A LinkedIn Strategy Built for Recruiters

You can't throw a rock without hitting a so-called guru offering their solutions on how to build a converting LinkedIn strategy. Recruiters should be wary of putting too much faith in them. While these strategies may work for other business professionals, many overlook the unique challenges and opportunities that come with recruiting.

Although building a successful LinkedIn strategy for recruiters may seem intimidating at first, it can be simpler with the right approach.

Short-term Lead Generation vs Long-term Brand Building

A LinkedIn strategy can be both short-term lead generation-focused and long-term branding-focused. Before we dive in, we need to understand the difference between the two and set expectations.

Short-term lead generation aims to attract talent or clients through direct email, InMail, and cold calling efforts. Recruiters will often pitch job postings, candidates, or services with the goal of quick conversions and acquiring new clients and candidates. Lead-gen strategies are volume-based efforts with low conversion rates.

On the other hand, long-term brand building is more about engagement and relationship building with your target audience. This is achieved through high-quality, value-driven content that serves the audience instead of selling to them. Our focus here is subscription or lead capture.

Recruiters often make the mistake of mixing the two. A prime example is posting a job opening and trying to convert people with a CTA like, "apply now". These posts get little to no engagement because they are self-serving garbage posts. Yes, I hate them and I will shame any RWD subscriber who continues with this practice.

Conversely, recruiters might reach out to a prospect with a long, drawn-out email or InMail about all their services, stories, and case studies.

We've all been guilty of both. But no more!

How to Use Them Together

As recruiters, we are trained to heavily focus on lead gen. However, Les Binet & Peter Field's analysis in "The Long and the Short of It: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies" suggests that an optimal balance in efforts for branding to lead gen is 60/40.

Research has shown that if your target audience begins to recognize your brand, your lead gen efforts yield far greater results and responses.

If we take Les' example, then a Full-Desk Recruiter's strategy might look something like this:

You will notice that the client side and talent side percentages are flipped in weight for lead gen vs brand building. That's because Hiring Managers don't typically engage client-focused content from recruiters on LinkedIn; candidates do.

However, hiring managers do engage with talent-focused content. They follow thought leaders that resonate and help their employees do their jobs better. They'll either discover you on their own or someone on their team might suggest a post. Either way, they can begin to form a relationship with you.

That's why I believe only 10% of your effort should be client-focused content.

The 2-Part LinkedIn Strategy

Building a proper LinkedIn strategy has 2 parts.

Part 1

You have to know your audience. You must:

• Understand their pains

• Have a clear picture of their ideal outcomes

• Identify the things they commonly get wrong that keep them away from that outcome. We call this the "boogeyman".

Part 2

Once you have part 1 down, it provides opportunities to create campaigns outside recruiting, landing a job, and getting interviews. Your content can instead be assets to the functions of the roles you recruit for.

You would then:

• Create free workflows, frameworks, and deliverables

• Break it up into short 30-45 second pieces of easily digestible content

• Every once in a while, sprinkle in a link, download, or pitch (use sparingly)

Here is an example workflow if you were a Full-Desk sales recruiter:

1. Your content heavily focuses on generating more leads with cold outreach.

2. Find influencers in the SDR space like Will Alred and Morgan Ingram, then curate a list of tips and how-to guides from their content.

3. Create a content calendar of broken-up pieces of content driving home the core message of your campaign.

4. Your ideal candidate sees it, downloads your file or signs up for your newsletter; now you have captured the talent lead.

5. A VP of Sales sees that and they might want to hand it off to some of their new reps. They download it, and you now have a client lead.

6. Reach out to discover what caused your leads to sign up. Offer more free resources and a promise to provide some sort of ideal outcome over a digital coffee.

7. 99% of that call is about helping them without ever talking about you and your recruiting service. Give them tips on how to search for and engage talent that can fill gaps they are seeing. Maybe even let them know of a candidate or potential mentor whom you could connect them with for free.

8. Your sign-off is your pitch opportunity. Show them how they can get the desired result faster by working with you.

How AI Can Integrate into Your Process

You might be wondering, "Where does AI come into this?"

AI technologies can be used in various ways to enhance content and maximize growth efforts. Here are a few:

Research Target Audience: Leverage AI to quickly research the common pain points of your target audience so you can tailor content accordingly. By understanding your target audience, you can create content that resonates with them and increases engagement.

Repurpose Content: One of my favorite use cases for AI is repurposing and redrafting content (including follow-up emails) based on DISC Types. Depending on the type, AI can suggest language that would resonate with them more.

Optimize Your Profile: AI-powered tools can help optimize your LinkedIn profile. Use them to automate mundane tasks such as analyzing keywords, optimizing search engine result placement (SERP), and scheduling posts at peak engagement times. Doing this will make sure that your profile reaches the right people at the right time for maximum impact.

Although leveraging AI can be beneficial for your LinkedIn efforts, it should not fully replace you. It is important for recruiters to remember that they are still in control of their success. We must use AI only as an additional tool for optimization rather than relying on it completely.

P.S. I didn’t mention engagement as part of this strategy. However, it is a key function in building a brand and multiplying your reach. Take 10-15 minutes a day just to thoughtfully engage with your target audience and their influencers posts. Do this daily and before you post. This is called priming the platform.

Now go out there and make some magic happen this week.

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