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The content interview

The Ten Questions

The interview I run with every client, in full, including what each question is actually digging for, and how to spot the usable material when you play it back.

Free to use, copy, or run on your own team · PipelineOS

Why you're getting this for nothing

Most recruiters know they should post more. Almost none of them are short of things to say. They're short of a way to get what's already in their head onto a page without it sounding like everybody else.

That's all this is. Ten questions, asked in a particular order, designed to pull out the specific opinions and stories you already give away for free on client calls every week.

I've run this interview well over fifty times. The questions look simple. They aren't. Each one is engineered to get past the version of your business you'd put on a website and into the version you'd describe to a mate in the pub.

Three rules before you start

01

Speak it, don't write it

Open a voice recorder and answer out loud, as if someone asked you across a desk. Writing makes people careful, and careful is the enemy here. Everything usable in this exercise comes out of how you actually talk.

02

Don't prepare

This is the awkward part of giving you the questions in advance. When I run this with clients I never send them first, because prepared answers come out sanded down and lifeless. Since you've got them now, do the next best thing: read a question, start talking within five seconds, and don't stop to get it right.

03

Tell it as a story wherever you can

"We're consultative" is worth nothing. "A client told me the candidate pool was 140 people, I mapped it properly and it was 43, and that changed the whole brief" is worth four posts. Specifics are the entire game.

Budget forty-five minutes. You'll come out with enough material for a month.

Part one

Positioning and audience

1

Describe your business to someone who knows nothing about recruitment.

What this is digging for

Whether you can explain your value without jargon. If you need the words "end-to-end", "bespoke" or "partner" to describe yourself, your market can't tell you apart from anyone else either.

A weak answer lists services. A strong answer names who you help and what changes for them.

2

Which clients do you most enjoy working with, and why are they right for the way you recruit?

What this is digging for

Your actual ideal client, as opposed to the one on your website. Notice whether you talk about the work or the relationship. Most people's answer reveals which they really value, and that becomes a content pillar.

3

What problem are clients really trying to solve when they call you?

What this is digging for

The gap between the stated problem ("we need a QS") and the real one: "we've been through this twice and lost both candidates at offer."

Content that names the real problem gets read. Content that names the stated one gets scrolled past.

Part two

Process and differentiation

4

Walk me through winning a client, from first contact to signed terms.

What this is digging for

The steps you take for granted. Recruiters routinely do six or seven things clients find genuinely valuable and never mention, because internally they seem obvious.

Tell this one in order, as a story. The sequence is what lets a prospect picture working with you.

5

What do you do differently that clients actually notice?

What this is digging for

Differentiation that survives contact with a buyer. "We care more" doesn't. "I give you a written market map before I approach anyone, and you sign off every line of the pitch" does.

If you can't answer this in one sentence, that's the finding.

6

If a client followed your advice perfectly, what would the hiring process look like?

What this is digging for

Your professional opinion, stated plainly: how many interview stages, how fast, who's in the room, what the feedback loop looks like.

This question produces more usable content than any other on the list, because it's where you're most confident and most likely to disagree with how your market actually behaves.

Part three

Insights and philosophy

7

What's the one mistake you keep watching clients or candidates make that costs them time or money?

What this is digging for

Your rant. Everyone has one: the thing you find yourself saying on the phone twice a week and have never once written down.

This is usually the best question in the interview. Don't be diplomatic.

8

How has your approach changed since you started, and what do you wish you'd done earlier?

What this is digging for

Evolution, which is what makes you credible rather than merely confident.

"I used to send eight CVs a role because that's what I was trained to do. Now I send two, and the volume is the only reason I can afford to" tells a buyer more about your judgement than any list of sectors.

Part four

Direction

9

What do you want people to say about you when you're not in the room?

What this is digging for

The tone everything else should be written in. Three or four words is enough. Whatever you say here becomes the filter every post gets checked against.

10

What do you want the business to look like in twelve to eighteen months, and which clients do you need more of to get there?

What this is digging for

Who your content should be aimed at, which is often not who it's currently aimed at.

Most recruiters write for candidates, because candidates are who they speak to all day, and then wonder why no clients turn up.

Then answer these four, quickly

  • What's your average fee?
  • How many placements a month are you making now?
  • How many do you want to be making?
  • Which geography or vertical is realistically winnable in the next year?

Those four numbers turn everything above from a nice conversation into a plan.

What to do with the answers

Play the recording back with a notepad. You're listening for three things.

Sentences you said with conviction. You'll hear them. The pace changes. Those are your hooks.

Stories with a specific number, name or place in them. Each one is a post on its own.

Anything you'd be slightly nervous to publish. That's usually the best material on the tape. If a post could have been written by any of your competitors, it won't do anything for you.

Then write in the order you spoke, and don't tidy the grammar too much. The roughness is what makes it sound like a person.

A worked example

What a legal recruiter said in answer to question eight, nine months into running his own firm, and what went out on his profile.

What he said out loud I set up on my own after twenty-odd years because everyone around me was job-driven and I'm candidate-driven. I'd rather work five roles properly than thirty badly. I'll tell a client when their brief is wrong.
What went out

"Nine months ago I started my own legal recruitment firm. Twenty-five years in the industry, and I'd watched volume culture quietly eat at the quality of every search I cared about. Fewer roles, more time on each one. Honest market mapping over hopeful CV sends. Long-term placements over quick fees. Pushing back on unrealistic briefs…"

Nothing invented. Nothing researched. It's the same thought, given a shape.

That post was his best performer of the fortnight, and, more usefully, the one that brought in people who'd never heard of him rather than the network he already had.

If you'd rather not do this yourself

That's the actual service.

I run this interview once a month, write sixteen posts from it and publish them for you, alongside a cold email funnel aimed at the same market.

PipelineOS · content and outreach for recruitment and search teams of one to twenty consultants. £2,000 a month, everything included, both funnels live inside three weeks.

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