Career practitioners routinely tell clients not to put all their job-search energy into one channel. Online applications alone are rarely enough. Yet when marketing their own businesses, many resume writers and coaches have become heavily dependent on the very platform they warn clients not to rely on exclusively.
The attraction of LinkedIn is obvious—job seekers, employers, and recruiters are there. But career professionals are also competing with thousands of other resume writers, coaches, recruiters, and job-search experts for attention. Even those with substantial followings remain dependent on a feed they do not control.
The answer is not to abandon LinkedIn. It is to think more broadly about how prospective clients find expertise and develop trust.
Substack and the Value of an Audience That Stays
Substack operates somewhere between an email newsletter and a social platform. Readers can subscribe directly, while features such as Notes and recommendations help writers build ongoing relationships.
Virginia Franco, who focuses on executive resumes and profiles, has begun using Substack to share job-search, resume, and LinkedIn advice.
Her approach is simple: She reshapes material she has already created elsewhere. Career practitioners often have years of useful content: LinkedIn posts, newsletters, webinars, client FAQs, articles, and answers to recurring questions.
Substack gives that thinking somewhere to accumulate. A LinkedIn post can become an article. An older piece can be updated. A recurring client question may contain the seed of something worth publishing.
Medium offers another way to extend existing content, particularly around topics broader than resume advice: leaving a profession after becoming successful in it, identity disruption after a layoff, returning after caregiving, or realizing you no longer want the career you spent years building.
Executive Career Strategist Arno Markus has published career and resume content on Medium, including articles adapted from his blog.
Go Where People Are Asking the Real Questions
Other platforms offer something different: access to people actively asking questions.
Reddit, with its topic-based communities and culture of anonymity or pseudonymity, often surfaces candid conversations about careers, layoffs, workplace problems, and job searching.
Career Strategist Lorraine Beaman found a similar opportunity on Quora. She was recognized as a “Top Writer” in 2018 for contributions on job searching, interviewing, and negotiation.
“I learned about Quora at an NRWA conference and began answering questions,” Lorraine said. “Those answers have now been viewed more than 4.9 million times.”
The experience also helped her grow more comfortable sharing her expertise. She later wrote a book and hosted a podcast.
Relationships Are the Main Benefit
Teegan Bartos, who expanded her business from resume writing into career strategy and HR consulting, says the biggest return has come from relationships.
“Having someone come on my podcast didn't impact someone's decision to go with my services,” she said. “It was that guest's personal referral that made the difference.”
That may be the most important lesson. The value of a platform is not simply how many people see a post. It is the opportunities it creates for trust and relationships over time.
Lorraine’s advice is to start small.
“You already know more about resumes, job searches, and careers than the average job seeker,” she said. “Your knowledge is valuable, so don’t be afraid to share it.”
The goal is not to be everywhere. Try a platform that interests you, learn how people use it, and see what conversations develop. Create more than one place where the right people can find you.
NRWA members can read an extended version of this article on the NRWA’s business resources page. Access to this bank of helpful resources is a perk of NRWA membership.
