How Understanding Recruitment leveraged the power of LinkedIn to increase brand awareness and establish itself as a consultative and data-driven voice in a competitive marketplace

Using data to add value and generate engaging content

Understanding Recruitment has worked with LinkedIn for more than nine years. As an Enterprise customer, the organisation has used LinkedIn’s portfolio of products for some time, including LinkedIn Talent Insights, Recruiter and Job Slots, and LinkedIn Live.

Chris Jackson, Founding Director of Understanding Recruitment, explained: “We can’t teach technical people technical things because they’re always going to be far better than us when it comes to technology. But we can add value when it comes to information and we can educate our market about trends, salaries, demand, and everything that’s happening out there in the business world.”

He continued: “We utilise LinkedIn Insights reports and we’re also using LinkedIn Live to create some really good podcasts and live sessions with key stakeholders within our market. We’re generating good content, engaging our market, interacting with our key audience and building credibility which really helps our recruiters.”

Communicating the value of LinkedIn

Understanding Recruitment produces regular video content that is aligned to the business areas it works in and produces engaging LinkedIn Live content, ensuring the brand has a consistent voice within many verticals.

Jackson continued: “I think naturally, recruiters are sceptical individuals but if people can genuinely see the value, they will jump on it. I think this is where we have been successful with our use of LinkedIn.

“Firstly, we gathered together a small team of people, those who are top of the innovation curve; people who would be open to change, and from whom we’d get buy-in. We wanted them to use the platform first.

“We knew that once those people started sharing and communicating the value of LinkedIn and once other recruiters could see the value too, we knew they would adapt. They could see others working efficiently and smarter and achieving results.”

Building a credible reputation in a tough market

Jackson described the technology recruitment market as tough with clients choosing to “window shop”. Therefore, it has been imperative that Understanding Recruitment builds credibility in the marketplace and positions itself as a leading voice within tech recruitment and tech in general.

“A tight market forces you to evolve and change and if you don’t you’re going to get lost and fail. So, it’s imperative that we’re boxing clever in how we’re dealing with the market and creating good content to build the best reputation possible.

“There’s a fantastic statistic from LinkedIn that says you are seven times more likely to win a client if they recognise your brand. So, it’s been really important to get our name out there. We invest in training our recruiters to use LinkedIn content effectively. Many of our recruiters have been smart with their LinkedIn posts and have picked up candidates and clients from a single post and made placements.”

Sharing best practices and promoting a creative environment

According to Jackson, it’s essential to build confidence within talent acquisition teams and help them understand what good and relevant content is. In fact, it’s so important that Understanding Recruitment has a Community Manager who specifically looks at the impact of LinkedIn content, including interactions and response rates.

By digging a little deeper, the recruitment specialist can develop a longer-term view of the market by analysing what resonates in the tech space.

“It’s essential that we look at the effectiveness of our communication and what content gets the best results,” Jackson added. “To do that, we have to dig around the data. If we see great practices that the business can learn from then we must share those learnings otherwise we’re wasting a huge opportunity.”

He commented further: “There’s been a huge amount of change in the recruitment market. Hence, it’s been really important to create an environment where people don’t fear doing things differently. We wanted to ensure we’re promoting a creative environment, with parameters and frameworks that people can work within but one that gives autonomy and the freedom to work in a way that our teams see fit. This has allowed our recruiters to play to their strengths and has a hugely positive effect on the business.”

Establishing true partnerships

Understanding Recruitment has used LinkedIn Talent Insights to map the recruitment market, analysing data that builds a clear picture of a sector. This data is not only used by recruiters but also shared with clients, empowering them to make educated decisions. It’s this consultative approach that has enabled Understanding Recruitment to build credibility in the marketplace.

“That data-led conversation is one of the most important,” explained Jackson. “We work on our partnership with a client first and build a credible professional relationship, rather than just look for candidate placement.”

It’s imperative to add value and create a “true partnership”, helping, supporting, and advising candidates and clients on their next decision. That’s why all Understanding Recruitment employees have access to LinkedIn.

“We are constantly evolving and trying to stay at the forefront of our utilisation of LinkedIn, constantly analysing and upskilling and seeing what we do to stay ahead of the competition.

“LinkedIn is an incredibly good and useful tool, but that tool is only as good as the quality of data that you put into it, and the quality of usage on it.”

Jackson is candid in his appraisal of LinkedIn. He continued: “It is a labour of love. Building a brand and a presence on LinkedIn is not an overnight job. You have to have a strategy, and an end goal and work out what you want to achieve from it.

“But also part of our success with LinkedIn has been down to the individuals that we’ve had supporting us,” he concluded. “We’ve always had a good mutual working relationship with our LinkedIn account team. They have always been responsive to our needs, and we’ve had top-notch Account Managers that have looked after us really well.”