5 simple steps to help recruiters build a personal brand

If you’ve been anywhere near LinkedIn over the past 12 months, you’re likely to have seen multiple posts on personal brand and why it’s so important to build one.

But what does this mean for recruitment companies? For those attempting to build a strong brand across social media, ignoring LinkedIn would be a costly mistake. And while many recruitment marketing teams might put the time and effort into keeping their company’s page updated, they may be missing out on the real power of the network.

For recruitment companies who really want to leverage all the brand awareness, sales and marketing opportunities that LinkedIn can offer, the key is tapping into the networks of your recruiters. And the best way to do that is to work with them on creating a personal brand.

Of course, we all know recruiters are busy, so let's make it simple. Here are the 5 steps to follow to grow a company with strong personal brands that convert followers into clients:

1) Start with your profile

• Make sure your headline is personalised and explains what it is you help your target audience with.
• Add an eye-catching banner that includes your contact details and company's brand.
• Choose a profile picture that reflects who you are - don’t try to look corporate if that doesn’t fit your personality - and make sure it's set to public visibility.
• Instead of treating your ‘about’ section like the cover letter of a CV, talk to your ideal client, and tell them what you do, and why you’d be great at doing it for them!

2) Add value and variety

• If you really want LinkedIn to work for you, the key is getting out of the mindset of using it to sell sell sell, and instead use it to show your worth and demonstrate the value and expertise you can offer.
• Do some research into content that your target audience will find helpful - run some polls or surveys.
• Post different forms of helpful content - you could do a video of yourself talking through an important topic, a short-form market update, a salary survey or other long-form piece, or a picture of you/ your team at an event.

3) Be consistent

• If you want to maximise your reach, then it’s all about visibility, and that means showing up consistently.
• You don't necessarily need to post every day, but you need to be active.
• Set aside 30 minutes at some point each day to connect with people, comment on other people’s posts, share content that you find interesting, or write your own post.

4) Be yourself

• Post about things that you are genuinely passionate about, as it’ll make your content more authentic
• Don’t be afraid to talk about topics that aren’t directly work related. If you play in a sports team, if you bake in your spare time, if you’re an advocate for mental health openness – talking about these are all great ways to help your audience get to know you.
• Ask your audience questions too - if you're authentically yourself, your connections are more likely to show more of themselves too.

5) Don't give up

• Getting engagement on LinkedIn takes time.
• For a while, you might not see a lot of difference in the numbers, but that doesn't mean it's not working.
• First more people will start to see your posts (your impressions will increase), then your engagements (likes and comments) will start to creep up.
• But it's crucial to remember that these numbers aren't important - often the people who reach out via a message or email have been seeing your content but not directly engaging with it - and that's fine!
• The important thing is to keep going, even if you don't see much difference to begin with. Yes, it takes time, but eventually, you'll cultivate a following of people who appreciate your presence and trust you.

Bear these things in mind when you’re building your personal brand, and you’ll start to see results pretty quickly.

As you support your team to do the same, their networks will grow too. Once they’ve started to increase their own presence and visibility, their advocacy of your company can be extremely powerful.

Need help with branding across your company? You might need a recruitment marketer! We're experts in placing non-sales and support roles in recruitment companies, so we'd love to help. Reach out to our team, or visit our website:

www.caminopartners.co.uk