About the Creative Strategist Role at Substack

The Creative Strategist sits on Substack's Sponsorships (Brand Partnership) team in New York, a small group building the company's sponsorships business from the ground up. This is a founding role that lives between brands and their agencies on one side and Substack publishers and their agents on the other. Your job is to turn a brand's goal into a campaign idea, find the publishers who can carry that idea credibly, and stay with it from the first pitch through the work going live and the post-campaign wrap. Because the team is new, the frameworks are yours to write.

Substack wants someone with real instincts for the creator and media space who can craft culture-defining ideas that feel native to Substack rather than an ad bolted onto content. Expect a strong emphasis on creative concepting, RFP and proposal writing, matching brands to the right creators, and tight project management across several live campaigns at once. The posting asks for 5+ years in creative strategy, branded content, or content strategy at a publisher, agency, or platform, plus a portfolio of campaigns taken from concept to live work.

Quick Stats

* Typical process: 4 to 5 rounds, roughly 3 to 5 weeks

* Format: Recruiter phone screen, then video interviews, likely including a creative exercise or portfolio walkthrough

* Core focus: Creative concepting, brand-to-publisher matching, RFP and proposal writing, campaign execution, cross-stakeholder communication

* Difficulty: Moderate to hard, because you must prove both big creative range (talking to a CMO) and hands-on operational rigor (running multiple live campaigns) in a founding role with no playbook

What Substack Looks For

* Creative, culture-defining ideas that feel native to Substack and to a given publisher's voice

* A portfolio of campaigns taken from concept to live work, ideally involving creators, social, and/or publishers

* A feel for the brand RFP process and for writing proposals that win

* Sharp project management and attention to detail so no balls are dropped across several campaigns at once

Round 1: Recruiter Screen (~30 minutes)

What to Expect

A recruiter or member of the Brand Partnership team walks through your background, your motivation for Substack specifically, and the basics: your years in creative strategy or branded content, the kinds of campaigns you have shipped, and your comfort with a founding, build-from-scratch role. Expect to talk about why the subscription-based, non-advertising model of Substack appeals to you, and to give a quick pitch on what you would bring to a brand-new sponsorships team. Compensation range and location expectations for New York usually come up here.

Example Questions

* "Walk me through your background in creative strategy and branded content."

* "Why Substack, and why this founding sponsorships role specifically?"

* "What draws you to a role where you write the frameworks yourself?"

* "What does your experience look like working with creators, agencies, or publishers?"

Tips

* Have a crisp two-minute story that connects your campaign work to Substack's model of native, creator-led sponsorships.

* Show you understand this is a zero-to-one role: emphasize initiative, ambiguity tolerance, and building process from nothing.

* Rehearse this opening conversation with Nora's Standard Mode to tighten your pitch and your "why Substack" answer before the live call.

Round 2: Hiring Manager Interview (~45 to 60 minutes)

What to Expect

This is the core conversation with the Brand Partnership lead. Expect a deep dive into how you actually work: how you read a brief, match a brand to the right creators and publications, own the creative side of the pre-sale, and keep brand, publisher, and internal team aligned through execution. The manager wants to hear about campaigns you took from concept to live work and about how you handle the reporting and wrap phase. Because this is a founding role, expect questions about how you would stand up frameworks and prioritize when there is no existing playbook.

Example Questions

* "Tell me about a campaign you owned from concept to live work. What was your role at each stage?"

* "How do you decide which creator or publication is the right credible fit for a given brand?"

* "Describe a time a client rejected your concept. How did you pivot?"

* "How would you build a pitch and matching framework from scratch on a team with no existing process?"

Tips

* Use STAR-structured stories that show end-to-end ownership: brief, concept, matching, execution, and post-campaign reporting.

* Prepare at least one example where you balanced a brand's goal with what a creator would actually want to do, so the work felt native rather than bolted on.

* Practice these behavioral and situational answers in Nora's Behavioral Mode so your ownership and pivot stories land cleanly under follow-up questions.

Round 3: Creative Exercise / Portfolio Walkthrough (~60 minutes)

What to Expect

Given how central concepting and proposal writing are to this role, expect a working session built around a sample brief or a walkthrough of your own portfolio. You may be handed a brand goal and asked to turn it into a campaign idea that feels native to Substack, name the kinds of publishers who could carry it, and outline how you would pitch it. Alternatively, you present past work and defend your creative and matching choices. This round tests the RFP-to-proposal muscle the posting calls out directly.

Example Questions

* "Here is a brand and its goal. Sketch a Substack-native campaign concept and the publishers you would approach."

* "Walk us through a proposal you wrote that won. What made it persuasive?"

* "How do you tell what is fresh versus what is played out in the creator space right now?"

* "How would you structure and present metrics and a post-campaign wrap to a brand?"

Tips

* Show your thinking, not just the final idea: articulate the brief interpretation, the audience and voice logic, and why a specific publisher fits.

* Bring two or three portfolio pieces you can narrate quickly, including at least one creator or publisher campaign taken all the way to live.

* Use Nora's Technical Mode to rehearse the role-specific craft: concepting on the spot, defending brand-to-publisher matches, and talking through proposal structure and reporting.

Round 4: Cross-Functional and Values Fit (~45 minutes)

What to Expect

You will likely meet other members of the Sponsorships team and possibly a partner from sales or a publisher-facing role. This round tests the range the posting emphasizes: holding a creative conversation with a CMO and a practical one with a creator, sometimes on the same day. Expect questions about stakeholder communication, running several campaigns without dropping details, and alignment with Substack's mission of building a better business model for creators unmoored from advertising.

Example Questions

* "How do you keep a brand, a publisher, and your internal team pointed in the same direction during a live campaign?"

* "Tell me about a time you juggled several campaigns at once. How did you keep the details tight?"

* "How would you adjust your communication style between a CMO and an individual creator?"

* "What excites you about a sponsorships model that is not built on traditional advertising?"

Tips

* Emphasize project management specifics: how you track deliverables, deadlines, and approvals so nothing slips.

* Speak to both sides of the table, showing you can flex from high-level creative vision to practical, creator-friendly logistics.

* Run mixed behavioral and situational reps in Nora's Behavioral Mode to sharpen your stakeholder-alignment and multi-campaign stories.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1) How many rounds are there?

Expect roughly 4 to 5 rounds: a recruiter screen, a hiring manager interview, a creative exercise or portfolio walkthrough, and a cross-functional fit round. Since this is a founding role on a small team, the exact structure may vary and there could be an additional conversation with a senior leader. Substack does not publish its process, so treat this as the typical shape for a role of this type and stage rather than a guaranteed sequence.

2) What topics are most common?

* Creative concepting, brand-to-publisher matching, and proposals that win the RFP

* End-to-end campaign ownership, project management across multiple campaigns, and reporting and wrap

3) How long does the process take?

Usually about 3 to 5 weeks from recruiter screen to decision, depending on scheduling and whether a creative exercise is take-home or live. Founding-team hires can move quickly when there is strong alignment.

4) How should I prepare?

* Reread the posting and prepare concrete stories for each responsibility: turning a brand goal into an idea, matching publishers, owning the pre-sale, and running campaigns through wrap.

* Build a tight portfolio narrative of two or three campaigns taken from concept to live work, ideally involving creators, social, or publishers.

* Study Substack's model and current creator landscape so you can speak credibly about what feels native and what is played out.

* Use Nora AI to rehearse: Standard Mode for the recruiter screen, Behavioral Mode for the hiring manager and fit rounds, Technical Mode for the creative exercise and proposal walkthrough, and Salary Negotiation Mode to prepare for the $130,000 to $170,000 range conversation.