The Reality About Hiring a Media Buyer Off Upwork
Zack AllenNovember 1, 20261:46
A real client call: 10 interviews, zero qualified candidates, and why the vetting has to come first.
I was on a call recently with a business owner bringing on a third media buyer. He'd gone the usual route: Upwork and Fiverr.
He did 10 interviews himself, about 15 minutes each. Before those interviews, the only vetting was reading their Upwork and Fiverr profiles.
I asked if he thought a profile told him enough about whether someone could perform. He said no.
The 10-minute test nobody passed
What he did right was put each candidate in front of a real ad account for about 10 minutes and watch what they did.
The account needed a CPA under $50 and was sitting at $95. It started off well, then got worse. He wanted to see them change the time range, look at how CPA moved over time, and diagnose what changed.
None of the 10 changed the date range. Not one looked at how performance changed over time.
His take: "Maybe they watched a few videos online or did a few gigs here and there, but they're not really professional media buyers."
What to change
Two things stood out to me.
The interviews came too early. Ten 15-minute interviews is more than two hours of an owner's time spent on people who'd never been tested. That isn't a good use of a business owner's time.
The test was right, it was just in the wrong place. Watching someone diagnose a real underperforming account is exactly the kind of proof you want. It should happen before the interview, not during it.
That's how we run it: candidates work through simulations built from situations they'd actually hit in your ad accounts, we collect the evidence, and you only meet the finalists. In this case we built the assessment around that exact $95 CPA account.
If you're hiring off Upwork, keep the test. Just move it to the front.
Transcript
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When did you guys get to the point where a third media buyer made more sense to bring in?
Mhm, a couple weeks ago.
And so the interviews you take now are just like ones that you found on Upwork?
Yeah, exactly. They didn't seem very qualified at all. I did like 10 interviews.
Wow, you took 10 interviews yourself?
Yeah, like 15 minutes.
And you did the whole vetting process before as well, I'm assuming before you hopped on the interview?
No, just looked at their Upwork profile and Fiverr profile.
Interesting. Do you Do you think that's like the like would give you enough information on their ability to perform for you?
No.
I'm even surprised that you took 10 interviews in the first place. Like a lot of the business owners we talk with it's not a good use of their time to be taking those initial interviews, especially without vetting. What was it that you didn't see more so on the skill set where you didn't have enough confidence for these guys to manage your accounts?
We had very simple questions that we spent 10 minutes going into an actual ad account that was underperforming and see what they would do, and none of them even looked at like time zone time horizons. Like they didn't even look at anything that we'd want them to look at as far as diagnosing an ad account. So, they're just all super unqualified. You could tell maybe they watched a few videos online or did a few gigs here and there, but they're not really professional media buyers like I'm looking for.
Can you tell me a bit more about that ad account? Cuz that's what we'll structure the assessment around.
We need our CPA to be around under $50, and this was account was at 95. So, we wanted to see them It started off good and then it got worse. We wanted to see them, you know, go through the different time horizons to see how the CPA changed over time, and no one even clicked the the time.
The way that we work is we do all the vetting process beforehand. So, running them through direct simulations that they would find in your ad accounts, getting that evidence and proof before you even meet them, and then you just take the interviews with the the finalist candidates.
Sounds good.
