A copywriter is hired to change what a reader does next, so test them on a real brief instead of admiring a portfolio. Give the product, the audience, one piece of genuine customer research and a single page to write, then ask for three different angles and which one they would test first. The reasoning behind those angles is the hiring decision.
Direct-response and performance agencies produce the sharpest ones, because their words were tested against a control and often lost, which is an education nothing else provides. Freelancers with a deep commercial body of work are the largest pool and many prefer to stay freelance. In-house writers at companies whose emails or landing pages you personally responded to are worth approaching directly, since you already have proof the work functions. Product designers who write interface text are an overlooked source for anything short and functional. Referrals from performance marketers and designers beat portfolio sites, because those people watched the copy operate. Set the surfaces and the voice out in the [copywriter job description](/job-descriptions/copywriter).
The surfaces and the access. Name what they write: paid ads, landing pages, lifecycle emails, interface text, sales material, brand lines. Those demand different instincts, and someone excellent at an email sequence may be flat on a headline. Say who briefs them, who approves, and how many approvers there are, because copy that passes through five reviewers arrives dead and writers know it. Most importantly, state whether they get customer research, recordings of sales calls and access to support conversations. A copywriter without the customer's own language is guessing at what persuades. Say whether the work gets tested, and describe the volume, since two campaigns a quarter and daily ad iterations suit different people.
Pay for a short brief and keep it real. Provide the product, the audience, one authentic artefact of customer research such as a support transcript or a call recording, and ask for one landing page or one email sequence. Require three distinct angles rather than three drafts of the same idea, plus a short note on which they would test first and what result would prove them wrong. Read for whether they used the customer's actual phrasing or reached for category language. Then run a live edit: give real feedback on their strongest piece and watch whether they improve it or defend it. A [job description generator](/tools/job-description-generator) is a useful control here, since it shows what generic output looks like.
Three stages plus the paid exercise. Start with a portfolio walk, but ask about the brief behind each piece rather than the craft: who was the reader, what were they meant to do, what constraint shaped it, what happened afterwards. Then review the paid exercise with the person who will brief them day to day. Finish with a feedback session, because the working relationship lives or dies on revision rounds and you need to see one. Skip the on-the-spot tagline test, which rewards performance under artificial pressure and tells you nothing about how someone writes with research in hand. Keep the [copywriter interview questions](/interview-questions/copywriter) focused on decisions rather than taste.
Rates vary enormously because the title stretches from writing social captions to owning the words on a page that carries the whole business. Decide which one you need and pay for judgment rather than output speed. Strong candidates are choosing on whether they will be briefed properly, whether the work survives committee rewrites and whether anyone tells them what happened after publication. Show a test result, even an unflattering one, and name who has final say on the words. Be ready for a retainer rather than a full-time hire, since many senior copywriters freelance deliberately and will not take a staff role. Give whoever wins the same clarity you would give any hire and keep the process short inside your [hiring software](/hiring-software).
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