I’m A Top Biller, Why Do I Need To Use LinkedIn To Market Myself?
Rohit Kapoor
April 14, 2023
Recruitment
As a recruiter, it’s tempting to take your foot off the pedal and coast when you’re billing well. However, it’s essential to remember that the recruitment landscape is constantly changing. 72% of recruiters use LinkedIn to proactively find talent, but how many of those actually leverage the platform to passively attract and nurture talent? Our guess: not that many.
As Lee Riley at GKR London Property Recruitment so beautifully put it, “Recruitment in 2023 is no longer about transactions and placements, it’s about positioning yourself in the market as a provider of advice and guidance to your network. Recruitment Consultants should now be focusing on the ‘Consulting’, more than ever. Even in the 7.5 years in the industry I am always working on developing my personal brand and ensuring people understand who I am, what I do and why I do it. A visible presence on LinkedIn is one of the most business critical starting points”.
So why market yourself?
LinkedIn is an extremely valuable resource for building your personal brand and establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry. By consistently sharing relevant and engaging content, you can demonstrate your expertise and stay top-of-mind with your network. This can help you build trust with potential clients and candidates, and make you the go-to recruiter when the time comes.
In the recruitment industry, you never know when you might hit a slow period, and if you only implement your BD strategy when you’re having a slow month, it’ll already be too late.
As a recruiter, consistently marketing yourself and your expertise through the power of social media means consistent results. In a nutshell: stay in that top biller spot by keeping new business flowing your way.
How to market yourself
Whether you’re new to the power of LinkedIn or have been experimenting for a while, here’s our top tips for recruitment consultants looking to amplify their personal brand:
1. Optimise your profile
Your LinkedIn profile has a number of different sections. Make the most of them. To start with, ensure you have a strong header that explains exactly what you do to your target audience. Only the first 30-40 characters of this headline are visible before someone clicks through to your profile; but they are visible everywhere you leave a comment and everywhere you appear in the feed. Make it count.
Your profile picture is another element that’s visible from everywhere on the platform. Choose a headshot with a plain background where possible – nothing too busy. This image will be like your trademark. People will recognise it and begin to associate it with your content.
Your bio and experience sections should be keyword rich. For example, if you recruit in engineering, make sure this keyword is scattered throughout your profile. Be clear and concise in your messaging, and give profile visitors a reason to want to follow you. Featuring some of your best posts at the top of you profile is also a good way to encourage new connections.
2. Build your network and generate leads
Many recruiters will connect with as many candidates as possible, but either never contact them or only contact them when they want to sell them a job. Be the one that stands out by sending a short, personalised hello to their DMs. Stand out even more by making it a video intro or a voicenote. Whatever you choose to do, don’t go straight in for the kill. Provide them with some sort of value first, be it an article in their industry or a podcast episode relevant to their niche. They’ll be much warmer to you when you do eventually approach them with a potential job offer.
Continue to build that trust by posting to your feed consistently. Demonstrate you are a thought-leader in the recruitment industry and promote your industry knowledge with personal opinions, polls and relevant industry insights. Be authentic and use your own tone of voice (i.e. write how you speak). Invite your audience to connect with you at the bottom of every post and make it easy for them to do so by tagging your profile.
Contribute to any content your audience is posting or engaging with – and we don’t just mean give it a like. Start conversations in the comment section. Engage with people often. You’ll soon make a name for yourself.
3. Measure your success
This one is absolutely essential, and will probably have the biggest impact overall on your employer brand – make sure you provide every candidate you speak to with feedback. If they have interviewed at your company but have been unsuccessful, always provide feedback, no matter how difficult the conversation might be. This may seem time-consuming, but the last thing you want is for an unsuccessful applicant to tell another candidate how poor their experience was when going through the interview process with your company. Word of mouth plays a huge part in your employer brand.
Get in touch
These are just a few tips. To learn how to master LinkedIn, download our playbook.
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