Personal Branding, pt 2

Greg Wyatt • May 6, 2024

In the last edition, I introduced how personal branding can support a job search, and why you should avoid the type of content many people aspire to - going viral.

You can read it here.

Today, we’ll get a bit closer to actually publishing content, with the principles that lead towards it:

Building your content philosophy and plan
Types of content to try
Weight and depth of opinion
Why you should start now, even if you don’t see any benefit for months

Next week, I’ll share some posts and content writers that show an effective approach. and which you can emulate.

Building your content philosophy and plan

Much is made about LinkedIn’s algorithm and how you need to do this that and the other to get engagement.

I think you can look at it differently, and still achieve much the same.

Get your core approach right, then you can tweak what you do to find the right gains. Rather than start with chasing engagement.

If writing content is an idea you’ve been toying with, it’s a good idea to think about the outcomes you want to achieve, and then work back to set a plan.

If the only outcome you are interested in is a job, the next question should be, is content the right area to focus on, or are there better activities to support your goal?

Everyone has different skills and outlooks on life. If it simply isn’t in your wheelhouse, there are other activities you can do that may be more effective.

These are the outcomes I aim for and see when writing content:

start conversations
help others
sharpen and spark ideas
raise awareness and trust
have a laugh and a chat

I’ve gained good friends I’ve never spoken to, and friendly acquaintances I only know through ‘comments’.

As well as paying clients, who’ve benefitted from my service.

And just as importantly, I have more credibility with candidates who place weight on LinkedIn content.

Content makes it easier for me to start conversations.

It’s important for me that I either enjoy the content, and its consequences, or find it fulfilling.

What I don’t do is talk openly about my personal life, family and challenges. Something I agreed with my wife when I started publishing content.

Instead, I show all of myself in my words, quirks and all. So that if we ever speak in real life, there isn’t much of a disconnect.

That’s my philosophy to content and the boundaries I set for myself.

What about the plan?

Writing content isn’t just about publishing LinkedIn posts.

Replying to comments. Commenting on other people’s posts. Continuing conversations in DM. These are all required to get content to work for you.

From a marketing perspective, these all have different places in your lead generation funnel:

Awareness
Interest
Consideration
Interest
Evaluation
Purchase

Each post, comment, DM and real-life conversation, can relate to these steps and support your goals, even if you aren’t treating these as a marketing activity.

Indeed you should be aware of how people react to your visible words, in a way you might not be aware of (more on this next).

It goes to follow that if you use LinkedIn for Personal Branding - everything you do should be intentional, even throwaway comments.

And of course, this all takes time to do.

I write six or seven posts a week, typically in the evenings.

For me, it’s a form of journalling, and there is a lot of content I’ll either never post or will revisit at a later date. A post normally takes me 10-15 minutes to write, and somewhat longer to edit.

I post mainly in the mornings, where I have a bit of time to respond to comments.

There’s a lot of investigation into optimal times to post, but I think it’s more important that you are available to foster any engagement by replying attentively in the first hour.

The course of a post is often dictated by the performance during this time.

I find if a post gets 20-30 engagements in 60 minutes, it will typically see 10 times that over its lifetime, which is mainly a week.

I actively reply to comments for around an hour a day, but I use LinkedIn for other parts of my role (research, business development etc), so I’m always online.

How much time can you set aside per week and per day for content?

Even if you only write a couple of posts a week, that will likely take a couple of hours.

You can expect low performance initially, with some exceptions, as it takes time to build inertia.

Set aside a sustainable amount of time each week, and commit to it over time - try for 10-12 weeks and track how things have developed.

You may find it becomes an enjoyable task, just try not to get distracted by engagement for its own sake, and keep your goals in mind.

Types of content to try

Engagement on LinkedIn is built primarily on relevance and relatability.

You can write a 100% relatable post that everyone takes relevance from, and see massive engagement. Though that engagement may not serve your goals.

Or you can write a post that is 100% relevant to the problems you solve in your career, and the people who will find it relevant are from a small niche facing the same problems.

This is why a photo of you with your dog will fly, while a carefully thought out post about the optimisation of widgets in a byzantine setting, will appear to be shouting into a void.

Who doesn’t like a cute dog?

