From time to time, when writing on LinkedIn, I repurpose old content.

Because I lack inspiration or when I’m busy.

Sometimes I post for jobseekers knowing it is, hopefully, a transient audience. My redundancy post goes up once a month, mostly with engagement from different readers.

Sometimes I write specific posts about the problems my ideal audience might face, and how these can be overcome. Low engagement, but occasional conversations that matter.

Sometimes I write to start conversations, which often have good metrics.

Take this post from last week:

“For recruiters who tell candidates to customise their CVs for their ideal jobs-

do you customise your adverts and messaging for your ideal candidates?”

A year ago, it had 23,000 views and 231 engagements.

In 5 days, the re-post has 18,500 and 219 engagements.

Moreover, the audience was pretty much entirely new.

This time around quite a few recruiters pitched in with, “Yes, I do”.

When I asked them to share examples, none did, instead talking about their approach.

Off I popped to check out their public adverts, which is evidence of output and messaging.

With three exceptions, their adverts were entirely generic and about their needs.

Two of the exceptions led with candidate benefits but still told people how to do the jobs they currently have.

One advert was excellent and I’ll be adopting their ideas into my approach.

Perhaps the non-exceptions didn’t know that while their adverts might include their custom content, it wasn’t customised for the audience they wanted - and they didn’t see the difference.

They need only read the comments from job seekers to see the problem with self-centred writing.

If everyone writes the same way, how does anyone stand out?

A natural thought will be through personalisation, which will become trivial with AI, but that’s not the same as customisation.

A thought experiment.

What if recruitment only allowed one person to reply to an advert, whether a job board or a DM?

Only one person and no other.

Not a realistic restriction, but how would that inform your approach?

What information should you lead with?

Would you personalise and say how much you like their post on something obscure you’d never heard of?

Talk about market trends in their area to show your insights?

If AI allows personalisation at scale, and everyone is doing it, how will yours stand out?

While personalisation might relate to “people buy from people” it doesn’t relate to what you are proposing.

What if we just got to the point?

If you can appeal to only one person and one person only, some steps need to be done before you craft your gambit:

What might deter them? “Competitive Salary”, “Apply now with an up-to-date CV and cover letter”, “Only successful candidates will be contacted” - if that repels the one person you can appeal to, how might it repel others?

If the message is a DM or a call - your research that proves the right person is fundamental to your success.

Of course, we don’t have such arbitrary rules in real life, but that custom message for one will also appeal to the set of people who meet the same criteria.

When you’ve nailed that message, you can add personalisation on top, as long as it doesn’t detract from the attention you’ve gained.

Better yet, when you’ve nailed a custom message, you can repeat it as often as you like, to appeal to new readers and prompting existing ones, when the time is right.

If you hire Accountants, HR Directors, Brewers or Prompt Engineers - the nucleus of your message for one, can be a message for all relevant readers.

How might writing for an audience of one benefit all your ideal readers?

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

P.s. drop me a line if you need me to recruit for you, with you or help you do it better yourself.