Welcome to the Results Show for The Great Spa Manager Experiment!
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a fairly long article (almost 1,500 words in fact) here in the hope that we would be able to recruit a quality Spa Manager or two. The truth is, that wasn’t really my intention when I first started writing the article. Rather, the piece started out as a mini State of the Nation of my Linkedin Feed. I was becoming frustrated with the increasing number of ads – sorry, Promoted posts – that were appearing in my feed. Equally frustrating has been the number of posts I am seeing in a foreign language. Admittedly, these are from my Connections, but until Linkedin offers a basic translation service for these posts, they’re not much use to me.
As I began writing I remembered one of the key benefits of this professional network is finding new opportunities – or people to fill them. And we currently had a couple of openings. Having tried posting job openings before and being flooded with largely unqualified candidates, I decided to try something a bit different. If you want to find out the specific details of The Great Spa Manager Experiment, you can see that article HERE
But now, to the results…
The Metrics
Views
The Article has had 180 Views. In Linkedin parlance, that means the Article was actually opened 180 times. As far as I know, these are not necessarily Unique Views. If the same person clicks to open the article three times, each will be counted as a View. It also doesn’t tell me how long someone spent on the Article, so there’s no telling how much if any, of it they read. Still, it is a much truer indication of attention than a View of a Post. Post Views are counted each time your post appears in another person’s stream.
I’ve been posting at least one Article per week for around a year and a half now. Whilst 180 Views well below my highest ranked Article, it is a bit more than my average for Article Views.
Conclusion: The Great Spa Manager Experiment Article was only slightly more interesting to my network.
Insight: Though I had hoped for more reach, that was probably a bit ambitious. I don’t know exact numbers, but my guess would be no more than 25% of my 4,200+ network would be Spa Managers or at least potential Spa Managers. 180 clicks is 17% of those.
Likes
37 individuals Liked the Article, which is around 20% of the Views I received. This is about average for my Articles over the past 18 months or so. I’ve come to expect anywhere from 15% – 30% of those who View my article will Like them. It is worth mentioning that someone could Like the Article without ever opening it. So, there may be some of you out there who just clicked Like to throw me a bit of love. (If so, thanks!) But for now, let’s assume 20% of those who Viewed, also Liked the Article. Half of those Likes were from either current Spa Managers or people seeking a job as a Spa Manager.
Conclusion: Again, no real difference here from my previous Articles.
Insight: Those 18 or so people who Liked the Article are theoretically my real target audience. Based on this number, I would’ve hoped to receive at least 12 direct messages in response to the Article. Notwithstanding the fact that I clearly stated the openings we had were in Dubai and Russia and these destinations may not have been of interest to some of these people.
Comments
27 Comments were received. That’s 73% of the number who Liked the Article. My normal strike rate is around 15%. On the face of it, that sounds great. But, and here’s a little hack for those who want to pump up their metrics, Linkedin counts all comments made on the Article. Including those by the author. So, for someone like me, who tries real hard to reply to every comment on my Articles, that means the actual number of Comments from individuals is around half of that. Which still gives me a 40%+ Comments:Likes ratio. Not bad.
Conclusion: This Article did create a lot more engagement amongst my network than my content usually does.
Insight: Only 5 of these Comments were from potential candidates. Most Comments were from others who were just interested in the different approach I was taking.
Rubber Hits the Road
So, after all that engagement, how many actual candidates did I get?
Well, one person mentioned in the Comments that he liked the Article and considers himself a great Spa Manager. His profile mentioned he was open to opportunities. I thought this one would turn in to an application. However, since thanking him for his Comment, I have heard nothing. So, I have to assume that he had just enjoyed the Article and was not, in fact, interested in applying.
Another person sent me a direct message, as was suggested in the Article. But he asked how he can apply. I kindly suggested he go back and read the Article again and follow the steps mentioned. He said, ‘Ok.’ I’ve heard nothing from him since then.
One Shining Light
But one person. Just ONE person. Got it. He posted a meaningful Comment on the Article. He then sent me a direct message, telling me he is planning to show me why he would be a good candidate. I replied to tell him I was looking forward to it. Over the next couple of days he read and commented on multiple pieces of my content. He then waited. So did I.
I was deliberately waiting to see how long he would wait for a response and what he would do when he didn’t get one. I had replied to all his Comments on other Articles, just as I would to any other reader. But based on those comments alone I was not ready to engage directly about the job opportunities. Remember, this was the instruction…
And how can you apply?
Simple. Send me a message on Linkedin and convince me why you should be considered.
11 days later he sent me another direct message, to let me know that he had read some of my Articles and enjoyed them. He then went on to tell me a bit about his story and why he felt he was a good candidate. Now, after all that, he had convinced me why he should be considered.
Over the past week, we have interviewed this person and have found him to be a good candidate for one of our openings. We will be recommending him to our hotel partner for consideration. Fingers Crossed.
The Wash Up
I certainly would have preferred more candidates. But what I absolutely did not want was a flood of sub-par, half-hearted, almost-candidates.
This process cost me nothing in terms of ads or recruitment fees. The cost to me was only really the time in writing the Article. Time spent engaging with those who responded to the Article was not much different to what it is for every other weekly Article. My HR Department no doubt saved countless hours they would’ve otherwise had to spend combing through the standard applications from almost-candidates.
So, all in all, I think I’m happy enough with the final outcome.
A few things I would probably do differently next time…
- Make the Article a bit shorter. 1,500 words is a bit much I think.
- Re-post the Article multiple times a day/week. (Which I did say I would do, but I didn’t.)
- Share the Article directly with people in my network who are potential candidates.