Or you can blend the two, in many ways, through storytelling, pivoting observations into business content, and copywriting formulae like AIDA (attention interest desire action) and PAS (problem agitation solution).

I mix my content up across 5 pillars:

Job search advice
Recruitment advice
Market observations
Things that interest me
Satire

I find these interest different audiences, and their own networks sometimes come across my posts, starting new conversations and awareness in other areas.

Everyone will have different forms of content that will be effective for them.

A good way to think about what might help you is what you want your ideal readers to experience.

Do you want them to see you as a credible expert?

Someone who is authentically vulnerable?

Your warts and all personality?

Why you stand out in a sea of competition?

Someone who is thought-provoking, helpful, altruistic or something else?

The answers are much the same if you posed these questions of interviewing.

This is no coincidence, given your message should be consistently delivered no matter where it is received.

With that in mind, here are some content ideas you can try:

How you might solve a problem specific to your industry
Stories from your everyday life
The challenges in your job search
Observations on a news story and how it relates to your work
A flair post highlighting your availability
Asking for thoughts on an idea you are interested in
Sharing insight you find fascinating, whether that’s on films, video games, science, sport
Stories from your career, where you can show growth (everyone loves a good ‘hero’s journey’)
Business frameworks, processes and techniques you find useful - pomodoro technique, scientific method, STAR, what do you use?
Equipment you use for work
Developments in your workplace/culture
Thoughts on content you find inspiring
Memes, humour, satire

Google “content ideas for LinkedIn” (which came up with this article ) or ask ChatGPT, Gemini or others.

I wouldn’t use AI to write articles personally (although I do use them for ideation and to sense check).

However, many people use AI and get a lot of engagement, so there’s little reason not to experiment.

“Write me a post for LinkedIn that shows the link between Tesla cars and how to develop an HR strategy”

Weight and depth of opinion

A couple of years ago, I had a message from an out-of-work Sales Director, asking for some feedback.

He’d shot a video for LinkedIn, where he talked about why he should be snapped up, and received a lot of praise for the post. However he was confused because someone he trusts, a CEO, told him it was poor and made him look boring.

He knew I’d give him unvarnished feedback, which was what he needed, to find some clarity on what had happened.

Truthfully, the CEO was correct.

What had happened?

All of the positive engagement was from fellow job seekers, and people who wanted to support him. That he’d done it was praiseworthy in itself, and was rightly celebrated, rather than the quality of what he had produced.

However, none of them had hiring authority or were in a career similar to someone who would be his line manager.

The video didn’t show him how he comes across in person either.

The lesson I took from this is to establish the weight and depth of opinion, whenever you seek feedback.

While the positive feedback was great for validation, his video actually worked against him. What might happen if a hiring process thought his video was boring when the role being recruited for has persuasion as a key requirement?

I’m pleased to say his redo was excellent, showing off his charisma while delivering the same message.

Let’s say that the CEO in this story was called Steve.

Who is the Steve in your career?

Whenever you do anything, consider “what would Steve say?”

Whose feedback should carry most weight?

This is one problem with critical posts on LinkedIn.

For example, posts that criticise poor recruitment often get a lot of engagement.

But how does that post support the career goals of the author?

Could it backfire, if someone in a hiring process sees that?

A good analogy here is that LinkedIn is like an open-plan office. You may think you are having a private conversation, but what if the wrong person is listening on the other side of a partition wall?

You may never know the decisions they make, from the words they come across.

Is that fair? Probably not.

Does it happen? I’m afraid so.

Why you should start now, even if you don’t see any benefit for months

Starting cold on LinkedIn can take many months to get traction.

That’s not always the case, but when your first post bombs, you might never think to do a second.

Going in with the expectation of little impact for the first three to six months is healthy in making a sustainable habit.

If you’re out of work though, three to six months may seem too far off to be worthwhile, especially if you need a job within a couple of months, and there are many activities that offer a quick turnaround, such as applying for jobs.

I’m sorry to say that I’ve spoken to many job seekers who’ve been out of work for more than six months, and have decided not to write content at the outset of their search.

But if they had, they might now be seeing the benefit of their work.

