Who is Australia’s best known ‘on the tools’ recruiter?

If you ask this question, one name will probably get mentioned more than any other.

Adrian Carty.

The facts: He is bloody good at his craft, earned his stripes in arguably recruitment’s toughest job and well, every recruiter has read or engaged with his content at some point.

For as long as I remember, he has done four things fantastically well with his marketing:

He’s consistent

You get a sense of his personality

He’s funny, and

He shares bite-sized insights to help you get better at what you do

The advice I give to recruiters when it comes to marketing - avoid shiny objects, do one thing, do it exceptionally well and build your community. Then choose to expand into other areas.

I hope you like what Adrian has to say. We covered a few questions that other recruiters wanted to ask him.

Can you share some outcomes resulting from your own social media marketing?

A marriage proposal…! From someone I didn’t (and still don’t) know. A couple of mildly aggressive emails. I find it harder to ascribe outcomes to marketing activity, but the more quantifiable ones are: My follower base has grown to just over 20,000 (the majority are recruiters, which is important for our market). I normally receive 400 to 500 profile views each week. And I’d estimate about 70% of placements’ first awareness of us was via LinkedIn content, and this number has been growing year on year.

How do you come up with ideas for content and do you have a planning process?

I’d love to have a planning process, but I don’t think I do. The primary things I’ve changed over the years are:

I’ve created a document to store ideas. Mostly, ideas will come as part of my working day. I tend to add them to the document as I have them.

When I write content, I normally do this during quiet time and try and eliminate as many distractions as possible. I aim to post two to three times weekly.

I’ll never spend any more than 10% of my working time on LinkedIn.

Why do recruiters not spend more time having relevant conversations on social media?

A wide range of reasons:

Habit - they just have not built it into their weekly work structure. A lack of confidence in making their opinion public. Very busy with their daily tasks and haven’t prioritised it.

They haven’t seen the returns quickly enough. Most recruiters are almost conditioned to thinking of success or failure in weeks (as most jobs they work on will be filled in several weeks at the most). Building a successful social media presence will take much longer and results are usually not instantaneous. 

They don’t believe it’s relevant to them or their market They are not prepared for negative feedback. Being visible means that you’re going to be regularly disagreed with. There will also be a percentage of people who just don’t warm to the poster and may dislike them even if they sometimes agree with their message. 

Have there been times when you’ve met a recruiter offline and it’s not been congruent with their online persona?

I think it’s probably easy to build up a defined view of an individual if your only frame of reference is their online presence. I know I’m usually a disappointment when people meet me in real life. I can’t think of anyone who was radically different to what I expected, but I am conscious that everyone’s online persona (irrespective of online channel or reasons they are on there) is likely to be crafted to present their best selves in that moment and they are unlikely to be like that 24/7.

Where recruiters can get it wrong is when they see themselves as a LinkedIn personality first and a recruiter second. Social media is just an awareness and engagement channel and 90% of the job occurs offline. 

Could you offer one tip for recruiters to improve how they market?

Differentiate your message and aim for a lower volume, but of higher-engagement posts. If you are posting the same message in the same format as the rest of your competitors, you will just blend in.

Take time to think about what you want to say and ask, “How I can say this in a different way? What’s another angle on this?”

What have been the main changes in R2R since he started? Bill Corbett

Australians and residents now get hired exclusively into trainees’ roles. I’d estimate before it was 80% working holiday visas. LinkedIn has become a content rather than a resume platform, transforming how recruitment agencies market. And base salaries have gone up on average by 15 to 20%.

What was your largest individual contributor placement? What’s so special about the recruiter? Donal Breslin

They were a trainee when I placed them in financial services recruitment. Their traits were similar to what I see with other highest-performing recruiters I know:

Honest. They do exactly what they say they will do when they say they will do it. They are commercial - this doesn’t always mean going after the biggest fees or what might be perceived as the most lucrative market. It just means they are laser-focused on the activities that will give them the best commercial return in their given market. Work ethic - most of the highest-performing recruiters simply do a higher volume of work.

What advice do you have for recruiters early on in their careers? Arnie Harry

Have patience - it takes time and work to build a reputation. Focus on building a positive reputation first and financial success will follow. Build your experience - if you get the chance, try temp, try perm, try to do some different markets (this isn’t always possible) but you’ll find what you are good at through a bit of trial and error. When you find what you like, map the market thoroughly and commit to it for the long term. 

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'It takes time and work to build a reputation.' Never truer words spoken.

I recommend all recruiters connect with Adrian Carty.

Thanks for your time, Adrian.

And thank you for reading.