How to Build a Personal Brand Recruiters Will Never Forget

Happy Saturday morning and welcome to week 6.

As a reminder, if you’ve found this newsletter helpful please share it with your friends and colleagues who would benefit. I'd also love to hear from you - reply to this email and tell me what you'd like to see more of in this newsletter.

This year will be all about building a strong personal brand.

Especially in today's world, social media has become an essential tool for personal branding.

As a job seeker, your social media presence can either make or break your chances of getting that coveted dream gig. Therefore, it's so important to develop your brand on social platforms to showcase your skills, personality, and achievements to potential employers.

Here are five ways you can build your brand on social media:

The Right Platform is Key

The first step is to determine which platform(s) you want to use to build your personal brand. Different social media platforms attract different audiences and have different purposes. For example, LinkedIn is the most professional platform, while Instagram is more visual and creative. Choose the platform that best aligns with your goals and target audience. Personally, I love LinkedIn for its focus on professionals. Recruiters use a tool called LinkedIn Recruiter, and it allows them to search for both active and passive candidates. It’s always smart to build your professional brand where recruiters are fishing.

Consistency is King

Your social media profile is a reflection of your personal brand, so it's essential to be consistent across all platforms. Use the same profile picture, bio, and cover photo on all your social media accounts to make it easy for recruiters to find and recognize you. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of consistency. Forget the likes, follows, comments and views. Instead, focus on posting daily. Consistency produces discipline and excellence over time. As I posted, refined, explored, and defined my lane, I landed several posts with 100K+ views.

Find Your Message

Forget sharing boring and irrelevant corporate content - it sucks and nobody wants to read it. Powerful and moving stories ignite emotion and create a need for action in the reader. Remember, readers will never remember the information (or links) you shared, however, they’ll remember how you made them feel (Someone famous said that 🙂). For me, after receiving hundreds (maybe thousands?) of messages from jobseekers expressing their fear, discouragement, and sheer brokenness, I felt like jobseekers needed content that made them realize they could continue on, stay in the fight, and ultimately land a fulfilling role. Try to avoid the annoying gimmicky nonsense that too many people share on LinkedIn. Staying positive and optimistic throughout all your posts and comments shows you are good-natured and a team player no matter the circumstances.

Network Like Crazy

Connect with industry professionals and influencers in your field to expand your network. Engage with their content by commenting, sharing, and tagging them. This will help you build relationships and get noticed by influential people in your industry. Work hard at adding relevant value-driven perspectives to other posts on LinkedIn. For large account influencers, click the notification bell and when you’re notified of a post, jump on there and try to be an earlier comment - it makes a huge difference and can help you get noticed.

Be Yourself

Lastly, showcase your personality and interests on your social media accounts. Share personal stories, hobbies, and interests that align with your personal brand. This will help recruiters get a better understanding of who you are and what you're passionate about.

To wrap this up, I’m not perfect and still have so much to learn about building my brand. But if I were to sit down and talk with you over a hot cup of coffee at my favorite coffee shop, I would tell you that building a brand is tough and takes work to perfect. It takes time and patience to build something that’s both lasting and impactful. I work hard at adding value to the lives who follow me on LinkedIn. Every message and comment I receive is a blessing and an encouragement.

What’re you waiting for?

See you next week.

Cheers,

Mark