Recruiting is Marketing: How A Recruiter Sells A Career Without Feeling Salesy

Recruiting can feel like a totally different world from marketing, until you hear how Demi Mathis actually does it. Demi is a business development officer at Northwestern Mutual in Arkansas, and her day-to-day sounds a lot like what marketers preach: know your audience, show up consistently, start real conversations, and build trust long before you ask for a yes. We get into the behind-the-scenes of what it takes to attract interns, career changers, and entrepreneurial people who want more ownership in their work.

We talk through the on-the-ground strategy first. Demi shares how she markets on college campuses through class talks, professors, and career fairs, then shifts gears for full-time recruiting by getting plugged into the chamber, ribbon cuttings, local business expos, and referral networks. If you’re building a team, growing a sales org, or trying to strengthen your employer brand, you’ll hear practical ways to create a steady pipeline without relying only on online applications.

Then we go deeper into what really “sells” someone on a career. Demi tells the story of how she landed at Northwestern Mutual during COVID and why the role clicked once she saw what she calls the “four I’s”: independency, income, improvement, and impact. We also break down LinkedIn Sales Navigator, what makes outreach feel genuine, and why automated AI DMs can hurt ROI when the message stops sounding human.

If you’re hiring, job hunting, or just curious about modern recruiting and LinkedIn lead generation, hit play and take notes. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s considering a career pivot, and leave us a review with the biggest takeaway you’re applying next.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hey y'all, what's up? Welcome back to another episode of your favorite podcast. I am your host, Shelby McFarland, the marketing boss. And let me tell you guys, I found a fellow boss babe over here. This is Demi. She is the business development officer, director,

Meet Demi And Her Role

SPEAKER_00 0:35

whatever important title. Officer, there we go. Officer, yes, of Northwestern Mutual here in Arkansas. And we met at a women's business showcase, and she is actually on our podcast episode from that event where we have like a combination of a lot of people. So I got to know her a lot. So introduce yourself, Demi. Tell us what's up.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Hey y'all, I'm Demi Marge.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Or sorry, Demi Mathis.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Used to be Demi Marge, so some of you might marry.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

She's married, guys. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Identity crisis. Demi Mathis. Um, but yeah, I've been to Mutual for five years. Absolutely love it. I've been in four different offices, worked with about eight different teams, and couldn't recommend a better company to work with. Besides the marketing broker.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

I mean, clearly, yes. When she like quits that job, I'm like, okay, you get to come over here, obviously. So what she does is she actually is in recruiting. And so she recruits advisors and such to work for Northwestern Mutual. So I think it's a really interesting um turn on marketing because you're out in the community all the time doing things. So tell us like what your day-to-day or what your week would look like as a develop like a business development but recruitment style versus like sales.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah. So every day's a little bit different, of course. Um, most of my day is focused on interviewing different people, whether that's career changers or college students wanting to get into the internship program. So we will work with really anybody. We have full training and development. So regardless of your background, whether it's you know medical, teaching, law enforcement, military, other type of sales, I mean, we just look for the person and you know we'll get you all the financial planning knowledge you need. And then of course for a college student, you know, they're they're very comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Right. We hope they are, right? Yes, we hope. So when it comes to marketing, like your company and stuff, what are things that you focus on to attract people to Northwestern?

SPEAKER_01 2:31

So from the intern standpoint, we're doing a lot of class talks, go to different professors, you know, see if I can get in front of them, which typically they really want employers to come, especially someone a little bit on the younger side that's somewhat relatable, but I'm getting to the point where a college student thinks 25 is old.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

I mean, you you are so

Recruiting As Community Marketing

SPEAKER_00 2:50

basically about to retire. She's like, the advisors are great. I'm retiring at 25. Y'all should come over.

unknown 2:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

So career fairs, class talks, I mean, any any way I can get on campus is a way that we market ourselves there. Yeah. Um, do like industry insights, explore your career, anything like that. And then for full time, it's more so getting involved with the chamber, going to ribbon cuttings. I actually just went one today. Shout out um Callway Barbecue. AA great place, you should check it out. Um, but yeah, different things like the expos, bowling for business, like we're gonna do today. Super excited. And you know, of course, there's online lots of LinkedIn, sales navigator indeed. But my favorite is getting referrals, like meeting people like you, seeing, you know, who do you know? Uh creating COI meetings.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

So and I think that's really cool how I never really to thought about recruitment as a marketing technique or marketing for recruitment kind of situation until we met each other, and then it just got me thinking, like, it's kind of the same process as sales. Yeah, I mean, ultimately you're trying to sell these people on Northwestern. Absolutely. So tell me how you got sold on Northwestern whenever you were hired.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Great question. So I came into this totally blind. I thought I was either gonna join the military, own a restaurant, or be a famous singer or actress. Oh my god, like what how cool is all of that? Yeah, and I landed at Northwestern Mutual. So, you know, maybe someday I'll be in a movie, but for right now, I love what I do. But basically, I

