LinkedIn: Talent Solutions

Client: “I focus on top-of-funnel content—very much brand awareness and thought leadership”

From sourcing diverse talent to bringing out the best in remote staff, building a business dream team isn’t easy. It’s unsurprising, then, that so many hiring managers, talent acquisition teams, and others have turned to LinkedIn Talent Solutions for help. 

Founded over a decade ago, the product suite helps corporate giants like Amazon and Nestle to hire—along with thousands of businesses and organizations of all sizes around the globe.

And as Kathleen “Kat” de Lara, a Marketing Manager at LinkedIn, explains, her team is always on the hunt for new users. “My role is very much catered to attracting new audiences for our prospect base,” says Kat. 

“In my role specifically, I focus on top-of-funnel content—very much brand awareness and thought leadership, with the goal of educating business leaders and talent professionals and building trust with LinkedIn.” 

This is no easy task, especially as Kat’s role is focused on conceiving and running campaigns—and not on writing copy. No wonder she approached MarketSmiths to help out, a partnership that now—for top-of funnel-content specifically—covers everything from emails to landing pages to social media posts.

Challenge: “Past copywriters weren’t doing deep enough research…to understand timely issues people in talent acquisition were dealing with”

Before starting at LinkedIn, Kat had tried outsourcing copywriting marketing projects—without much success. “When I read copy from other copywriters,” says Kat, “you could tell that they truly didn’t understand the issues that were meaningful to people in talent acquisition.” 

“Past copywriters weren’t doing deep enough research—researching online, asking me more questions—to understand timely issues people in talent acquisition were dealing with. Talent acquisition can be pretty niche and sometimes requires more exploration and gut-checking.”

Kat’s job is focused on the operational side of building new campaigns—sometimes as many as four per month. But without a strong team of copywriters, she risked falling back into old, inefficient habits and “just scrapping most of the copy and rewriting it.”. 

Shared Success: “You’re reliable and dependable, really easy to work with”

After hearing glowing reviews from a fellow colleague at LinkedIn (one she knew to be a tough critic), Kat decided to give MarketSmiths a call. Just as well. We were soon on the move, producing incisive, thoughtful copy across a range of business challenges.

“You’ve been able to hit the ground running,” says Kat. “It’s been really easy for us to create campaigns with you.” 

Scroll through the LinkedIn Talent Solutions resources section to see some of the results. From questions to ask college graduates during interviews to tips on remote employee retention, we cover topics across the employee lifecycle, including talent acquisition and recruitment, diversity and inclusion, skills development, work productivity, leadership, employee happiness and retention, and more.

Since 2018, a collaboration has taken root. After deciding on a theme to focus on each quarter, Kat works with her SEO team to outline individual pages. That’s where our copywriting agency comes in. We’ll listen to what Kat has planned—and then give any suggestions we have on enhancements. 

“Based on what you’ve been exposed to working with other teams at LinkedIn, how else do you think we can take this topic? What other directions am I not considering?” says Kat. “It becomes a conversation about how we can evolve the topic to make it something that’s actually useful and timely for our audiences.” 

That’s when we put pen to paper. It goes without saying, continues Kat, that she rarely has much to complain about once a draft arrives. “I’ll go through it and share my comments, which are generally pretty minor,” she says. “Maybe it’s asking you to expand more on a certain tip or asking you to reword some things—but it’s never a major reconstruction of the piece.”

More broadly, Kat is consistently impressed by how quickly our copywriting team can turn around work. With global campaigns spanning several languages and taking several months to go through the design and translation process, timelines can sometimes be tight. But that’s never been an issue for MarketSmiths. As Kat says, we’re able to get fantastic pieces back to her “no problem” in just a few days. 

All this has a deep impact on how Kat approaches her job. Rather than poring over time-consuming rewrites, she says she can focus more on broader strategic work, analyzing campaign performance—and ultimately winning a larger audience for LinkedIn. 

This isn’t a hunch. As Kat notes, the work she’s done with MarketSmiths over the last year has resulted in “higher web engagement” with people “spending more time on our website.” It makes sense, then, that she summarizes her relationship with MarketSmiths so warmly. 

“You’re industry experts,” she laughs. “You’re reliable and dependable, really easy to work with. If I continue to work in this space, I would definitely want to take you to my next job.”