Each month, I’ll share what we’re seeing in our client work and what you can take from it to improve your own marketing and business development. This month, we’re digging into LinkedIn content. But, we will also explore other parts of bringing in business, including outreach, email, follow-up, and turning interest into actual client conversations. There’s more to growing a recruiting business than what happens in the feed, and we’ll be looking at all of it.
About these numbers-I know, the metrics above aren’t viral-level numbers, but I will keep reminding people how little that matters if your marketing is helping your business grow. These are examples from brands that are growing, so let’s dive in.
For this October edition, I’m opening up three examples from last month’s client reporting: what we published, the response, and what I would take from each if I were planning a recruiter’s content right now.
These posts varied in length, subject, and how they ended. What interests me is how each gave a specific audience something useful to think about.
And because nobody gets paid in impressions, we’ll also look at what these clients have reported about their businesses beyond the feed.
1. Stacy: A client conversation became a market discussion
17,968 impressions · 127 engagements
Stacy brought an observation into a strategy call: three different hiring clients had asked her team to keep candidates interested without committing to the next interview.
There’s a whole post sitting inside that conversation.
For companies hiring, keeping options open can feel reasonable. For a candidate, staying interested without a next step can begin to feel like being held in reserve. Stacy’s post explored that tension while acknowledging why employers might hesitate.
That nuance matters. Her audience includes hiring decision-makers and candidates considering opportunities. She could challenge the situation while showing that she understood the people on both sides.
The comments included candidates describing their frustration, recruiters sharing similar experiences, and people debating how long was reasonable to wait. The topic gave readers something substantive to respond to.
Why this matters: Stacy put words to a situation her readers had experienced and explained what employers risk when they leave candidates waiting. That’s useful content for a hiring leader because it helps them recognize how their own process could cost them someone they want to hire.
What to apply: Look for a request or hesitation that has come up repeatedly in your recent searches. Explain why it happens, what the other side experiences, and where you believe the approach needs to change. Protect the client’s identity, but keep the detail that makes the situation recognizable.
What’s happening in her business: Stacy has told us her firm has been so busy that they’ve had to turn down work. That’s the broader business picture behind this example, and why I care about content that shows how she handles real hiring situations. A prospective client gets to see her judgment before they ever ask her to work on a search.
2. Katrina: Industry news became a workforce question
6,653 impressions · 67 engagements
Katrina’s post examined manufacturing investment commitments in Pennsylvania and what they could mean for machine-tool hiring.
We brought some current headlines into the strategy conversation and developed the angle around her market knowledge. For the manufacturers she serves, the useful question was what that investment could mean for competition for machinists, programmers, engineers, and quality specialists.
Equipment and contracts are only part of an expansion plan. Someone still has to do the work.
That’s where Katrina’s perspective made the story relevant to hiring leaders. She connected an industry development to a workforce issue they might need to prepare for. Commenters added observations about experienced machinist shortages, compensation, vocational education, and training.
Why this matters: Sharing an announcement tells readers you follow the industry. But everyone can do that now. The value is in explaining its potential consequences and helping readers assess a business decision.
What to apply: Choose one development in your niche and work through the consequences. Which employers could be affected? Which skills might become harder to secure? What should a hiring leader review now? Be clear about what is confirmed and what you’re anticipating, then explain the reasoning behind your view.
What’s happening in her business: Katrina reported bringing in searches representing $300-$500K in recruiting fees in two and a half months of working with us. Those fees are tied to completing the searches, but the job orders are already there. This post is one example of how we’re positioning her within that market: as someone who understands what’s happening in manufacturing and can help employers think ahead about hiring.
3. Steve: Specialist advice gave a narrow audience something to use
11,898 impressions · 166 engagements
Steve addressed people who sell ancillary group benefits and explained how their LinkedIn content could help brokers communicate the value of disability insurance.
That is a very specific conversation. Which is rather the point.
Steve recruits in employee benefits/group insurance, where relationships with salespeople, sales leaders, and hiring managers matter to his business. His content can demonstrate that he understands the commercial challenges those professionals face.
In this post, he explored how salespeople could help brokers educate their own clients, including the financial implications of losing an income and the role of disability coverage.
Steve has pretty strong opinions, and our strategy conversations give us room to capture the reasoning behind them. We want our clients’ market to encounter the person they would actually speak with on a call.
Why this matters: Steve gave employee benefits/group insurance professionals advice they could use in their own sales conversations. That’s a useful standard for your content: does it help the people you want to reach do their jobs better? Showing that you understand their day-to-day challenges gives them a reason to pay attention to your expertise.
What to apply: Write down something you regularly explain to the professionals you serve. Where are they missing an opportunity or misunderstanding a risk? Develop your answer enough that they could use it in their next conversation.
What’s happening in his business: Steve has told us he hasn’t needed to do business development since he started working with ORA two years ago. For a recruiter who has spent years building relationships and learning his market, that matters. His marketing gives that experience a wider audience and keeps him part of the conversation between searches. This post is one piece of that ongoing work, with advice that shows how well he knows the people he recruits for and places.
These business updates reflect our ongoing work with each client over different timeframes. I’m sharing them alongside the posts so you can see the bigger picture, rather than suggesting any one post produced those results.
What I’d take from this for your own marketing
If you’re a recruiter who is posting and wondering whether any of it is doing anything for your business, I would start by looking at how much of your actual thinking is making it into the content.
I hear recruiters explain complicated hiring problems beautifully on calls. They have opinions, examples, and very specific advice. Then I look at their LinkedIn content and almost none of that is there. Somewhere between doing the work and writing about it, they’ve taken out the part that would make someone want their help.
That’s what I want you to pay attention to as you plan your next month of content.
Start with a conversation you had this week. What did a client need your help understanding? What did you explain to a candidate that changed how they looked at an opportunity? Give yourself five minutes to talk through it in a voice note while it’s fresh. Include what you thought and why, because that’s usually the part you’ll forget when you sit down to write later.
Give your audience a reason to care about your opinion. Stacy’s observation matters because waiting can cost an employer a candidate. Katrina’s perspective matters because investment can change the competition for skilled people. Steve’s advice matters because it helps benefits professionals have better sales conversations. Before you publish, ask yourself: how would someone in my market actually use this?
Pay attention to whether the right people are getting closer to you. Look at who’s connecting, what people ask you privately, and whether prospects already understand your specialty when you speak. Ask new clients what made them reach out. Impressions help us understand how far a post traveled; those conversations help us understand what the marketing is contributing.
This is the work I love doing with clients. We get into what’s happening in their businesses, I ask more questions, and we find the ideas that deserve a bigger audience. Then my team helps turn those ideas into something their market can understand, use, and remember (and that works!)
My takeaway from this month’s examples is that you have room to be far more specific than you probably think. You can talk about the awkward hiring situation, the workforce question behind a headline, or the advice you keep giving people in your niche. You don’t have to make every post relevant to everyone.
For your next post, choose something you helped someone understand this week and explain it with the same care you gave that person. Give a prospective client a chance to see what it would be like to have you in their corner.