Julia Arpag on Building a LinkedIn Brand That Converts (Without Selling Your Soul)

[00:00:00] Welcome to the EVOLVE Talent and HR Show. I'm Anna Morgan, your career BFF known as the rescuer of dogs and careers, but now the creator of the EVOLVE Talent and HR Experience. My career has been one big series of unexpected plot twists that now have landed me in the world of events for the recruitment and HR industry. EVOLVE was born from a desire to build heart-centered spaces for leaders to show up boldly,

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[00:01:27] It is so easy to chase the vanity metrics of, oh, I got so many likes or so much engagement or so many impressions, but really the only metrics that matter are your revenue numbers. So I don't care. I've had some posts where I've gotten like 40 likes, but they got me in front of the CEO and founder of a $400 million tech firm, and we had a call following that post that I made.

[00:01:47] What if you could sell online without feeling like you need to take a shower afterwards? Most people think visibility and authenticity are at odds, that you either stay small and true to yourself, or you grow and become insufferable.

[00:02:01] Julia Arpag built a seven-figure recruiting form in under two years, and she's proved that a third option is possible. Today, we're live at EVOLVE 2026 in Atlanta, talking about building a LinkedIn brand that actually converts without you selling your soul. Julia, welcome to the show. Thank you. That was my favorite intro ever. Thank you for that. Oh my gosh, I'm so honored. Yes, sales can make you feel like you have to take a shower afterward. That was so well said.

[00:02:29] And my goal is to not feel that way. So thank you for that. Amazing. Oh, and if we haven't met yet, I'm Rona Pierce, host of the Workfluencer Podcast. But today, I'm taking over the Your Career BFF Podcast live at EVOLVE 2026 in Atlanta. So for those who haven't met you yet, what's the Julia story in 30 seconds? Oh my gosh, 30 seconds. I am Julia. I'm the CEO and founder of Aligned Recruitment.

[00:02:53] We started in August of 2023, and it's been two and a half years of beauty and insanity and craziness and figuring this out as I go. I was laid off at five weeks postpartum back in 2023, landed on my feet, launched the firm. And like you said, we hit a million in under two years. It's been a crazy journey. That is amazing. And I can't wait to talk more about how that happened. So you just gave a talk on building a LinkedIn presence that 10x is your career.

[00:03:23] A lot of people avoid LinkedIn because even though we're in recruiting, a lot of us avoid LinkedIn. Not us. A lot of people avoid LinkedIn because they don't want to be that person. How do you show up consistently without becoming insufferable? I'm sure some people would say I'm insufferable, to be totally honest. I think if you're any kind of speaker or public figure who's not afraid of putting your story out there, that is going to intimidate some people and that is going to annoy some people.

[00:03:53] What I have found is the secret sauce is staying authentic to my story and my business and my family and my values. We're a values-based recruitment firm. I'm very transparent about my faith in Jesus. I'm very transparent about my journey as a mom, very transparent about my journey as an agency owner. So what has really helped me show up consistently on LinkedIn and use LinkedIn as a revenue generator for my business is being real. Like not sacrificing what I care about, not pretending to be someone I'm not when I post,

[00:04:21] but making sure I'm keeping my message focused on what matters to my customers, which is tech recruitment. How do you find that balance and make sure like, okay, I'm being authentic. I'm having a bad day. How am I not a hot mess online? That's such a good question. I think the same way you have a bad day, but you show up to work anyway. Like I think you just show up as the best self possible that day. Like I don't air my dirty laundry on LinkedIn, right?

[00:04:51] Like I've had some days where I've posted and said, hey guys, this weekend, my one-year-old threw up all over the bed. My three-year-old ran a fever. Back when we were foster parents, I would maybe say, you know, my teenage foster son's got Fs in every single class this semester, right? Like I would be honest about what was going on if it was a bad day. But I was honest and I was like, but what did I do today? I logged online. I had these conversations. I had these calls. I did this with my team. I delivered this for my client. And you keep going.

[00:05:17] So I think there is some authenticity that actually does ingratiate you to your audience and make them see like, oh, this is a real person who goes through real struggles, but is showing up as her best self anyway. Amazing. Yeah. And I'm also team. I don't share everything online, but I share. People know I'm a human. I hope people know I'm human, but you share what really serves your audience. And I think that's really the difference between creators that are getting likes

[00:05:47] and creators that are making money from LinkedIn. Would you agree? I completely agree. It is so easy to chase the vanity metrics of, oh, I got so many likes or so much engagement or so many impressions. But really the only metrics that matter are your revenue numbers. So I don't care. I've had some posts where I've gotten like 40 likes, but they got me in front of the CEO and founder of a $400 million tech firm. And we had a call following that post that I made.

