Audience judgement
Chooses language from the reader’s context, objection, knowledge, and desired action.
Writes clever lines that obscure the proposition or exclude the intended reader.
Marketing & Creative
Copywriter Job Description
A Copywriter turns audience understanding and a clear brief into persuasive, accurate language suited to the channel, brand, and desired action.
Define the audience, formats, brand voice, volume, review process, regulated claims, and creative support.
Candidate-facing template
Edit the description for your organisation
Replace bracketed details, remove anything that is not genuinely required, and obtain the appropriate internal approval before advertising.
Ready-to-edit job description
Copying excludes all recruiter notes below.
Copywriter
- Location
- [Location or working arrangement]
- Employment type
- [Full-time, part-time, freelance, or contract]
- Reports to
- [Creative Director, Content Lead, or Marketing Manager]
About the role
[Company name] is hiring a Copywriter to create clear, distinctive copy for [audience and channels]. You will interpret briefs, research the subject, develop concepts, write and edit across formats, and protect accuracy, voice, and accessibility through review.
What you will be responsible for
- Translate audience, offer, evidence, channel, and action into a focused writing brief.
- Develop campaign concepts, headlines, scripts, long and short copy, and useful variations.
- Research claims and work with subject, legal, brand, product, or client reviewers.
- Edit for meaning, structure, tone, accessibility, consistency, and channel constraints.
- Use performance and qualitative feedback to improve copy without chasing surface metrics.
What success looks like
- Readers understand the message and next action without unsupported claims or avoidable ambiguity.
- Copy remains recognisable across channels while adapting to each format.
- Review cycles are efficient because sources, decisions, versions, and approvals are controlled.
Essential qualifications
- Portfolio demonstrating strong copy across formats relevant to the role.
- Excellent editing, research, briefing, concepting, and feedback-handling skills.
- Ability to adapt voice for different audiences without losing accuracy.
- Careful source, rights, privacy, accessibility, and version-control habits.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with [industry, audience, language, channel, or regulated subject].
- Experience with user research, experimentation, localisation, scripts, or conversion copy.
Tools and working knowledge
- Writing, editing, and collaboration platforms
- Content management, asset, approval, and project systems
- Analytics, research, transcription, and readability tools
Compensation: [Add approved salary, day rate, or project range, currency, usage or rights terms, benefits, and location basis.]
[Company name] will accept accessible portfolio formats and discuss reasonable adjustments for writing exercises and work.
How to apply
Apply through [method] with selected work and brief context on the audience, objective, contribution, constraints, and outcome.
Performance expectations
What good performance looks like
Use these outcomes to replace vague activity lists with the evidence the hiring manager expects to see after the person joins.
Briefs resolve the message hierarchy before writing begins.
Copy passes factual, brand, legal, accessibility, and channel review with clear evidence.
Testing improves specific language decisions rather than reducing all work to click-through rate.
Hiring-manager intake
Questions to settle before advertising
Record specific answers so sourcing, screening, and interview decisions use the same definition of the role.
- 1
Which audiences, products, formats, volumes, languages, and funnel stages are in scope?
- 2
How much concept development, research, writing, editing, and stakeholder management is expected?
- 3
Who approves brand, legal, technical, product, and customer claims?
- 4
How will portfolio work be assessed without requesting confidential material?
Evaluation criteria
Evidence to use in a Copywriter scorecard
Agree the criteria before interviews begin, then score examples against the same evidence standard.
Editorial integrity
Checks sources, claims, permissions, tone, accessibility, and version history.
Treats accuracy and review as someone else’s final-stage responsibility.
Creative range
Produces distinct, on-brief routes and explains the trade-offs in each.
Offers minor wording variations without a different strategic idea.
Structured interview
Copywriter interview questions and strong signals
Ask the same core questions in the same order, then use follow-ups to understand the candidate’s individual contribution.
1
Show a piece whose final version changed substantially after feedback.
Strong answer signal
Separates useful evidence from preference and explains the improved decision.
2
How would you write about a benefit the evidence cannot fully prove?
Strong answer signal
Narrows or qualifies the claim and finds defensible proof rather than exaggerating.
3
Describe strong copy that performed poorly.
Strong answer signal
Examines audience, offer, placement, design, traffic, measurement, and timing before blaming the words.
Related titles
Check the scope behind the title
Creative Copywriter — often emphasises campaign concepts, scripts, and brand language.
Content Writer — commonly creates informative editorial work rather than campaign copy.
UX Writer — specialises in interface language and product journeys.
Common hiring mistakes
Problems to remove before publishing
Combining full-time copywriting, content strategy, design, social management, SEO, and video production.
Requesting unpaid speculative campaign work instead of a proportionate assessment.
Judging a portfolio without asking about the writer’s actual contribution and approval constraints.
Continue the hiring workflow
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Source and review notes
How this template was prepared
- Language
- International English
- Prepared by
- ATZ CRM Editorial Team
- Review
- ATZ CRM Recruitment Editorial Review
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-05
O*NET: Writers and Authors
Reference for occupation tasks, knowledge, skills, abilities, and work activities.
ESCO: occupations and skills
Reference for internationally recognised occupation and skills terminology.
Qualifications, compensation, licences, working conditions, and equal-opportunity wording must be checked for the role and location before use.
Recruiter questions
Copywriter job description FAQs
What should a Copywriter job description include?
Define audiences, formats, brand voice, research depth, output volume, review, claims, tools, portfolio evidence, and outcomes.
Should a Copywriter complete a writing test?
A short, relevant, paid or proportionate exercise may help when a portfolio cannot show the work. Avoid requesting usable speculative campaigns.
What should a copywriting portfolio show?
Ask for the brief, audience, individual contribution, constraints, final work, evidence, and learning, with confidential details anonymised.