Why we got engaged on LinkedIn

(and how we did it).

A few years ago, many of my colleagues in the recruitment and staffing sector viewed LinkedIn as something of a threat to their industry. With the mission to “connect people with opportunities at scale”, it was seen as having the potential to spell the end for recruiters. In some ways yes it did have that potential, and – quite rightly – it has challenged the traditional model and shaken up the old stereotypes of “data ownership = value”. But at Hays we took a different view.

Change is good

We are an innovative company and keen to lead our industry by example, so we approached this challenge as a great opportunity to change the way we thought about our service to our customers and how we add value to their careers and therefore their lives.

Giving our customers what they need

Most of our customers, whether they were hiring or looking for a new role, were already LinkedIn members or would be likely to join. How could we add most value to their working day? How could we make sure that we were providing them with relevant information at the time they wanted it most? Sure, jobs are of interest to those who are actively looking for new roles, but most of us want more than that, a trusted advisor and partner who can really guide us to the optimum opportunity.

Keeping our customers informed

We wanted to build that trust with our customers over the span of their career, so we needed to look at building out a much longer term engagement strategy. So through our network of expert consultants and using our knowledge of the various markets, sectors and geographies we work in around the world, we put together the best possible content we could produce and offered it to our network. This was no mean feat considering we employ 5000+ consultants!

Getting buy in right at the top

Our CEO, Alistair Cox was also involved right from the start, and as one of the original 150 influencers his posts are now seen by a massive audience globally.

Things went crazy

In 12 months we grew our follower base by 300%. Three years on, and we’ve been thrilled with the progress we’ve made. We are (today) the 22 most followed company on LinkedIn, a fantastic achievement that puts us ahead of many global household name brands, and our Talent Brand Index, a key measure of reach and engagement, sits around 60%. The average is nearer 20%.

We have 170,000 members in our groups and 760,000 followers, we generate fantastic debates around the world of work and have set the industry standard for customer engagement using relevant, branded content.

That’s why we got engaged on LinkedIn.

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