It’s rare for Recruiters to have been taught the value of content. In fact, it’s fair to say it’s only really been on their collective radar the last 2 or 3 years.

Many still see it as a side task, a distraction, something that keeps them away from the nuts and bolts of their role. In reality, creating content’s instrumental in developing business, attracting candidates, and growing your network.

Over time, LinkedIn’s evolved to cater for this. It’s gone from a strictly professional networking platform to an all singing, all dancing social media property in the same vein as Instagram or YouTube.

Basically, it’s Facebook for business.

Except people don’t want to consume business content all the time. So a whole host of new content creators, entrepreneurs, and of course recruiters flocked to the platform, or became active on it for the first time.

Now, It’s as much a place for news and entertainment as it is for jobs, networking, and business development opportunities. 

We’ve seen the rise of video, podcasts launching left right and charlie, companies and individuals sharing more interesting content than just corporate milestones, and a packed newsfeed full of varied content you’ll never finish scrolling through.

Recruiters may find it difficult to add value with their content or come across as credible, particularly if they’re still new to recruitment or their market. Fortunately, there’s an easier way. 

If coming up with content ideas is a challenge, stick to what you know: your personal experiences. As in, nothing to do with recruitment.

A lot of people struggle with posting personal content, either because they’re nervous about doing it, or they don’t really see the point. But ask yourself this:

Are the top performing posts – the ones with the highest engagement, views, likes, comments – adverts for jobs? 

It’s more likely the content you’ll see people responding to best will be a life lesson someone learned on a dog walk. Or a poll about how milky you prefer your tea. A coming out post. Someone declaring themselves booze, cancer, or abuse free.

Here are just a few examples of personal posts we’ve seen perform well:

• Hoxo Founder Sean Andersen’s highest performing post of 2020 about his French Bulldog, the legendary Henry
• A summer 2020 Hoxo Academy graduate pulling a job from a client he hadn’t spoken to in 4 years, off the back of a quick post about golf
• An autumn 2020 graduate who had never posted before opening up about being a dad during COVID, and had “never seen more engagement”

Personal content does really well on LinkedIn. Better than professional posts. Because it’s a break from the norm, it’s human and relatable, and above all it’s completely unique.

In most industries, knowledge can be taught and expertise can be learned. Which means it can be replicated. Your personal life cannot. And the worst thing you can do is fake it.

Be authentic. And say what’s on your mind. But if you’re struggling to think of where to start with posting something personal, here are a few ideas for coming up with relatable posts to engage your network.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

• What’s the most important life advice you’ve been given outside of recruitment?
• Why was it useful?
• Who gave it to you?

Tag them, and ask your audience to share their advice.

Why do you work in your market?

• Is it really all about the money?
• Who or what inspires you to work hard on a daily basis?
• How has working in recruitment informed your understanding of the world around you?

Ask your network the same.

How have you made it through the pandemic?

• How have you kept it together?
• What specific activities, people, places, or things have helped?
• What have you achieved in that time that you wouldn’t have otherwise?

Ask your network to share their experiences.

We’ve plenty more examples and inspiration for Hoxo Academy members to leverage, including a Personal Content Cheat Sheet to keep your content fresh and engaging.

Learn more about the Hoxo Academy here.

At the end of the day, we’re all human. And humans love stories. So tell yours.

It’s 2021. Your network has a vested interest in what you’re like both inside and outside of work if they’re going to do business with you.

Posting personal content might turn a few people off. You might even put one or two noses out of joint if you’ve got a particularly spicy opinion to share. You’ll see comments telling you “this is a professional networking platform, keep the personal content on Facebook where it belongs!”

But these are people you wouldn’t have worked well with in the first place. Filtering them out at this stage will make engaging with your target audience initially – and doing more deals in the long run – much more straightforward.

Posting personal content by itself is pointless. Without any credibility behind you, no one will trust you. And if you aren’t adding value in your content, people will eventually stop paying attention to you.

Your content has to be balanced to properly engage your network, and result in the business outcomes we all know it can. We cover how to get the balance right and keep things varied in loads more detail in The Hoxo Academy: our 8 week personal branding bootcamp for recruiters.

If you’re looking for something slightly more bitesize for the time being, we’ve distilled everything we know into a handy guide which is completely free to download.

Get your FREE copy of The Ultimate Personal Brand Guide For Recruiters

We run regular taster sessions for the Hoxo Academy where we go on a deep dive into a specific element of personal branding. Here’s our last taster session exploring the whole “THIS ISN’T FACEBOOK” thing in more detail. Enjoy!