Building your personal brand: A recruiter’s super power

Recruitment by its very nature is competitive, that’s just the game we signed up for. It’s what makes the thrill of securing a deal mean more. It does, however, mean that any advantage you can get over the competition is worth its weight in gold.

Your personal brand is your advantage. People buy from people and if you want to excel in your career, it’s time to start scrubbing up on your marketing skills.

Building an image of trust, authority and passion will ensure candidates and clients come flocking to your inbox looking for your help. This isn’t an easy task for everyone though. Some people get nervous, some can’t help but cringe inside whenever they post an update. We’re not saying you need to start channeling your inner Kim K, but an active social media account will help your billings.

If you’re looking to improve your personal brand, need help getting visibility, or simply want to get over your fear of that little blue ‘post’ button, we’ve got you covered. Here’s our guide to honing your super power…

1) Start by asking yourself a few questions

Working in recruitment is so much more than just recruiting. You work in admin, customer service, sales, and in this case, marketing. So your first step is to begin thinking like a marketer. Every marketing campaign needs a goal or objective, it needs an audience, it needs a reason ‘why’.

Begin by asking yourself a few questions to help frame the work you’re doing:

Who is your audience?

This one’s easy. Your audience will be candidates and clients in the market you’re operating in. You already know them inside out. Try thinking about where they hang out online. What publications do they read? What do they care about? What type of content do they scroll through when they’re pretending to work?

Why should they care about what you have to say?

If you can’t answer this, you’ve failed before you’ve even started. Unfortunately, it can be the one thing seasoned marketing professionals can’t answer.

With the sheer volume of content online, you need to find a reason why people should stop doom-scrolling through their newsfeed and pay attention to what you have to say. Having a clear understanding of the value you can offer your community will help you stand out from the crowd.

What does success look like for you?

Are you chasing social media fame or are you looking to improve your billings? These may seem as if they go hand-in-hand but it’s not always the case. Posting regularly and receiving high levels of engagement doesn’t necessarily mean people want to work with you. Having a small but highly relevant audience can be all you need. There’s no wrong answer to this question but it should be used to frame the type of content you’re posting.

2) Golden rules for success

Follow these simple principles and you’ll be on the right path:

Have a clear focus

Don’t go into this blind, take a moment to jot down what your focus is going to be. Decide on a few core principles for your personal brand and stick to these. It may help to draft up a few sentences describing what you’d like your channel to be, who you are and what you stand for. It can help to have a clear picture of your target audience when doing this. This can be used as the basis to instruct the type of content you post and what your tone of voice will be.

Be genuine

Don’t put on a fa?ade for social media – it’s easy to see through and will appear forced. Trust in yourself, stay genuine with your updates and only share content you’re comfortable publishing. Above all, stay true to yourself, the real you will be far more interesting than any persona.

Tell a story

When posting on social media, always use a narrative based approach, this keeps your content engaging and will ensure people actually read your posts. Include a beginning, inciting incident and resolution when crafting your updates. Consider long-term storytelling with your posts – regularly update your audience on projects you’re undertaking, add recurring themes and ongoing jokes. This is an especially effective way to keep people coming back and engaging with your content. If you’re unsure on how to do this, check out platforms like TikTok to see how others are doing this effectively.

Offer value freely

Social media strategies should never be promotional. Avoid content that falls into the ‘me, me, me’ trap. Instead look at how you can give genuine value to your audience without asking for anything in return.

Stay consistent

This is where so many people fall down when they’re looking to build their personal brand. You MUST stay consistent if you’re looking to get any kind of success from this. This can be broken down into three parts:

• Tone – always keep the same tone of voice
• Content types – pick formats which work for you and stick to them
• Frequency – you have to post regularly to make this work

Find a source of inspiration

Successful personal brands are everywhere. You likely follow a few of them yourself. Look for people that you think do it well, study what they do and replicate their formula in your own unique style.

Give it time

Your personal brand is something that will develop slowly over time. You shouldn’t expect to see any huge spikes of engagement after just a few posts. Stick with it, don’t get disheartened and watch your performance grow incrementally each month. Remember, we’re not looking to go viral here, it’s a slow process.

3) Work on your strategy

Everyone needs a strategy...

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https://rulerecruitment.com/building-your-personal-brand/