Your personal brand is the story you form to influence how others will perceive you. It is what you want your candidates and clients to see when they Google you while looking for a reliable recruiter; essentially, the first impression you will want your candidates and clients to have about you.
A good personal brand will reflect who you are, help you stand out from the crowd, and build initial trust between you and candidates and clients. Consider this in light of your online reputation, and the importance of building your personal brand becomes more relevant than ever. Whether you like it or not, what people say about you will affect the story you tell about yourself. So, getting ahead of the game and proactively creating a well-thought-of personal brand will make a difference in making a lasting impression.
How to Build a Positive Personal Brand as a Recruiter
Let’s take a look at the five ways you can enhance your personal brand as a recruiter to attract candidates and clients effectively.
1. Introduce your personal brand as a recruiter by highlighting your unique selling points.
When it comes to effective personal branding, self-marketing is essential. Your industry knowledge, network, expertise, and experience are your unique selling points that potential candidates and clients should know.
The starting point of a strong personal brand is your professional profile. Write a compelling bio that narrates pertinent information like the services you offer, the specializations you have, people who can benefit from your help, and topics you’re keen on learning.
The goal is for potential candidates and clients to have a concrete understanding of what you’re good at and how well you know your industry. If you have a recruiting specialty, make sure your insider knowledge cuts through by providing relevant data and insights to your networks. This practice will highlight your uniqueness and set you apart from the flock.
Related: How to Boost Your Brand Reputation through Transparency
2. Use your social media to serve up content that provides value to your candidates and clients.
Social media profiles are the best platform to feature relevant industry knowledge and skills, and smart recruiters are doing just that by utilizing powerful and value-based content to attract the attention of top candidates and clients.
When it comes to personal branding for recruiters in the 21st century, content is king. Tailor-made content that is relevant and even helpful is an excellent way to make a good impression. You may take account of your expertise, achievements, and activities. Then, regularly share them in various content formats like blogs, videos, infographics, and photos to catch your target audience’s attention. The more content you post, the more they learn about you. As you regularly provide interesting and beneficial content, people will want to be connected to you to gain more.
3. Invest time in building your network and engaging with them.
Remember that the strength of your candidate pool is directly related to the strength of your network. A recruiter who actively networks is a recruiter who proactively sources. Having a candidate pool made up of quality candidates already puts you one step ahead of your competitors. This mindset is crucial when recruiting for niche fields that require highly skilled candidates that are much harder to find. Having a trusted network can help you build a solid referral marketing strategy, giving you access to valuable referrals and elite talent pools, significantly easing your search.
One approach you can use is building a good social media network like LinkedIn and Twitter and regularly engaging with people who interact or connect with you. These platforms provide forums for topic areas relevant to your profile based on your social media activity and are a great avenue for you to solidify your personal brand narrative by showcasing your skills in action. Take advantage of these forums and be involved. It can be as simple as answering their questions or offering helpful advice through the comments. The key is generosity: share your expertise and be intentional. Once your skillset is effectively highlighted in your personal brand, candidates and clients would trust you and naturally want to connect with you.
Build and engage your network with Great Recruiters.
4. Make sure your visuals are on point.
Managing your personal brand includes being your own ambassador of professionalism. After all, your social image, especially in your professional accounts like LinkedIn, is the visualization of all that you promote and stand for. It will also be the first thing your potential candidates and clients will see when researching about you. So, it’s essential that you “look the part” because solid skills and excellent visuals make for a strong introduction.
Invest in a professional headshot that showcases not only your looks but also your personality. Veer away from homemade portraits, and under no circumstance should you use a webcam photo. Whether you choose to feature a closed smile or an open smile is completely up to your personality and brand. Just remember to do it right and excellently.
5. Build your trustworthiness by protecting your online reputation.
Your rating matters. Client and candidate reviews are essential to brand reputation management and directly impact the reliability of your personal brand. People want to know the quality of client and candidate experience you deliver before trusting you. With data showing that 55% of candidates who read negative reviews online end up abandoning their applications, a bad online reputation can have a potentially damaging impact on your personal brand.
Although you can’t control every single review, you do control how you respond. When dealing with negative feedback, adding small human touches is an effective way to manage your reputation. Let them know that you have taken the time to look into it personally, that you care about their experience, and are ready to present them with a thoughtful solution. This allows you to demonstrate your commitment to excellence despite any honest mistake and turn a potentially negative experience into a positive narrative.
Another smart way to protect your online reputation is to take control of your review base. You don’t have to wait for the reviews to come in passively. You can get ahead of the game by proactively asking for candidate and client feedback right after their experience. This provides a two-fold benefit: it lets you gain valuable insight into your performance and identify potential recruitment mistakes before they even happen while demonstrating that you are open to growth and value what your candidates and customers have to say.
Take control by aligning your reputation with your personal brand.
A strong personal brand is every successful recruiter’s key weapon in their arsenal, and there’s no better way than to let your excellence speak for itself. Through Great Recruiters, you can do just that without the tedious admin work. This reputation management tool automatically collects feedback from your candidates and clients and converts positive reviews to candidate testimonials so that you can post them on your social media profiles. Highlighting your best assets has never been this easy.
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