How To Hire A Brand Ambassador

A brand ambassador is a recognizable representative of your company, and they use and love your products and services and share them with potential customers.

Typically brand ambassadors are either influencers (like celebrities or popular figures on social media) or passionate customers of a brand.

Influencers with thousands of followers (or famous actors or other celebrities) that advocate for a specific product have the ability to introduce it to many potential customers, and their honest reviews make a brand more trusted by the public.

Customers who already love and adore the product that is being sold can also be useful brand ambassadors, spreading the word organically through their personal networks and encouraging people to try it.

For a business, hiring the right brand ambassador is a simple and fast way to get more people interested in a product or service, and the brand ambassador can provide demonstrations, reviews both written and in video format, and answer any questions that the potential customers might have.

Finding someone who has the right skills and abilities to complete the normal tasks of a brand ambassador is not easy, and it can be difficult to tell whether a candidate has what is needed from reading a resume or even through a face-to-face interview.

Finding the right combination of tests gives the recruitment team quantifiable data about the most important competencies, soft skills, and aptitudes a candidate has that match what is needed in the role of a brand ambassador.

In this article, we will look at the different skills and abilities that are necessary for the role, and the different tests that could be used to find the best candidate.

What should a brand ambassador be able to do?

A brand ambassador should be considered to be a demonstrator of a product or service, and they should be able to provide information as well as incentives like discount codes or samples. They need to demonstrate and explain the products and services, as well as things like how to use them, how they were made, and any other useful knowledge.

The brand ambassador also needs to be able to record and report information about their activities, whether that is how many items they have sold, how many people have used their discount code, and any feedback that they receive from the public and customers.

Brand ambassadors also have to be able to complete research on other products, especially those from competitors. This makes their advice and knowledge around the products that they are marketing more sound.

The best candidates for brand ambassadors are able to speak and write persuasively about the products and services that they are selling, helping customers find the perfect way to use whatever they are promoting to suit themselves. They need to be able to tailor their demonstrations and promotions to suit different types of customers.

Skills to look for in a brand ambassador

There are several different types of skills that a brand ambassador might need to be successful, especially relating to the technology behind managing a social media presence. Other skills that you should look for in a brand ambassador include:

Speaking: to be able to coherently share all the information about a product or service, the brand ambassador needs to speak well, both clearly and confidently.

Active listening: the best brand ambassadors don't lecture their followers about how good a product or service is, they actively listen to their audience to help them understand more about what to expect from it.

Complex problem solving and critical thinking: being creative and understanding how best to encourage people to buy a product or use a service means being able to think 'outside the box' to solve complex problems and think critically.

Writing: not all brand ambassadors are social media influencers, and even those that use video and photo testimony as part of their pitch do need to be able to produce good written copy to help make sales. Blogs, articles, and how-to instructional pamphlets are good examples of this.

Persuasion: this is an important skill when it comes to any type of sales or marketing position, and a brand ambassador is in both camps. The candidate must be skilled in negotiating and understanding what will encourage a member of the public to become a customer.

Useful abilities for a brand ambassador

The abilities that a brand ambassador needs to be successful are not easy to determine, but they mostly revolve around interpersonal skills such as listening and communication. A brand ambassador needs to be competent in these abilities to get the most out of the role and perform well. They include:

Oral comprehension and expression: a brand ambassador needs to be able to speak to their audience - and be understood. They also need to understand what is being said to them so that they can tailor their demonstrations to suit their followers.

Written comprehension and expression: the same can be said about written communication - the brand ambassador needs to understand what other people have written, and be able to create written work of a high enough standard to be understood.

Inductive and deductive reasoning: although it might not be an obvious ability, the use of logic to help make decisions will make a brand ambassador more successful in the long run, and more able to recognize problems when they arise - and solve them in the most effective way.

Information ordering: there is a lot of detailed work in being a brand ambassador, and not least in the research phase. Not only does the brand ambassador need to be an expert in the product they are demonstrating, but they also need to know the products of competitor companies, too.

