions are a thing of the past
• Communication with applicants is streamlined and efficient
• Eliminating unqualified candidates is now a much more straightforward affair

Most importantly, our editors and content managers have returned to doing what they do best—creating fantastic content. 

This considerable investment paid off big time:

1. We scaled our content team from 1 to over 45 in under two years
2. We lowered our content production costs by up to 75% 
3. We executed one of the greatest SEO campaigns ever

We spent over $100,000 and countless hours building a system you can get at a price of a single page of content!

Try Workello now for free! It’s pre-configured, so it will take you less than three minutes to start receiving applications and improving your hiring process. 

How To Find Writers for Technical Topics—Check Out a Few More Job Boards

Workello makes it easy for you to log and track your applicants—so why not post your ad on as many job boards as you like? You don’t have to worry about how to find writers for technical topics any longer—you can expand your search and widen the talent pool. 

Check out a few more places where you can look for skills technical writers:

• Guru
• Contently
• Brybe
• Workana
• PeoplePerHour
• JustTechJobs
• TextBroker
• Writer Access
• Compose.ly
• Kolabtree