Hishem Azzouz books podcast guests by reaching out to his blog's previous contributors, validating interest with a Twitter poll, and pitching 15-20 minute interviews as a platform for guests to promote their work. He emphasizes direct outreach on social platforms and framing each invitation as mutual opportunity.
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So my podcast is only gonna work if I get guests on the show. How the hell am I gonna get guests on my show? So my podcast is only gonna work if I've got people to speak to. So how am I gonna find guests? And how do I sort of obviously get them interested in coming on my podcast, etc. So let me share with you sort of how I've done it and what I've done so far. So what I've really got in my favor is that I've got this recruitment blog. So the first thing that I did was reach out to the people who actually did a guest post on my recruitment blog. So I reached out to them and sort of said, "I'm thinking about doing this podcast. I'm really excited about it. What do you think? Would you be happy to get involved, etc." First things first is you're gonna have to be proactive. You're gonna have to message people. You're gonna have to use your socials. So you should, I'm sure you'll be on other socials if you're thinking about doing a podcast. So get people's thoughts. And one thing that I did as well actually, which I haven't shared, is that before I really decided, right, I'm gonna start a podcast, was on my Twitter I actually started a blog, which, not a blog, sorry, a poll. And I started the poll and said, "If there was a recruitment-specific podcast, would you listen to it?" And it didn't get loads of votes. I think it got around sort of 15 or 20, but I think basically all of them voted yes and one person voted no. So that was enough for me. But what I'm trying to get at is that you're gonna have to be proactive. So you're gonna have to get down in people's DMs, you're gonna have to message people on Twitter, you're gonna have to tweet them. And also, be a bit smart about it. What's gonna really help and what I've sort of tried to do is, Speak to people who may have a bit of influence themselves. Speak to people who are active on social because you want it to be just as much for the guest as you do for you, obviously, and your podcast. So I've always spun it that way when I've reached out to people that I'll always, always give them an opportunity. I'll always give them an opportunity to sort of plug in what they've got going on at the moment, what they're excited about. And I think that's important when they're taking time out of their day to obviously have a conversation with you on your podcast. So basically, be proactive enough to get messaging people. Be a bit smart about it. Reach out to people that you think would be interested because they're doing a lot on social or have a bit of influence that might help you. And make sure it's just as much for them as it is for you as well. And one last point, which I sort of made a bit of a pivot. When I was reaching out to people was when I reached out to people, they said, how long is it gonna take? How much time do I need, etc.? And especially recruiters, we're busy. We're so, so fucking busy. So what I decided to do, which has really worked, and the feedback I got is now a lot better, is that I'm gonna make it a 15, max 20-minute conversation. If it goes over that, that's okay. But when I'm reaching out to people and going, 'Right, I need 15 minutes of your time,' then people are a lot more inclined to that because a lot more people have 15 minutes to spare. So how are you going to get people on your podcast is being proactive, get messaging to people, and also just be a bit smart about it and make sure that what value you're giving to them by them coming on your podcast and all that sort of stuff. So that's what I've done and what I wanted to share in terms of how I get guests and how I get them wanting to come on the show.
