I want to consider what is interesting to our recruitment network – what helps others in the network who seek guidance and knowledge – what gets views, hits, shares, likes? I am interested to hear from you, the reader – what do you expect to read about and would you chose to read about, what topics interest you most?
Recruiters are in business to offer a service – as with most services, some are great at giving it, some are maybe not so great, but we certainly all strive for one thing: putting the best candidates in touch with the most suitable employers.
If this was a simple exercise, the robots would have taken over long ago – how often have we heard that technology is taking over... but we still need the human touch? It is a journey of discovery for every candidate and client, and the potential scenarios along the way are often utterly unpredictable. People don’t change jobs too often, and no one job search is the same, and the market, economy and environment changes constantly too... As a recruiter, you have to bring your absolute best efforts to each and every transaction so that no stone is left unturned. People’s lives are at stake, and it is our duty to hold their hands.
For me, I am starting to understand that this is where recruitment content might come into play. If you are fairly new to the content space, the plus to know is that I already see that my blogs have touched more people than I could have reached otherwise. Recruiters are notoriously time-poor individuals – we may enjoy having an in-depth chat to anyone who calls, but the reality of our role is that we have to prioritise - and dedicate the majority of our time to those live searches, current clients and candidates…
Coming up with useful content lets all the other potential candidates, and our network, know that we are still there for them. But - here comes the big question, what exactly is “useful content?”
Many blogs out there are self-serving attempts to win business and/or gain visibility. This strategy will work to a point of course, but unless there is a long-term desire to genuinely help people, an audience will see through this approach pretty quickly. In my view, it doesn’t matter too much how well a blog is written – what is most important is that it touches a nerve and elicits an acknowledgement or even better a response!
It could ask a question to make someone think. It could share some personal stories to make someone feel. The picture and title alone is often enough to make someone pause…
You are spending time to put something out into the world to make an impact on other peoples lives. Every word that we say to our candidates is intended to help them move that little bit closer to their dream job, so in my mind, the blogs should be written in a similar vein. How can this blog help (just one) person move closer to signing that new contract? It isn’t about massive viral numbers, and it isn’t about endless debates (nor Facebook material being shared on business social media!) Indeed, the people who need it most may not even engage with the blogs because they don’t want their current employers to know that they are looking. If I can make a difference to just a few of those readers, it will be worthwhile. After all, I probably wouldn’t have reached them otherwise. So when people talk about content-shock and question the ROI of marketing in general, I turn this argument on its head. Why wouldn’t we want to use the channel to help our candidates – so please do respond and let me know what I should write about next!