While negative visualisation is a helpful way to see why you might start a long-term activity now, here’s another one that relates to the philosophy section at the top.

Personal branding for me isn’t about getting a job - it’s about starting and continuing conversations with the right people.

It can be helpful in work when you aren’t looking for work. For idea sharing, networking, and keeping in touch. Even to promote your business.

And should the worst happen in future, when you find yourself out of work again, you’ll have that continued inertia from consistent posting.

So yes, it might not pay off in the short term, from a cold start, but if this is something you can sustainably do long-term, it can be an investment in your future.

As well as, if you are lucky, something that does pay off in the short term, such as if the right person sees your flair post.

I’ll give you an example of a good flair post, as well as other content and content writers to emulate, in the next post.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. this post is a day early, as I have a challenging work week ahead, so have written all my content early

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Why five? Innovation from Iteration, pt 1

By Greg Wyatt • February 26, 2026

So here were are, the start of a new series. This series may be around 10 editions, looking at the things other industries do that we can implement into recruitment. These were written 3 years ago, right at the start of the AI zazzle, and in some ways have dated quite a bit. In others, the way in which they haven't dated at all, because the principles of how we live our business lives can be universal. So, I'm not sure yet, how much editing I'll do, whether there will be any inclusions, or whether I'll leave articles intact, as a moment in time. I've learnt all of these notions from candidates and clients, as I came to understand the function of their vacancies. Hearing about the daily practice from people doing jobs, I couldn't help but notice the same relevance in recruitment. So while these articles are hardly comprehensive, perhaps they'll make you look at your candidates differently, in what we can learn from them, and how that might improve our recruitment. Why five? December 2022 Ask anyone involved in active recruitment what their key problems are, and they’ll likely talk about skills shortages and candidate behaviour. On the face of it, problems which are out of our control, worthy of complaint with little opportunity to find improvement. But what if these were issues that weren’t entirely out of our control? What if we could apply a replicable process to understand what’s really going on, and how we can make a difference? Fortunately, we needn’t invent the wheel, as other industries have already done this for us. One such is 5Y, or Five Whys, a problem-solving technique that was developed by Toyota in the 1930s. It's part of the Toyota Management System that has inspired much of my work. Five is the general number of “Why?”s needed to get to the root of a problem. Often you can get to the heart of the issue sooner, sometimes later. Often there are multiple root causes. More than just solving problems, it’s about establishing practical countermeasures to prevent these problems from coming up in future. 5Y is an example of Toyota’s philosophy of “go and see”: working on the shop floor to find out how things work in practice to find ways for iterative improvement. This isn’t a theoretical idea to try out on a whim – it’s based on grounded reality and almost always works. There are two costs – time and accountability. Here’s a practical example, then a recruitment one. (Names have been removed to protect my identity) Problem 1 : The children were late for school. Why? Traffic held us up. Why? We left the house late. Why? The children weren’t ready on time. Why? Their school uniforms weren’t prepared. Why? We hadn’t set them out the night before. Here the countermeasure is to get everything ready the night before, rather than blame traffic for being late. Perhaps we might have gotten to school on time without heavy traffic, but that is an element out of our control. Of course, here there is another root cause – very naughty children – but better to focus on the simple changes. And sometimes traffic is the root cause after all, once you’ve ruled out other elements in your control. (2026 note: my eldest now often drives my youngest to school. A time laden solution I hadn't considered three years ago. Now I don't care if they're late 😆) Problem 2: Candidates keep ghosting us. Why? They weren’t committed to responding. Why? They didn’t accept my requirement for a response. Why? They saw no value in my requirement. Why? I didn’t create an environment where this requirement has value ( root cause 1 ). Or because they are very naughty candidates, with a bad attitude. Why have we allowed someone with a bad attitude in our recruitment process? Because we didn’t prequalify them well enough ( root cause 2 ) The first root cause is something we can work on by giving candidates what they need, building trust, and working to mutual obligations. There are many ways to do this – I’ve already talked about examples in previous newsletters. It comes down to good candidate experience and reciprocity. The second root cause requires us to work harder at understanding candidate needs, aspirations, behaviours and attitudes at the outset of a recruitment process. There’s a reason for their behaviour. We can be accountable for finding it. That’s no mean skill to develop, yet an essential one for anyone whose core responsibility is recruitment. And it’s hard to do in a transactional volume process, so the question then becomes, does your process help more than it hinders? You can apply 5Y to any issue you come across, as long as you are prepared to be accountable. At worst you may find that the things that were out of your control are at fault. In this case, you are at least armed with good information to report to your stakeholders, by ruling out other possibilities. What’s the point of doing all this? For me it’s continually improving how I recruit, with the consequence, in the example above, that I am rarely ghosted at all. And you can 5Y any issue you come across. Are poor agency CV submissions their fault, or in part down to your briefing and process? Are skills genuinely scarce, or is your requirement unrealistic? Is it true that your agency hasn’t listened to you, or do you engage the right partners in the right way? 5Y has the answers. Regards, Greg

