How to Build a Personal Brand as a Recruiter

Jonathan Kidder

4 years ago

Building a personal brand as a Recruiter is important for long term success. You need to be able to market yourself within your specific niche. The best way to showcase your recruiting skills and experience is through online channels. Online marketing and social media are great ways to quickly connect with others within your field.

I get a lot of questions on how to get hired at tech companies like Facebook, Google, or Amazon. People often ask, “How can I get a recruiting interview at these large companies?”

Well, my best advice would be to focus on building your personal brand on social media. Work hard to get recognized as a leader and eventually these companies will come to you. I get excited every time I receive an email saying how they found me on my blog and wanted to connect with me on recruiter openings. Getting this recognition for all my hard work has taken years to reach.

I started blogging on WizardSourcer in 2016. At the time I was completely unknown. Not too many Recruiters knew who I was. I wanted to build an audience around talent sourcing. So, I started by creating a Facebook Group called the Talent Sourcers Group. I’ve grown it up to around 3-4K active users. This surprisingly took a very long time to achieve.

My goal was to get recognized and to get noticed by large tech staffing firms. I wanted to build a brand within the Talent Sourcing space specifically in Minneapolis. I decided on the domain WizardSourcer and published my resume right away. Now, with the help of SEO if you Google Minneapolis Talent Sourcer my resume will show up on page one. You can view my resume (here) for an example.

I’ve been told that content and blogging was the best way to get my name out there. So, I forced myself to write a blog post 1-2 times a week for the past 4-5 years. Starting out, I wasn’t that great of a writer and it was tough to make this goal. With practice and patience I pushed myself to hit this goal. I consistently blogged about a new recruiting topic as much as possible and it took 2-3 years before I started to see results.

It was an ambitious goal to set but I wanted to challenge myself in this area. Slowly, I have been recognized as a leader within the Talent Sourcing space. It took me a long time to finally get recognition for my blogging. You too can build a personal build and network for recruiting jobs like I do.

I added a (subscribe here) MailChimp button to my blog to build a list of emails. I had maybe 50-100 subscribers within the first year. Industry leaders started sharing my posts on Social Media and finally Recruiting Brainfood shared my post on their email newsletter. My email list has risen to around 7-8K now. My monthly viewership went from a few thousand to 20-30K+ views a month.

Honestly, I’m shocked every time I check Google Analytics and Addthis shares. I love sharing a post and seeing it trend within my analytics tools. Seeing others enjoyment and viewership is such an exciting feeling.

I can tell you that you’ve truly made it when you get weekly messages from Recruiters and Sourcers on social media asking for your advice. I’ve been asked to fly to India, United Kingdom, and Australia to present in-person at Recruiting conferences. With Covid, my yearly plans have changed but I was still honored to be asked to present at these conferences.

In order to get recognized as a leader within your space you’ll need to build a personal brand. Here are two ways Recruiters can market themselves:

The first would be on the candidate side. If you are recruiting in the Tech space it makes sense to build a brand to network with others within the field. This includes creating social media accounts that share industry news and content that relates to that industry. When you go to networking events or Meetup groups it will be good to showcase your (personal brand) via social media.

The second idea would be to build a brand strictly around your recruiting experience. You will want to get recognized as an industry within your space. When other companies are looking at filling job openings. It’s good to have a personal brand that’s already known within your local market. Personally, I focused on this idea when I started blogging on WizardSourcer. I wanted to build a personal brand that reflected my skills and experience. I wanted to be seen as an experienced Recruiter within the sourcing space.

Here’s how to build your Recruiting Brand:

1. Create (Good) Content

Create a blog or get published on blogging sites like Recruitingblogs or SourceCon. Take the time to create valuable content that gets views. Think of a current problem that you are facing and suggest solutions to it. For example, I’ve written a lot about Diversity Recruiting and different tools to find and attract leads. Recruiters love reading about challenges and suggestions to difficult problems.

Make it a monthly goal to write about one Recruiting topic. You can self publish that post on Medium to get started. Once you’ve built up a following, the next step will be to reach out to other Recruiting blogs to publish for them.

2. Share Value on Social Media

Take your posts and share them on Recruiting Facebook groups. Recruiters Online or Talent Sourcers are both great to publish your content on. To get the word out try and encourage others to share your posts on social media. Once you build up a presence the social sharing will just start to happen naturally. I average (2-3) shares per day on WizardSourcer without asking for shares.

3. Build an Email List

The next step will be to build an email list. If you have a blog you can add a subscribe now feature. If not, you can just send personal emails to your network. I started with zero subscribers in 2016. It took 3-4 years to get where I am. Everyone needs to start at the beginning! Once you have a large list you’ll be able to easily share your posts with a larger audience quickly. Google values traffic and will rank your blog posts higher in search results when you can get organic traffic.

4. Present at a Recruiting Conference

This year every single conference went virtual. I encourage you to reach out to conferences within your area and ask if you can present at them. Once you present at one others will start to reach out to you. I started this year presenting at SourceCon in the spring and from there I was asked to present at HRTX and from that point it really just exploded! I’ve presented at around a dozen globe conferences this year.

You don’t have to be an expert in everything. Choose a topic that you have personal experience with. What problems are you facing and how do you work to build a strategy? Many recruiters face similar challenges. A topic that I personally love to talk about is Talent Sourcing tools. I’m always naturally researching and learning about the latest trends. It’s so easy now to present on these topics when I know so much about them. Just like this example take a topic that you are passionate about and present it on it.

I’ve reflected on this year and wrote a post about my conference presentations (here).

5. Network & Connect with others

Reach out to other Recruiters in your niche and share your posts with them. Get their perspective and thoughts on your posts. Recruiters love sharing their perspectives on topics. If a Recruiter asks a question within a Facebook group take the time to write a response back. Eventually, you will get recognized as an expert. I love answering recruiter questions on Facebook. It’s helped open many doors by just networking and connecting with others.

From Q&A discussions I would then send them a direct message to introduce myself. Recruiters love when you help them solve problems. You can then network and build a connection from there. With the help of Facebook direct messages I’ve gotten job offers, asked to present at conferences, and have found new friends. Facebook is a powerful networking tool if used correctly!

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