A strong personal brand is vital as a recruiter: Our top 10 tips for success

More than ever, consultants need to build a strong personal brand for a successful recruitment career. With the UK recruitment market worth over £35bn, it is worth building a personal brand that gets you noticed. Recruiters should adopt good habits to build a brand that strengthens credibility and most importantly, in a lucrative and fast paced market, gets you noticed.

Why do recruitment consultants need to build a strong personal brand?

Personal branding is more than just marketing. In a competitive industry like recruitment (which is continually growing) branding yourself professionally online can mean the difference between standing out or fading entirely into the background. Auxeris has some suggestions for building your own strong personal brand online. Here are our 10 most valuable ways to get people to know, like and trust you. Simple really!

Start blogging to build your personal brand

Build your online presence and start blogging - you have experience and expertise so use them and talk about areas that you are genuinely knowledgeable about. These should naturally link into your business and be a clear way to highlight that you are an expert in your field. Think about your audience and what value you can add. As you create the divide between client and candidate you how a birds eye view from both perspectives. Be sure to mix your content to appeal from one to the other.

To build your brand, show up

Make sure your online presence is varied - your target audience isn’t only on one platform. More than that, you'll have different audiences on different platforms. It's time to think about how you can communicate your message, what works on these different platforms. Do you know? If not, take some time to review what is happening and how you may be able to tap into this. Think out of the box - from video, to vlogs, to blogs, although nailing TikTok routines probably isn't up there. You want to position yourself as a thought leader. That you are creating content of value and you're clearly demonstrating how and why clients should work with you, and why candidates will want to know you.

Pick your platforms

You don't need to show up on them all. Some platforms are more relevant than others but take care to take time to make sure you target this correctly. Think about who you are and the best way to get that across. Don't ignore engagement and sharing as a tactic. Think about how you can be a conversation starter, or at the very least get involved with conversations that are taking place.

If you have access to a Social Media professional in your business ask if they can help or guide you as they will have some very useful insights. If not, think about investing some time in working with a Social Media professional - the return on your investment could be enormous in terms of client generation as well as getting talented candidates to want to work with you.

Be consistent and authentically you

Not like a bus consistent, but do spend some time thinking about this one. At a minimum commit to showing up on the best social platforms to grow your personal brand a couple of times a week.

Now for authenticity. What do we mean? Well, create content that relates to you and comes from you. We circle back to TikTok dances - funny? Yes. But relevant to what you want to achieve? Not so much. It's probably not going to deliver a huge amount in terms of new business - although you may get some good memes out of it.

Make a plan for your personal brand

When you're growing your brand, you want to show what your core strengths are. Do you have particular ethics that you abide by? (Please yes - no spamming). What is important to you? What is important to your client or candidate? What is going on for them in their industry? What do you know about that and how can you create something that demonstrates that awareness?

In everything you do make sure that you have the same approach that is consistent with your core values. Be sure to include them in every communication you create. This is your personal brand.

Be genuine to who you are, when brand building

If you are not the 'suited and booted' type of person then why have a lot of photography with you all buttoned up and arms folded? If you are the type who loves to be in a bookshop with coffee and a laptop then show that is who you are. Think about your genuine self and include this in your brand, this is who you are. Humans build trust when they get to know others so it is important to show who you are. It is the beginning of your relationship and to elevate your brand.

Read up

Keep up to date with your industry, its news and attend events. If you are attending, share this as there may be someone from your network there too. Tag people you meet on social media and start building out your network. It shows you are serious about what you do.

Avoid shiny things

Don't be tempted to jump on the bandwagon - don’t leap on it just because everyone else is there - Clubhouse anyone? A great platform and idea for some, even better during a boring lockdown when human connection was limited. However, the time it took to take part in those conversations and rooms were probably not worth it. It was very hard to demonstrate value from the time spent on the platform. And with so many conversations happening, even more difficult to identify where your key client might be hanging out. Remember that you time is limited, so keep it to a few things that you can do consistently and best.

Reputation is key with a personal brand

Keep true to who you are, remember your internal brand (ie those who know you best and work with you each day is more important than your external brand) - build upon your integrity and then work hard to keep it. This is how you start to build your reputation. Set yourself apart and be know for that brilliant work that you do. Before you know it, people will be recommending you based on your skillset, experience and integrity. Your reputations is your personal brand, so do everything to build it in person too.

Build trust for success with your personal brand

Lastly, keep focused - building a strong personal brand allows your candidates, clients and colleagues to build trust in you. That includes who you are, what your experience is and what you can deliver. So stay focused, act with integrity and be known for being brilliant at what you do and keep building! Make a plan, work hard, get advice from experts and see your personal brand grow, thrive and succeed.

The Auxeris team are all experienced recruitment professionals or experts in their field. We are ethical recruiters who do recruitment right. Our brand is doing recruitment differently to the traditional model. Consultants keep the lion's share, clients aren't spammed and when we do work with them, they are charged a consistent fee. As for candidates - we treat their data with integrity and only put them forward for roles that they are a match with on a skills and personality level and with permission. To find out more about working with us, take a look at our website here.

Nicky Webster-Hart is our Account Director and leads our community of specialist recruitment agents.