[00:06:14] So I think what really matters to me is getting in front of the right people and then actually driving that engagement to conversations. Take me back to that first post that actually drove you to like make money where you first realized like, ooh, this is a thing. Yeah. So what's interesting about posting, it's more of a marketing tool than a sales tool, right? So I'm in B2B. I'm selling into tech companies who are looking to hire.

[00:06:41] 97% of tech leaders are not going to buy from me at any given time. Only 3% of my potential buyers are actually ready to buy from me at that exact moment in time. So I view posting as a marketing engine where they're consistently seeing my content. They're seeing that I know what I'm talking about. And then when it's time, when they're ready to buy, they're going to reach out to me. So for example, I had this one $4 billion B2B SaaS company that watched me post for a year. And then their HR leader slid into my DMs and said, hey, I'd like to talk.

[00:07:11] And now they've been a retainer client of ours for months. So I think what's really important is keeping the long game in mind and not expecting it to be one post that goes viral. And now you have a quadrillion dollars. That's not how it goes. So looking back and going back to the selling, how do you make posts that help you sell? Because yeah, it's marketing. But at the end of the day, like all marketing, you want it to help you get qualified leads. So what do you post about?

[00:07:41] I tell stories. So what's really cool about recruitment is my team and I are literally changing people's lives. So we're helping people land amazing new jobs. We're helping leaders hire amazing new talent. We are changing the bottom line of the company. We're driving revenue. We're making their products better. We're making their services better. So just by telling success stories of people who've landed those amazing new jobs or managers who've loved working with our team to hire, that's really what drives my audience.

[00:08:11] Like that's what they want to see. That's what they respond to. And that's what I get to tell them. So it's the stories that really sell. What do you post about when you're starting out and you don't have those stories? That's a good question. My personal story came into play a lot then. Like people honestly loved and they didn't love that I got laid off at five weeks before but they loved that. And after that happened, I was able to really build a very successful agency in a very small

[00:08:37] amount of time because I had already built those really good relationships from my previous agency career even before becoming a founder. And because I have been a recruiter for about 10 years now, I was able to tell success stories from before I started my own agency. Like I had had a ton of very successful placements, very happy clients. And so I was able to reach back into the archives and pull those out and tell those stories. It's so important to have those archives. Like do you have a process for writing down those things, those stories? No.

[00:09:08] Wouldn't that be great if I was like, yes, here's my seven step framework. No, I honestly have a really good memory. It's funny. We just closed a new client last week and he and I were chatting and I remembered something he said in a previous conversation. He was like, wow, I got to be careful what I say to you. You're going to remember everything I say. And I was like, yes, I am. So I really have a really good memory. And that's honestly, especially the wins I've had, like they feel so good. Like when you did change someone's life or you did help a manager, you know, hire a really good A player for his team, you remember that.

[00:09:38] So yeah, I had a huge archive just stored in my brain that I was able to pull from. So, all right, people are sold. They're going to go on LinkedIn. They're going to start posting their stories. Now you convert someone. Now you're on a call. How do you go about that call? Well, because I don't know about you, but people feel that they know you from online when you get on these sales calls. How do you go about that call and closing them and converting them from, oh, cool content. Now this is what I do business.

[00:10:08] Let's sell. Oh, such a good question. I think about that all the time and I'm learning every single day. So I had never sold a single thing to a single person before I started the business two and a half years ago. Wow. I was only a recruiter. I was not running a full desk. I was not pitching clients and then closing the roles. I was only closing the roles. So I gave myself a crash course in selling and closing. I hired an executive coach who knew how to do it. I have read a comical number of books specifically about sales.

[00:10:35] Right now I'm reading Zig Ziglar's The Secrets of Closing the Sale because they are indeed secrets to me. I have never sold before, so I'm figuring this out as I go. So the most important thing I've taken from all of that is when you go into those discovery calls, number one, you expect to win. You expect to close the deal. And the reason for that is because you really believe in your product. You really believe in your service. So in my case, there are so many recruitment agencies. Like there did not need to be another one unless I'm going to be excellent, unless I'm going to provide a superior service. And that is what my team does.

[00:11:05] So I really do believe that this prospect should work with us. We will help them solve their problems. And then the big piece is my goal is to serve, not to sell. So when I'm in that conversation, I'm listening way more than I'm talking and I'm digging into their current state and any situations that they want to improve on, any problems they want to solve. And I'm seeking to serve them where they're at, not just close them. That's amazing. Does your team also post on LinkedIn? No.

