What I learned from Australia's most provocative recruitment blogger of 2016

If you are reading this blog I suspect you read other recruitment blogs on a reasonably regular basis, via a subscription service or your LinkedIn feed or some other method.

 Given your knowledge of the recruitment blogosphere take a guess who in Australia published the most provocative recruitment blog of 2016, as measured by comments?

 Greg Savage?

 Craig Watson or Luke Collard?

 In fact none of the above got even remotely close.

 The winner by a country mile was Andrew McGregor.

 Andrew who? You ask.

 Those of you in the property and construction sector may recognise Andrew's name because, as Associate Director, he runs the Sydney operation of Design & Build, having joined Neil Colquhoun's business nearly seven years before.

Last September Andrew posted on LinkedIn his short blog Really - Always leave the office on time.

 It was Andrew's 7 point, 633 word articulation of his blog title's proposition.

 It would be an understatement to say that Andrew hit a nerve with his post.

 As at the time of writing the post has racked up 241,720 likes, 9,485 comments and 65,292 shares.

 To provide a comparison my most provocative blog posts of my nearly ten years of blogging, by comments at least, are the following:

 Now Hiring 32 Professionals: All Agencies welcome to submit candidates* (August 2009, 40 comments)

 Rec-to-recs: What should they deliver? (May, 2010, 38 comments)

 Who the #&%! does Gen George think she is? (December 2013, 36 comments) 

My own contribution to the conversation around worker productivity Highly productive workers take more breaks (and other surprises) generated just over 1,000 views and produced no comments! 

I note Greg Savage's most popular post, over his eight years of blogging, also is a blog about 'timing'; How did it get to be ‘OK' for people to be late for everything? (June 2010, 181 comments) 

Andrew's post wasn't just popular on LinkedIn; it crossed over to specialist websites, mainstream media and, just last week, it was even reproduced as an opinion piece in The Scotsman (how could they resist; he's a McGregor after all). 

Here's what I learned from Australia's most read recruitment blogger of 2016:

1.  Don't worry about your lack of blogging experience before you put your fingers to the keyboard: At the time of writing his blog, Andrew had only published six blogs on LinkedIn.
2. Keep it short: 633 words is about two third's the length of one of my blog posts, which are often much longer.
3. Write from personal conviction: Design & Build's culture is consistent with Andrew's post. 
4. Don't be afraid to be controversial: A quick scroll down the comments will demonstrate that Andrew hit a raw nerve for some readers.

 Andrew' follow up blog post Is 'Always leaving the office on time' really possible?  also proved popular although by the standard of his original post on the topic it was liked a ‘mere' 1,301 times, garnering ‘only' 124 comments and leading to ‘just' 281 shares.

 I don't know what all this enhanced profile has done for Andrew's business or the Design & Build brand generally, but I am sure it can't have done any harm. Who doesn't like positive free publicity?

 I look forward to reading more from Australia's most provocative recruitment blogger throughout 2017.

 Well done, Andrew!