My broad interview advice is to never ask questions expecting a right answer. People have a wealth of experience, and an entire life lived before they end up in a room or on a call with you. Choosing people who think exactly like you do feels like an easy win but you’ll be missing out on some great minds.

Stay focused on their reasoning and decision making.

Things to look for from a strong candidate are those broad skills that relate to brand protection and growth. Is someone being strategic in their thinking, are they problem solving and looking for the best path not just the easiest one?

So, without further ado, let’s dig into some questions to help you find the right kind of thinking:

The best questions to ask 

A customer posts publicly with a serious allegation about the company on your own channels and posts. What do you do first?
This question tests situational awareness, reputational judgment and communications experience. It will help identify whether the candidate considers the bigger picture and identifies different risks and threats.

Listen for how they assess reputational risk, confirming validity, and message visibility and the consequences of removing or leaving the allegation publicly. There is no automatic correct action, what matters is their justification and risk assessment of the options.

You notice the same complaint appearing repeatedly from customers, but no internal team owns the issue. What happens next?
This question tests pattern recognition, internal escalation, ownership and the ability to turn community information into business intelligence.

Listen for whether they recognise this as more than individual customer service, how they discuss collecting examples and demonstrating scale. Whether they identify a suitable internal audience, how they present the issue to be acted on, and whether they keep following up if nobody takes ownership.

You post some content and it gets a positive reply from a huge celebrity account and reshared. What do you do?

This tests judgement during unexpected positive attention, opportunity recognition, restraint and ability to manage expanded visibility.

Listen for whether they pause before immediately trying to capitalise. How they assess authenticity, relevance and potential risk. Do they consider the celebrity’s audience and reputation, and what internal teams they’d notify. Critically, can they identify and distinguish a useful opportunity from a moment the brand could easily overplay.

A senior leader wants to publish a post that you think will be very poorly received. How do you handle it?

This tests pushback, stakeholder management, confidence without ego and the ability to protect the brand from internal pressure.

Listen for whether they can explain the risk clearly rather than simply object. Do they talk about evidence, examples and alternatives, and adapting communication to a senior stakeholder. How they discuss and understand decision-making authority, and what they do if their recommendations are rejected outright.

What kind of information do you need to be able to start writing replies from the business today?

This tests their operational readiness, understanding of brand voice and risk awareness. And their ability to identify gaps before acting.

Listen for tone and voice guidance, details on escalation contacts and processes, customer service boundaries, along with privacy and legal considerations. What information will they gather on products, services, policies, and other known issues. And whether they consider when to act independently versus seeking approval.

What kind of information or planning process do you need to be able to start writing posts from the business?

This tests their strategic planning, the ability to connect content with real business objectives, stakeholder awareness, and understanding of governance and approvals.

Listen for discussions about audience and purpose, a focus on business goals and outcomes, not just posting frequency. The brand voice and visual identity, along with campaigns, dates, sensitivities and exclusions. Approval process and lead times and how performance is going to be measured.

You start work one morning and notice the about/bio text on the page has been changed and mentions a URL you don’t recognise. What happens next?

This tests security awareness, incident response and attention to detail. And their ability to remain calm during a possible account compromise.

Listen for whether they treat it as a potential security incident, and what they verify before taking action. Preservation of evidence, and who they notify about the issue. Whether they check account access to the brand, as well as their own profiles, recent changes and other channels. Do they consider broader risks of what this access could mean, and how they balance speed of response with mitigation of further damage.

How do you decide whether you need to reply, hide, escalate, or something else when reading a post?

This tests everyday moderation judgement, proportional response, and the ability to apply policy without being robotic.

Listen for context, intent and the potential for risk and harm. Whether someone needs help, correction, acknowledgement or no response. Legal, privacy and safety risks, as well as internal policy. How visible a conversation is, the way audiences will react. And whether a comment or conversation indicates something broader, or merely a localised issue.

A scheduled post has gone live overnight as planned mentioning a foreign country. But there has been a natural disaster there 3 hours before the post went live. What do you do?

This tests sensitivity to external events, reputational judgement and crisis awareness. Their ability to assess competing risks quickly.

Listen for how they establish context and potential harm. Reviewing current engagement and sentiment for real outcomes, not imagined. Do they consider other scheduled content, or other channels the same messaging was used. Who and how they inform people internally. How they weigh leaving, clarifying, removing or responding. And can they explain the consequences of each option rather than reaching for one answer as an automatic response.
There may be several outcomes that feel obvious here. You will always have input into major decisions inside your own business. Focus on whether the candidate can identify the risks, explain the trade-offs, and show how they reached their recommendation.

A customer has replied on a very popular post with a serious allegation about a senior staff member. What happens next?

This tests handling of sensitive information and issues, confidentiality, as well as reputational and legal judgement. And the separation of a public response from an internal investigation/escalation.

Listen for whether they avoid publicly investigating or debating the allegation, and how they preserve information as presented. Who they escalate things to, and consideration of safety and privacy for everyone involved.
Consider how they assess the posts visibility, and whether they recognise that seniority shouldn’t impact the seriousness of the process.

A regular weekly post has broken out of your normal audience and received thousands of fun and entertaining replies overnight. What do you to with this huge volume of replies?

This tests community engagement at scale, prioritisation and workload planning. Plus their ability to recognise opportunity, without losing control.

Listen for whether they identify which conversations are worth joining and how they maintain tone across a large volume. Do they consider how to identify customers in need, questions, risks and high value interactions buried in a large influx. Do they discuss avoiding forcing the brand into every conversation, and flagging the opportunity internally. Will they capture learning without treating raw engagement as a success by itself.

And most of all, do they recognise and talk about brand audience and whether this is a genuine opportunity for amplification, or just noise.

Listen for thought process over specifics.

Ultimately, there are no right or wrong answers for dealing with an issue, crisis or opportunity, and every brand brings its own history, expectations and precedent. What matters is a willingness to dig into the situation, consider competing risks and explain the path forward.

Hire someone with explainable judgement who can work through the details – not someone relying on a rehearsed answer delivered with absolute certainty.