February 26, 2024

How to build a personal brand as a recruiter

John Kim

Co-founder @ Paraform

In this blog

Define your unique selling point (USP)Optimize your LinkedIn profileGet active on LinkedInPosition yourself as an industry expertBecome a content machineNetwork like a proBe personalMeasure and adapt

With the advancement of AI and automated recruiting, many recruiters can now focus on other tasks to grow their business–like building a personal brand and marketing. These days, just sending out business development emails and making prospecting calls is not enough. You have to go a step further to beat the competition and focus on organic, inbound strategies and social proof that attracts both candidates and clients to you as a recruiter or your agency.

28% of hiring managers say the most effective way for finding candidates is through their online profiles and sales reps who use social media as part of their sales techniques outsell 78% of their peers. It’s no secret that investing in your personal brand will yield great results.

Just imagine: clients and candidates message you to help them fill a role or find them a new job.

Here, we’ll go through the best practices you can implement to build a winning personal brand in your niche.

Define your unique selling point (USP)

To start building your personal brand, you first have to identify what sets you apart from other recruiters. Reflect on your strengths, expertise, and passions within your recruitment field. Ask yourself these questions:

• What unique value do I bring to the table?
• Am I known for my industry knowledge, networking prowess, or exceptional candidate experience?
• What type of clients do I want to work with?
• What type of candidates do I want to work with?
• Are there thought leaders in my niche I can draw inspiration from?
• What makes me different from other recruiters out there?

Once you’ve answered these questions and have defined your North Star, you can then build a personal brand.

Optimize your LinkedIn profile

Your LinkedIn profile is your digital storefront–after all, it’s the biggest networking platform with close to a billion users. Start with the basics and optimize your profile first.

• Headline: Ditch the generic and showcase your value proposition ("Helping Cybersecurity startups on the East Coast find their game-changers").
  
• Profile Photo: Opt for a professional, approachable headshot–use an AI editor tool if you need to.
  
• Summary: Share your story, passion, and expertise in an engaging narrative. Write no more than a 400-word summary about your experience, niche, and why you’re passionate about it.
  
• Experience: Detail your achievements and quantify your impact ( "Placed 20+ software engineers in leading Edtech companies across the West Coast").
  
• Recommendations: Gather as many endorsements as you can from satisfied clients and candidates. Give others recommendations too in return.
  
• Use keywords: Use relevant keywords in your profile to help potential clients and candidates find you. On LinkedIn, it will read something like John Smith talks about #ai #machinelearning #robotics #recruitment just under your name.

Get active on LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, you should be as active as possible every day to stay ahead of the curve. Perform the following growth hacks:

• Like and comment: A trick that top LinkedIn gurus use to get their content positioned higher on LinkedIn and amass thousands of followers within their verticals is liking and commenting on tons of relevant posts per day. The constant activity will make the algorithms send more traffic your way when you post something.
  
• Connect with others: Make sure to use every one of your 100-120 LinkedIn connection requests every week by sending 24 connection requests a day until you get the limit notification.
  
• Follow relevant pages: Follow relevant pages, companies, and candidates on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date with news and be the first to know of any new jobs or open-to-work candidates.
  
• Join groups: Join as many groups as possible in your vertical. Often you can message people for free if they’re in the same LinkedIn group as you.

Position yourself as an industry expert

Granted, you won’t become an industry leader or expert overnight but everyone has to start from somewhere. For clients and candidates to trust you, you need to prove that you know your stuff. Work hard to get accustomed to everything in the industry and your preferred niche within.

Read news articles, share your opinions, follow thought leaders in the space, and treat yourself as a go-to expert for all the latest updates in the world of your chosen niche.

Become a content machine

High-quality consistent content establishes you as a thought leader and positions you as the go-to expert. An extensively underrated way of getting inbound business is by writing blogs and articles. Create and publish at least three articles per month on LinkedIn about industry trends, career advice, and other insights.

You can then repurpose the blogs and articles on your website and/or newsletter (It’s easier to start from a blog and repurpose it to other forms of content). Other winning inbound content strategies include:

• Social posts: Don't just post job openings! Share industry news, participate in relevant discussions, and answer questions with expert insights.
• Video content: Utilize LinkedIn video or YouTube to create engaging visuals like a day-in-the-life, news round-ups, tips, and expert interviews.
• Newsletters: Create a newsletter for your recruitment website where visitors can sign up and receive notifications on the latest jobs on your site and industry news.

It’s important to be consistent with your content, always switch it up, and deliver authentic posts with no ulterior motive other than starting a conversation or provoking a thought. You don’t need to announce that you recruit X for Y at the bottom either. Keep it meaningful.

Network like a pro

Networking is a cornerstone in building your personal brand as a recruiter. Almost 100% of professionals believe that face-to-face meetings build stronger, longer-term relationships. But if that stat isn’t enough to convince you, CNBC reports that 70% of all jobs are not published publicly on jobs sites and as much as 80% of jobs are filled through personal and professional connections.


So network with your people in your niche, build long-lasting relationships with them, and you could be their first point of contact when they have new roles to fill or are looking for a new job. You can get the best out of networking by:

• Attending industry events: Networking events, conferences, and webinars are goldmines for meeting potential clients, candidates, and fellow recruiters. Check out websites like Eventbrite, Meetup.com, and LinkedIn events to find the best ones near you. Face-to-face networking is set to be bigger than ever in 2024 so get your business suit and nametag ready!
  
• Join Online Communities: Participate in industry forums, online groups, and social media communities related to your niche. There are many industry and niche-specific online groups such as Polwork and Github to join and meet others.

Be personal

A great way to show your authenticity as a recruiter is to be as personal as possible, after all, no one wants to work with a soulless hiring machine.

Don’t be afraid to post the odd content about yourself, whether it’s about what you love about being a recruiter, a holiday or annual leave picture, or even the bad news–it shows you’re human and honest.

Keep it personal when it comes to sending emails and messages to your clients and candidates. Take time to check out their profile and company. You’ll be surprised at how receptive people are when you’ve researched something about them and performed your due diligence. Also, message a client or candidate you haven’t spoken to in a while just to check on them and nothing else.


All these activities will help you plant seeds for the future.

Measure and adapt

It’s always important to keep tabs on how you’re performing. Track your progress by social media engagement, new followers and connections, and compare your profile with your competitors. Analyze the data to understand what resonates with your audience and identify areas for improvement. Be open to adapting your content and approach based on what you find.

Building a powerful personal brand as a recruiter takes time, effort, and consistency. By focusing on authenticity, creating and repurposing content, and networking, you can establish yourself as a trusted advisor and go-to person in the competitive recruitment landscape.

So get out there, post content, make connections, and build your network!

Bonus Tips: Here are a few growth-hacking methods to increase your brand presence:

• Post content in the mornings, before 9:30am is best.
  
• Tuesdays are the best days for conversion.
  
• After you reach 5000 connections on LinkedIn, turn your profile on to follower mode and back every so often.
  
• Check your Social Selling Index (SSI) on LinkedIn Recruiter and LinkedIn Sales Navigator and follow the tips on how to improve your score as accounts with higher scores get bonus inMails and have content rank higher.
  
• Use relevant hashtags.
  
• Take the free LinkedIn Learning course on recruitment fundamentals. Although you might know everything there is to know about recruitment, having that certificate is a bonus worth having. LinkedIn will reward you by showcasing you as a ‘suggested recruiter’ when you add recruitment to the list of skills you provide.
  
  Happy hunting!