[00:11:33] I'm the only seller on my team. So I have an incredible team. I have recruiters, I have sourcers, and I have operations managers. So they are all geniuses at what they do. And it frees up my time to be the one who's driving the new client business, driving that revenue, doing that business development. So it's a great system. So it's true founder-led marketing. It's 100% founder-led marketing and sales. Yeah. I absolutely love that. No, I absolutely love your story.

[00:12:02] You hadn't sold before. I thought you were going to tell me you had a full desk and then you transition into two years, seven figures. I'm so impressed. Thank you. That's so kind of you to say. I really appreciate that. Is there anything that you think listeners need to know that I haven't asked you? Oh my goodness. So I'm going to go back to Zig Ziglar, the book I'm reading of his right now. He has a quote that I live and die by. I've thought about this pretty much every day for the two and a half years that I've been running the business.

[00:12:31] If you refuse to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you. So in my case, I learned how to sell. In my case, I learned how to close. In my case, I learned how to run a company. No one is going to descend from the heavens and just give you a ready-made handbook. You need to go get the learning, get the resources, get the information, and then implement it. But the cool thing is you can. No one is stopping you.

[00:12:56] If you just simply choose to learn and choose to educate yourself, the sky is literally the limit. I love it. You know what I love about this conversation with you? And I just met you today talking to you is I truly feel that you believe that what you're doing is changing lives. It's not just a talking point. And I'm sure that comes out. I'm not sure. I know that comes through in your content because I don't I didn't know you personally,

[00:13:24] but I studied your content, obviously, before this conversation. I think that really is when we talk about like authenticity and it has to be you to be how do you how are you authentic? You actually truly believe that what you're selling is something that's useful for the other person. Absolutely. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if I didn't think it would genuinely impact my end user in a way that benefits our clients, our candidates and my team. I love that.

[00:13:53] So before we wrap, I have a quick. Rapid fire. Just fill in the blanks. First thing that comes to mind. Let's go. Normalize. Normalize taking risks. Stop rewarding. Stop rewarding selfish behavior. We need less blank and more blank.

[00:14:19] We need less control, like external control. And more internal agency. Success doesn't come from. Success doesn't come from believing the limitations other people have put on you. Love that one. Culture isn't blank. It's blank. Culture isn't. Top down.

[00:14:48] Culture is inside out. What's one thing listeners can do this week to start building a brand that feels authentic to them? Number one, identify your why. If you do want to build a brand, you need to have a very clear idea of why. What is your goal? What is driving you? Who is your audience? How are you going to serve them?

[00:15:14] And you've got to do the mental inner work, the spiritual work, the mental work, to make sure that your character can undergird whatever external results you get. It's got to be an inside job first. What does your support system look like? Because I'm sure every day isn't amazing and you aren't feeling amazing every single day. No, I never have a bad day. My children never misbehave. My clients never are mad. No, of course. I have bad days.

[00:15:44] I'm a human. And so my support system is, number one, I'm a Christian. So I'm very passionate about my faith. I would literally not be sitting here before you today if it wasn't for Jesus. Number two, my husband is the greatest man of all time. Like whenever I describe him to my friends, they're like, stop talking. Like they're pissed at me. He cooks. He's an amazing dad. He's hilarious. We go on weekly date nights. I adore him. We're 11 years into marriage and he's still my best friend. And then third, I come from a very supportive, amazing family. Which I do not take lightly.

[00:16:13] My parents, my siblings, we have an incredibly close-knit family. And that really gave me the confidence that even if you get knocked down, even if you have a crappy day, that's not the end of the story. So I would say those three things are the biggest players. Amazing. I've really enjoyed this conversation. How can listeners connect with you? The two best ways are number one on LinkedIn. I'm actually the only Julia Arpag on LinkedIn. So if you just look at my name, there I am. And then secondly, our website is alignedrecruitment.com.

[00:16:43] Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. It was so much fun. Thank you for joining me today on the Evolved Talent in HR Show. I'm Anna Morgan, always your career BFF. And my intention here is simple. To create brave, fun, and high-trust spaces for people-versed leaders. So that they can connect, learn, and also remember that they are not alone in this work.

[00:17:06] So if today's episode gave you a moment of relief, made you laugh, or gave you that spark to just keep going, then we are doing our job. Until next time, please keep showing up boldly, keep caring about humans, and always keep evolving. Bye!