Getting Sold On Northwestern Mutual

SPEAKER_01 4:16

had a friend in college, we were in COVID, so no one really knew what was going on. Yeah. My friend, um, that's now a CPA, he was interviewing for the Little Rock location, and he was like, I think you'd be a great fit. And I'm like, why? I don't know what Northwestern Mutual is. Right. And I literally don't know anything about finance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

I was a marketing degree. Of course, yeah. Like marketing and finance don't really go together anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

But fun fact, you don't have to have a finance degree to become a financial advisor. Oh, well, that's interesting to know. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

You know, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

But basically, my friend referred me. I was super confused, but I was like, I'm not gonna turn down an interview in COVID, like, I don't even know what I want to do. Right. I have multiple options between acting, restaurant, singing, and military. So, um, yeah, so I took the interview and I was like, me and the recruiter at the time really connected. Yeah. We actually um came from like a serving background, so we just hit it off. I don't even remember if we talked about Northwestern Mutual in the interview, but we were like, hey, we're best friends. So I was like, I'll do the internship. Yeah. And really fell in love with it from that point. Realized that this career offers what I call the four eyes, which is independency. You know, you have a work-life balance, income. There's no sailing on how much you can make, improvement. You can always advance yourself, like on your own, and then impact. Like everything we do is for the better, like betterment of our clients.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

We're like doctors for money. Oh, that's so good.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

I think I'm gonna change careers now. You've sold me. I'm now gonna become a financial advisor, guys.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

We need awesome female advisors. Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

If you've listened to the other episodes, they're like, she does not need to do people's money. No, that is not something that she needs to do. Well, that's a really cool story. I really um enjoy learning that about you. And it definitely makes sense. You're a creative, you're a marketing major. Obviously, you want to be a singer. I mean, clearly, right? Obviously. Um, that's another episode, guys. We had to put that one through the filter a little bit before. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Maybe tune it up a little bit, which is not the best, but auto tune.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Here we go. Yes. Well, that's cool. So you were in college for marketing. So tell me a little bit about that experience because I don't get to actually have interviews with people that went to college for marketing. Um, and I didn't go to college. So I would love to kind of hear about your stories or how you chose marketing, you know, that kind of experience.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

So um, if you asked me what I learned in college, it was nothing, right? But hey, I'm paying for it every day, every month. Um, it was a great time in Fayetteville. And we did have about two years, two and a half years, Rob, because of COVID. But yeah, I I still had plenty of social life, don't worry. I worked on Dixon Street, so there you go. I had plenty of interaction with people.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

It's probably too much, but anyways. Um is that even a thing for you? Too much people interaction? Like, I don't think it is.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, like when we were like, I feel so isolated in COVID. I'm like, well, you need to start working at JJ's because there's like 5,000 people here. Everybody's here, yeah. But everything else was shut down. It's like you can go to Dixon Street, you can't go to school. Did it make sense? But anywho, right to marketing. Back to marketing, yeah. I chose it because I thought it was like the social side of business. Like I knew I didn't want to do like numbers and stuff, like accounting. Yeah. And I was like, I think I thought marketing was sales at the time. I mean, it's it's hand in hand, yeah. Kind of. Yeah. So yeah, it was like marketing, that's the social side of business that seems fitting. Yeah. And my now husband was in Fayetteville already, so I was like, well, I've got to go there no matter what. Obviously. Even if I'm not studying, you know, I've got to chase my. Even if I'm just working at JJ's, it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

We're still gonna go to Fayetteville, yeah. We're going no matter what.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Um, so yeah, uh, it was a great time. I absolutely recommend going to Fayetteville, business, yeah. Shout out Sam Walton. Hey, but yeah, it was a great time.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Well, that's cool. So you say you didn't learn about anything about marketing. So let's talk about like your first year um in like your career. So was that with Northwestern? Yes. Okay, so you literally have worked with Northwestern since you started your career. Yes, unless you count the restaurants and then well, I meant like post post-college. Like, so this was your first okay, cool. I actually started in college. Oh, that's right. Okay, okay. Well, that's really cool. So, what was your expectations versus what was the reality of it?

SPEAKER_01 8:32

So I had absolutely no clue what I was getting myself into. Okay. Before I started, I was um telling people that I could, you know, get a new roof for them. I had no idea what type of insurance I was getting into. Uh, we do not do reefing insurance. No, you do not. No. Um, and it's more financial planning than insurance, but yeah, yeah, I really didn't know. I was just like, oh, I'm gonna have to like go get some suits and start acting professional. Uh-huh. And I would actually wear my suits to school to like attract clients. Of course. It kind of worked. And sometimes people are like, whoa, why are you wearing a suit to class? I'm like, well, I'm a boss. I have an internship in Northwestern Reach. Obviously, I'm way better than you, and you should probably come work with us or something. And it was a recruiting tactic, so yeah. Uh, I really didn't have too much expectations just because I was so clueless getting into it, yeah, that I didn't know what to expect, but it exceeded my expectations that I didn't have, if that makes sense. Well, yeah, for sure. I fell in love with it. The people were amazing. I loved the people I worked with so much that I stayed in Fayetteville an extra year just because I was like, there's no way I could ever love my work people as much as I love these people. Turns out I can because I love I absolutely love Romat now.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Of course, yeah. And yeah, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Miss those people, of course. But yeah, it's been amazing.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

