Hiring a social media manager comes down to judgment in public and native fluency on the platforms that matter to your audience. Ask for a two-week plan on one platform, then hand over three real comments, including an angry one, and read the replies they write. Screenshots of past posts prove very little; the reply test proves a lot.
On the platforms, mostly. Find accounts doing work you admire in an adjacent industry and trace who makes it, approach creators who have built their own audience from nothing, and talk to community managers who spend all day in replies. Agency social leads bring range across brands but sometimes little depth in any one. Credit is genuinely murky in this field, so always ask what the candidate personally made versus what their brand published. People from a creator background often outperform experienced brand marketers on native instinct while needing more support on planning. Look at the accounts they run, with permission, and describe the actual remit in the [social media manager job description](/job-descriptions/social-media-manager).
Which platforms and which job, because at least five different jobs share this title: community management, short-form video production, paid social buying, employer brand, and ghostwriting for executives. Combining all five in one posting attracts applicants who are weak at most of them. Say who approves posts and how quickly, since approval speed sets the ceiling on what is possible. State whether the person films and edits, whether there is budget to work with creators, and what the brand will not say in public. If you are also using social for hiring, say so, because employer-brand work pairs naturally with a [careers page builder](/careers-page-builder) and belongs in the remit from the start.
Three tasks, none longer than an hour. A two-week plan for one platform with formats, hooks and posting rhythm, graded on whether it is genuinely native to that platform rather than one idea reformatted five ways. Three comment replies drafted for you, including a real complaint and one deliberately ambiguous message, graded on tone, judgment and whether they know when to escalate or take the exchange private. Then a walk through two posts that flopped and what they concluded from each. Ignore follower numbers presented without the account's starting point, since growth claims mean nothing without a baseline. Their reply drafts are the closest thing to watching them do the actual job.
Keep it to three or four short stages. A screen on platforms, remit and what they personally produced. A review of the plan and the reply drafts with whoever will approve their work day to day. A live judgment session: here is an incident unfolding, what do you post, what do you pause, who do you call. If the role includes video, add a production test where they film and cut something short on a phone within a day. Involve legal or communications only when the brand is genuinely exposed, because heavy process at this stage signals the job will be slow and the strong candidates read that immediately. Anchor the panel with the [social media manager interview questions](/interview-questions/social-media-manager) you agreed beforehand.
Decide which version of the job you are buying, because the title spans everything from scheduling posts to producing video, and pay expectations differ accordingly. Candidates weigh creative latitude, approval speed and whether leadership will panic at the first critical comment. Show them your last three approvals and how long each took, which tells them more than any promise of freedom. Give a named budget for creators or production if one exists, and say plainly if it does not. Move quickly, since this market moves faster than most marketing hires and good candidates are rarely available for long. If the role includes employer brand, connect it to the wider [talent acquisition](/talent-acquisition) plan so the work has a purpose beyond posting.
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