Selective attention: as a brand ambassador, there are a lot of competing targets and tasks that need attention, so the candidate needs to be adept at managing their time and staying accurate, even when there is a lot going on.

Which soft skills tests could I use to hire a brand ambassador?

Soft skills are the transferable skills that are integral to success in different roles, but are often the hardest to quantify. You cannot demonstrate your soft skills through a qualification or certification, which is why soft skills tests are such a benefit to recruiters. The below soft skills tests would be suitable for use in the hiring process for a brand ambassador:

Communication: this might seem obvious, but communication is an important soft skill for almost all types of roles. For a brand ambassador, great communication is essential to not only give information, but also to sell the product or service itself.

Project management: a brand ambassador needs to manage different parts of the role throughout a normal working day, and this means they need solid skills in managing a project from start to finish.

Leadership: good leaders encourage others to follow them, and leadership skills are not only for those in a supervisory role. Many brand ambassadors work almost independently, so they need to be able to manage themselves effectively.

Adaptability: brand ambassadors need to be able to respond to change quickly and positively, especially in the world of social media where trends can evolve (and disappear) in an instant.

Accountability: linked to being self-sufficient and self-managing, the brand ambassador needs to take responsibility for the content they create and be accountable for any problems that might arise.

Which technical or aptitude tests could I use to hire a brand ambassador?

When it comes to aptitude tests for a brand ambassador, recruiters should focus on the more creative aptitudes rather than anything like mechanical or spatial reasoning.

There are technical skills needed, especially when it comes to navigating social media and eCommerce sites, too. Some of the tests that you might consider when hiring a brand ambassador include:

Facebook Ads: running ad campaigns might not be the daily business of a brand ambassador, but extending the reach of the social networks and gaining new followers will help more people to see your products or services.

Verbal reasoning: for a brand ambassador, using written information to come to a logical and reasoned conclusion not only demonstrates excellent problem solving, but is also a good indicator of future success in a role.

Error checking: to be a brand ambassador, a candidate needs to be trusted and reliable - and that means having a good eye for detail and not making any errors. The error checking assessment is an excellent way to see whether a candidate can recognize when they might have made an error, and their ability to deal with it effectively.

WooCommerce: managing an eCommerce shop might be part of the daily activities of a brand ambassador, especially if they are selling products and services directly to the public. Although online stores are relatively easy to understand, there are good shortcuts and important metrics that a user should be able to use confidently.

Logical reasoning: the logical reasoning assessment is all about taking unfamiliar information and using it to come to a logical and reasoned conclusion. This is a test that will help recruiters spot the candidates who are best at critical thinking and able to use their judgment.

Our recommended test battery for a brand ambassador

While the above tests all have specific uses for hiring a brand ambassador, the list is rather too long to be practical.

For the recruiter, fewer tests mean fewer results to collate. For the candidate, tests are nerve-wracking enough without having to face nearly a dozen early on in the recruitment process.

For this reason, the below battery of tests for a brand ambassador should provide the right level of detail on the abilities, skills and competencies that are desirable and are linked to success in the future.

Communication: in the communication skills test, the candidate is presented with questions based on realistic workplace scenarios, and they need to choose the most effective course of action from the provided options.

Verbal reasoning: the verbal reasoning assessment features questions that present passages of written information, which the candidate must quickly read, understand and analyze before answering. There are multiple-choice options for the answers, and all the information that they need to answer the question is provided in the text.

Adaptability: the adaptability test is based on situations that a candidate might find themselves in while in the workplace. They will need to decide how they would deal with the given problem based on several different courses of action, and their answers will demonstrate how adaptable they are to different situations.

For a more detailed assessment of the precise skills that are needed to be a successful brand ambassador, recruiters should consider using the social media job knowledge test. This provides specific job-related data that ensures that the candidates taken further into the recruitment process have the right skills, abilities and competencies to be successful in a role that needs excellent knowledge of social media.