Map the Market. Jobseeker Basics XVIII

By Greg Wyatt • February 23, 2026

What follows is Chapter 21 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . It's a good example of how a job search is an inverted recruitment exercise, but also how the same principles from recruitment can be applied in a job search. Market mapping is one of the first steps of a search process in what is often called headhunting. Here though, instead of an exercise that helps find a person for a job, you help find a job for you. This can be in one chunk, at the outset, and iteratively, as you learn more information. It's a great example of how LinkedIn can be used as a data repository, given the vast majority of professionals are present here. And if they are present here, the insight that is their careers is too, allowing you to identify potential viable employers, who works there, and therefore where else they may have worked, with further potential hiring managers. The snake that eats its own tail. Try doing the iterative work above, every time you come across someone new, whether in an application or in networking . You can use this to build out your network, identify companies to contact proactively. Simon Ward and I will talk more on this in our LinkedIn Live on Tuesday February 24th at 1pm GMT. You can join us, and view the full recording afterwards, here: Is The Nature Of Networking Changing for Job Hunters? If you happen to read this as a hiring authority, market mapping is one of the invisible processes in a structured search. It can often take me 80 to 100 hours to fully map a role for potential viable candidates, given I try to find non-traditional candidates as well as those that are easier to find through sourcing. 21 - Map the market Market mapping is a common activity in executive search. Why wouldn’t you adopt the same approach in your inverse of a recruitment exercise? The idea is to fully understand your market, so that you are better able to navigate it. This is a summary chapter because market mapping is both a strategic and a tactical exercise. I’ll cover some of the How of mapping in Part Three. There are three ways in which to map the market. The vacancies you are qualified for This is about determining which vacancies you should focus your attention on. In which domains does your capability directly apply? This could be context related, if your expertise is in start-ups, growth, downsizing or other contexts. It could be industry related - your process manufacturing expertise might directly apply in food, plastics or pharmaceuticals. It could be job related, with the right applicable skills. Establish where there is a market for you, and if what you offer is needed by that market. Advice on the transferable skills trap (p55) and whether you are qualified (p178) to apply will help. The geography of your job search Where are all the employers and vacancies that you can sustainably commute to? A geographical map can help you target opportunities by region. What resources are available to help you with this map? Searching online for local business parks, even driving around them, can give a list of viable companies to contact. Directories and membership hubs. Local newspapers, social media stories. If you see a company you like the look of, say from an advert, search on their local post code. Who else might be there? The chapter on doorknocking (p241) has more ideas. The people of your network Every time you come across someone you might build a relationship with, connect with them on LinkedIn. Then check out their career history. Who else have they worked with? Where else have they worked? This works for peers, hiring managers, and recruiters - a headhunter in one company may well have worked in a similar domain in a previous one. Is there anyone at these previous companies you should introduce yourself to? What about their listed vacancies? Building out a map of relevant recruiters to develop relationships with (if they answer the phone) can lead to vacancies. Treat it as an iterative exercise. Check out the chapter on networking (p236). This map isn’t just about potential opportunity. It’s also about information that might be helpful now and in future. This might be for job leads. It might be industry insight you can share through content. It may even be topics for conversation in interviews or with peers. Make sure you track it in the right way, whether through Notion, Excel or other resources you have available. With any information, check it is accurate, then prune appropriately. Prioritise on degrees of separation (closest first) and context fit (where what you need is most closely aligned with what you offer).