How do you write a LinkedIn post that gets replies?

Because a timeline is not a job board. Someone on a job board is searching. They typed in a query, they are comparing options, and they read a job advert asking themselves whether this is for them. Nobody on LinkedIn is searching. They are scrolling between two meetings, past an old colleague's news, a congratulation and a photo of a team day out.

A job advert is written for the first situation. It opens with the organisation, lists the requirements and ends with a button. Drop that text into a timeline unchanged and it asks for attention from someone who asked for nothing. That is the whole difference: on a careers page you answer a question, in a timeline you first have to raise one.

It also explains why "we are looking for a maintenance engineer, apply via the link" produces so little. There is nothing in it that makes anyone think about their own job. And the people you want to reach on LinkedIn are usually perfectly comfortable where they are. They respond not because they want to leave, but because something in the post matches what they recognise. The broader version of that problem is covered on reaching passive talent.

That is the only part of the post you can be sure people read. Everything below it sits behind "see more", and nobody clicks that unless the opening promises something. We rewrite those opening lines every week, and three kinds of them do the work.

The first is a concrete situation from the job. "Our engineers have been running a second van since January." "We pushed back two installations last month because there was nobody free to run them." Anyone who does that work sees a picture straight away and keeps reading. It is also an opening nobody else can copy, because it is about your company.

The second is a genuine question, provided it is one the reader has an opinion about. Not "could you be our next colleague?", because that has one possible answer. Rather: "what would make you move to a smaller team?" People who are not looking at all will answer that, and they are the ones who put the post in front of someone who is.

The third is a decision you explain. Say what is different about the work compared with what the reader expects, and why you set it up that way. A four-day week, no weekend call-outs, a van that goes home with the engineer: name it, then give the reason.

What almost always ruins it is the run-up. "We are hiring", "exciting news", "we are growing". Everyone has scrolled past those thousands of times, and all they confirm is that an advert is coming. So do not start with the job title and do not start with the company name. Both can sit on line four, once the reader is in. That is the same reasoning behind our recruitment content: the reader's subject first, yours second.

A company page and a person do not do the same thing, even with identical wording. A post from the company page reads as policy. A post from the manager of the team reads as a person asking something, and people answer people sooner than they answer organisations.

Stronger still is a post from a colleague who actually does the job. They can write what a manager cannot: where the work is hard, why they stayed anyway. Nobody reads that as recruitment copy, which is exactly why it lands.

Do this deliberately, though, and not only when a vacancy is open. An account that posts nothing but vacancies gets read as exactly that. Someone who writes about their trade all year has a post that works on the day it is needed. That is a distinct approach with its own rhythm, and we describe it on thought leader recruitment rather than repeating it here.

How long should a LinkedIn post be?

Long enough to tell one thing, and no longer. In practice that is three to six short paragraphs. Length is rarely the real issue: the issue is that two or three subjects are crammed in, so the reader finishes without knowing what you wanted from them. Pick one situation, one question, one role. If more needs saying, make it a second post next week.

Should I put the vacancy link in the post?

Put it in if you want applications, and say what sits behind it. On what the algorithm does with links we make no claim: we have not measured it, and we would rather say nothing than something we cannot back up. In our own campaigns we see that a bare link gets clicked less often than a link with one sentence underneath explaining the next step.

How often can I post the same vacancy?

Not twice with the same words. More often with a different angle, yes: one week the situation in the team, the next a colleague on how they started, then the reason the role exists at all. That is three posts about one vacancy and nobody experiences it as repetition. Planning that across channels is covered on social recruitment.

Replies are coming in but no applications. Now what?

Then the opening is attracting different people from the role. Replies often come from peers who recognise the situation without looking to move, which is fine as long as the post also reaches the people who are. Check that it is clear which job this is and what the first step looks like. The underlying pattern is on wrong applicants.

We write and measure this kind of copy every week and see which opening line gets read and which does not. If you would like a second pair of eyes on yours, SocialFind is happy to take a look. If you would like examples like this in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter.