Marketing contractor hiring

When this is useful

You are about to run this process and need one reusable working document.

What the workbook covers

Role brief

Interview questions

Paid trial scope

Evaluation scorecard

Completed fictional example

Acceptance and scope decisions

Use with real evidence

Download the full Markdown resource, replace placeholders with your situation and retain sources beside claims. Keep unanswered questions visible rather than filling them with plausible guesses.

Put it to work

1. Read the full worksheet and define the decision it supports.
2. Fill the relevant tables using dated observations and explicit assumptions.
3. Review the output with its owner and record the next decision.

Limits and tradeoffs

The worksheet structures work; it does not supply missing customer evidence or guarantee a business result. Adapt examples and assign a responsible owner.

Worksheet preview

# Marketing contractor hiring kit

Copy this into your preferred editor. Define evaluation criteria before meeting candidates. Use a small paid project to evaluate useful work; a short trial does not establish long-term revenue impact.

## Role brief

- Product, audience and buying process:
- Company stage and existing evidence:
- Problem to solve:
- Scope and deliverables:
- Out-of-scope work:
- Research/discovery required:
- Materials and evidence we can supply:
- Required skills and relevant constraints:
- Contractor budget:
- Separate execution/media/tool budget:
- Dependencies and access:
- Founder decision-maker and review cadence:
- Implementation owner:
- Success criteria appropriate to the deliverable:
- Open questions:

## Interview questions

1. What do you need to learn before recommending an approach?
2. What would you challenge in this brief?
3. What similar work have you personally owned, and with what resources?
4. What will the first deliverable contain?
5. What do you need from us?
6. How will we evaluate the work?
7. What would cause you to change direction?
8. How do you use AI and verify its output?

## Paid trial scope

- Task and supplied inputs:
- Deliverables and acceptance criteria:
- Payment and agreed terms:
- Timing and review checkpoints:
- Access and data boundaries:
- Ownership/usage rights addressed in engagement agreement:
- Who implements or uses the output:
- Feedback and revision process:
- Decision after trial:

## Evaluation scorecard

Score 1 = does not meet the agreed requirement; 2 = partially meets; 3 = meets; 4 = exceeds with useful supporting evidence. “Unknown” is not zero: record the missing evidence. Choose weights for this specific role before scoring; resolve critical inaccuracies separately from the total.

| Criterion | Weight | Evidence observed | Score or unknown | Follow-up required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product/audience understanding | | | | |
| Evidence and accuracy | | | | |
| Judgment and tradeoffs | | | | |
| Usable execution | | | | |
| Communication | | | | |
| Collaboration | | | | |

Decision: proceed / revise scope / request missing evidence / decline. Reasons:

## Completed fictional example

Brief: API monitoring homepage messaging. Founder supplies six fictional interview summaries and a product demo. Contractor synthesizes evidence, proposes a messaging hierarchy, and writes a hero plus workflow section. Founder owns positioning; engineer owns implementation. Design and campaigns are outside scope.

Trial: Paid scoped project, with timing/payment agreed before starting. Deliverable must reference interview evidence, explain the workflow correctly, and label missing proof.

| Criterion | Evidence observed | Illustrative score | Follow-up |
|---|---|---:|---|
| Understanding | Clearly explains failed-delivery investigation | 3 | Confirm buyer approval route |
| Accuracy | Claims trace to supplied excerpts; one unsupported claim removed during review | 3 | Verify remaining technical phrasing |
| Judgment | Shows two headline options and explains their audience tradeoffs | 3 | Decide primary audience |
| Execution | Hero and workflow copy ready for product review | 3 | Engineering implementation estimate |
| Communication | Raises dependency before the review deadline | 4 | None |
| Collaboration | Incorporates feedback and records changed assumptions | 3 | None |

Decision: Continue with a defined next scope after product review. This example illustrates evaluation, not an actual candidate or result.

## Acceptance and scope decisions

- Required accuracy checks and reviewer:
- Required evidence references:
- Reader questions the deliverable must answer:
- Included review rounds:
- What counts as a correction:
- What requires a new scope/payment agreement:
- Trial-end decision: proceed, request an agreed correction, or decline further work:
- Decision owner and date:

Fictional acceptance example: the messaging draft references the supplied evidence, describes the product workflow accurately, and contains the agreed hero plus workflow section. An inaccurate product description needs correction; adding a pricing page requires a new scope.


---
Original resource by Jon Bishop. CC BY 4.0. Illustrative examples are not customer results.