I mean, I'm sure you like talk to them or see them, and it's all the same thing. There you go. Yeah, yeah. So let's switch a little bit here. Um, so you talked about you use LinkedIn for a little bit of your recruitment. So tell me what that looks like.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

So we do sales navigator. There's so many different tiers to LinkedIn. You can pay like a million dollars and literally basically have someone do your job for you. Yeah. I'm not doing that, but it's sales navigator's great. You can

LinkedIn Sales Navigator That Works

SPEAKER_01 10:11

basically reach out to 150 people a month, I think, that you're not connected to. So I do that a lot. Um, just you know, I'll search in whatever I'm looking for each month to something different. There's always like we're always willing to like talk to the right person. Of course. Like this month, for instance, it's fitness sales, medical device sales. Okay. So like that's our focus. So I'll like use search strings to find people in our area within those fields and just reach out to them, like, hey, have you found your forever career? Most people haven't. Right. And they're like, Whoa, yeah, I guess you're right. I haven't found it. And then they'll talk to me. Whether it's a good fit or not, it's a different story.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

But well, yeah, but you get that conversation started. So um a few, well, probably almost a year ago now, I actually hooked up with like this AI company that used Sales Navigator. Um, and we they would send like AI messages to them for me, but like I got to put in the prompts and like I got to write it all out, but I didn't have to do like the actual physical work. And I've noticed, and it sounds good, but like I noticed that like I would not have near as good ROI and conversation with people responding to me or something like that versus when I just like did it myself and went out and like tried because business to business is what I'm looking for too, and LinkedIn is a great tool. In fact, if you have time, listen to my episode with Katie Razor because she's a LinkedIn expert. Um, and so she talks about all that, but I know from my experience I do like using the extra paid stuff on LinkedIn, but I kind of do it in seasons. It's like, okay, well, here's a little bit of a slow season, so I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna try to like nurture some of these relationships that I've built.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Would you say the same? Yeah, absolutely. And it's someone actually told me about Katie earlier for me to talk to her. Oh, yeah, I'll introduce you because she's amazing. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yes. Um, she's a LinkedIn expert, she helps people like um with their personal LinkedIn, like what you should be posting, how you interact, and things like that, which we use a lot of LinkedIn for our clients that are business to business, but like we have like our actual business page on there, and then I kind of educate them on like you still have to be active, like you gotta post things, you know, on your own personal page, which you do as well already. So cool. Well, I have really enjoyed our talk today, Demi. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much. Do you have any other like tips or things you want to like plug for the people? Because I mean, there's like thousands of people that watch this. Whoa. And listen to it. So like no pressure. They're gonna probably look you up on Google, they're gonna find you on LinkedIn. But tell us, like, if maybe more about what you're looking for right now when it comes to,

Who They Are Hiring In Arkansas

SPEAKER_00 12:47

you know, leads or what you're looking for if they haven't found their forever. Yeah. A lot of entrepreneurs are listening to this, so maybe they haven't found their forever home.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Well, that that's great. So, really, what we're looking for is someone that wants to build something for themselves, but they're not by themselves. Yeah, like a lot of people, pretty much everyone I've ever talked to would love to have a business. Absolutely. But they don't know how to even begin. Right. Lots of money. Who do I hire? What's that million dollar idea? Yeah, where is this building gonna be? All those things. So people, unlike you, don't even do it. Right. Well, this is an opportunity to step into an already established business. We've been around for almost 170 years at this point. We're not going anywhere, and we're Fortune 100, so you'd be backed by a very stable, great company, yeah, but still have full autonomy and flexibility over your schedule. You create your own book, there's no ceiling on how much you can earn. Yeah, so pretty much like a win-win.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

And you don't have the overhead expenses and liabilities, like yes, like I do. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for that. But hey, we are hiring, like I said.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

So sorry guys, marketing workers closed. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

But really, you know, someone that's entrepreneurial spirited, wants to help other people, um, very much a disciplined person, coachable. Again, you don't have to have financial advising background because you're gonna learn everything there is to know in the career.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

So, where do they need to be located to work with Northwestern Mutual?

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Well, we have offices all over the country. Okay, even Hawaii and Alaska. Nice. Yeah, but for if you want to work with me specifically to do the interview, yeah, you need to be in central Arkansas. Cool. We have another office in Northwest and in Jonesboro. So those, if you're in those areas, I would you know connect you to their uh business development people, but anywhere in central Arkansas would be a great fit for for us.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Cool. Well, thank you so much. This has been really fun, and I'm sure we'll be doing more next. I mean, I would like that. We should do more of like a fun podcast about your singing, obviously. I'm thinking we do like an American Idol situation, like you just like come around the curtain and we're like, eh, or like, yay!

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Different, different voices.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

I love different genres. I love that. Okay, guys. Well, thank you so much for listening and watching, and we will catch you on the next episode.