10 Reasons To Invest In Your Personal Brand In 2023
Darren Westall
February 16, 2022
Marketing
We’re sure that if you own or work at a recruitment company, you’ll know the importance of personal branding by now. Not only is company branding important, but personal branding is vital on a whole other level – particularly when it comes to being a recruiter.
If you’re unsure what we’re talking about, take a look at your LinkedIn homepage. Are there any familiar faces that you regularly see or engage with on LinkedIn? Do they tend to get a lot of engagement on their posts? They have clearly been working on their personal brand – and this is what we’re encouraging you to do, do.
Below are our top 10 reasons to invest in your personal brand in 2023.
1. Your personal brand is your USP
There are thousands of recruitment companies in the UK alone, meaning recruitment competition is high. This is the first of many reasons why you should invest in your recruiter personal brand – you have quite a large crowd you need to stand out in.
Your unique selling point doesn’t need to mean a whole host of new recruitment tactics that you use on social media. You are your USP. Your personality and engagement with your network is what will make candidates and clients want to not only engage with your content initially but also continue to do so.
2. Be visible
In 2023, if you are a recruiter and you aren’t investing in your personal brand on social media, you are borderline invisible.
Posting jobs and contacting your candidate pool can only go so far. Expanding your network on LinkedIn will not only make you more visible, but it’ll mean more people are seeing the content you are sharing. Whether you’re writing a blog about current market trends or posting a video of yourself talking about a job you’re currently recruiting for, be sure to stay visible on the social channels your audiences are most active on.
3. Reach more candidates
There are currently more than 875 million users on LinkedIn, and of the approximate 310 million monthly active users, only 3 million share content weekly.
That is less than 1% of the monthly active users who are collecting 9 billion impressions every week.
What does this mean for recruiters?
The more content you produce and share, the more candidates you will reach. It’s that simple. Of course, the content you produce will need to be of good quality and the topics being discussed need to be interesting, engaging and/or entertaining, but as long as you are consistent, you will continue to reach more candidates.
4. Show expertise to future candidates
If you connect with candidates on LinkedIn, or a candidate applies for one of your jobs elsewhere and you connect on LinkedIn as a result, it’s almost absolutely guaranteed that they will take a peek at the content you’ve been sharing and engaging with.
This is exactly why you need to demonstrate that you know what you’re on about. If there’s something happening in the sector you recruit in, talk about it. Write a blog about it. Do a poll (we know people hate them but they’re great for engagement!) or record a quick video of yourself asking your network a few questions for their thoughts. Share external news articles with a few of your own thoughts in the caption. Whatever it is you choose to do, make sure a big part of your consultant personal brand is demonstrating expertise in your field for the benefit of future candidates.
5. Stay competitive
Some recruiters may feel put off or slightly intimidated by other recruiters they see on LinkedIn or other social channels. It may not come naturally to everyone to hop on camera and record themselves talking, and we understand that. Being on top of your personal brand can take some work.
The best thing to keep in mind is to stay competitive. You don’t have to do exactly what all your competitors are doing with their personal brands on social media. All you need to do is own your personal brand. Invest time in it, stay consistent with it, and produce the kind of content that you’re comfortable with and your audience engages with. Don’t let it slip to the bottom of your to-do list – personal branding is vital for recruiters and will only become even more so with time.
6. Build client relationships
It’s not just candidates you’re connecting and engaging with on social media – building client relationships is a huge part of personal branding. You’re selling yourself, your company and your services all in one place – and we don’t mean direct selling. Quite the opposite, actually.
The great thing about personal branding is it can be something completely separate to your sector specialism that can generate a work-focused conversation. For example, if you were to post about the Olympics and one of your clients (or potential clients) commented on your post, this could generate a conversation which could eventually lead to something work-related. You don’t always have to sell to upsell.
Connect with all your current clients on LinkedIn, and any potential clients at businesses you’d like to be in touch with. Don’t sell to them immediately – let your personal branding do the talking.
7. Show expertise to current and future clients
Personal branding is another great way to demonstrate your in-depth knowledge of the sector you recruit in, and your passion for having discussions with the people working directly within the sector.
If you are an energy recruitment consultant, for example, posting a blog or a LinkedIn update about the current energy crisis and what it potentially means for energy companies in the UK is likely to generate conversations.
Showing expertise to not only your current clients that you’re connected with, but also potential future clients who may see your post, is just one of the many benefits of personal branding on social media.
8. Stay relevant
There’s no easy way to say this.
The longer you aren’t active on social media, the quicker your network will forget who you are.
That’s not because you’re not superb at what you do – we’re sure you are – but the amount of competition in the recruitment world is incredible. Recruiters are all over LinkedIn in particular every single day, so if you were to miss as much as a week or a fortnight of posting and a candidate or client needed your help in that time, they may actually go elsewhere for recruitment help.
(That’s another reason why it’s great to schedule social media content if you’re going to be off work, too!)
9. Grow your network organically
For those of you who don’t know, most recruitment organisations (rightfully so) actually spend a lot of money on marketing. The great thing about personal branding is that it is down to the recruiter – for the most part – and a completely organic and low-cost way of growing your network.
You don’t need to constantly search for relevant people on LinkedIn to connect with. Of course, doing this weekly is a great idea – but if you’re engaging on other people’s posts, and sharing your own content a few times a week, this will help the connections come to you.
Consistency is key – growing your network organically isn’t an overnight job, but it’s doable.
10. Get more visitors to your LinkedIn page and company website
What does a recruiter’s personal branding mean in the long run? If it’s done correctly, it ultimately means more LinkedIn profile views, more visits to your company website, more job applications from relevant candidates and more client enquiries.
Personal branding is basically about marketing yourself and demonstrating that you know what you’re talking about, without being too ‘salesy’. The more people can relate to you and enjoy your content, the more your network will actually convert on your site as a result (eventually).
Get in touch about personal branding 2023
Paiger isn’t just a social media scheduling tool – although we do do that! We also offer alternative nurturing and advocacy products, such as content curation and auto-job posting, ensuring that content consistently goes out on your social channels. Book a demo with us today to find out more.
Recent Posts
Check this out
2023 updates and tips to get the maximum reach of your posts
Passive Aggressive Marketing T-Shirts, All For Charity
Learn how a startup is tackling marketing
Featured Posts
Resilience and risk-taking in recruitment: a conversation with Will Pearce
Paiger acquires The Lonely Marketers
