Alongside filling roles, recruiters add huge amounts of value to their candidates and clients on a daily basis. Many go above and beyond to serve their market in ways they didn’t even know they needed. An elite few might as well be considered functional experts in their field, given how entrenched they are, and how intricately they know it.
But how often do you see them talking about this sort of thing on LinkedIn?
Not a great deal. It’s more likely you’ll see a recruiter in your newsfeed when they’ve got a job on. But candidates aren’t all hunting for jobs 24/7. And not every employer’s hiring all the time.
Both will still be using the platform, mind you. LinkedIn says they have “900+ million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide”. For context, Instagram has about a billion users. Estimates vary, but it’s thought around 40% of LinkedIn users are active every month, which works out to around 360 million people.
So while people in your market won’t always be hiring or looking to engineer a career move, they’ll be on there. To exchange knowledge, learn new things, overcome challenges, and generally tend to their professional network.
If you can help them do that – even in a small way – through the content you produce, you’ll be delivering real value to your audience. And this can help distinguish you from the rest of the pack, so that when business does eventually come knocking, it’s your door they’re banging on before anyone else’s.
Valuable Content
What constitutes “valuable” content will differ from person to person and market to market. It might be unearthing market insights, answering frequently asked questions, or teaching someone something they didn’t know.
We say this all the time with personal branding but it’s all about taking what you do offline and putting it online. As you’re making calls, are you giving the same advice, guidance, and pointers to candidates and clients? Are the challenges they’re facing at the moment unique to their individual situation, or is it a market wide issue that needs addressing?
You’re in a unique position to add value to your network, because you talk to your market all day every day. If more than one person’s asking a particular question, answering it is probably something more than one person would find valuable. Here are a few non specific examples of jumping off points for posts to get you thinking:
What’s the most common advice you give to candidates?
The best way to write or format a CV, how to frame an application, what to do to create the best impression of yourself at interview, questions you can ask at the end to tip the odds in your favour. Chances are, you’ve got a ton of useful tips rattling round in the back of your brain. Have a rummage and put what’s in there out to market. Anyone in your network looking for a job right now will be grateful for it.
What do candidates really want from employers?
As you’re talking to candidates, ask them what employers can do to make themselves more attractive prospects. It might be to institute some kind of flexibility policy. It might be that they prioritise more sustainable ways of working. Whatever it is, putting this insight back out to the market will be valuable to anyone hiring now or in the future. You’ll also demonstrate you have your candidate’s best interests at heart, creating a positive impression of what you’re like to work with which will pay dividends in the future.
Get into the habit of sharing valuable advice, information, knowledge, and opinions with your market, and people will look to you for these things in the future. The more specific you can get answering questions your market’s asking, the more relevant value you’ll add in a much more enduring way.
You need to remember your position as a recruiter is to act as a conduit. For information, knowledge, advice, and ultimately connections. Passing value on over the phone is useful, but you’re limiting your reach in a 1-2-1 setting. Start publishing it online and you’ll start adding value at scale, which opens the door to new connections, business opportunities, and an improved standing in the market.
Don’t sell yourself short. As in, don’t give away everything you know for free. But if you’re sitting on information or advice that could benefit the market without undermining your services, there’s no harm in putting it out there.
Serving your market with no intention of a reward is priceless. Because the rewards will follow. We see it time and time again. Recruiters who prioritise adding value with their content see more inbound activity, leads, and business opportunities, than those who don’t.
We all want to see financial returns from the first engagement but this is a bad mindset to have when producing content. Giving away value is a long term play that might not pay off in a tangible way immediately, but does open doors to more lucrative opportunities later.
Getting it right
There isn’t a one size fits all approach. In fact, keeping a varied body of content going out is the best way to engage and convert your network long term. We’ve spoken about personal content before. How it’s vital to endearing you to your market at scale, but by itself, not particularly useful.
We can show you how to get the right balance with your content, with actual examples of talking points turned into LinkedIn posts that’ve led to business wins – including new client relationships and placements – in the Personal Brand Academy for recruiters. You can find out more about it here.
