Are your candidates losing jobs because their personal brand isn’t up to scratch?
Personal Branding is more than just a buzzword. Helping your candidates to brand themselves professionally online can be the difference between earning a fee and not!
Here’s why personal branding is so important for your candidates and how you can help them boost theirs.
Why should you help candidates with personal branding?
Around 90% of hiring managers think a candidate’s social profiles are important when considering them for a job and 79% have turned someone down due to inappropriate social media activity. Putting a candidate forward for a role without checking their social media pages first could lose you a placement.
Candidates with a strong personal brand can also show hiring managers that they are a good cultural fit in ways that their CV can’t – cultural fit is a big focus for most employers. A recent study showed that 52% of hiring managers think good cultural fit is more important than a candidate’s skills or experience.
Helping a candidate with their personal brand can help you grow your candidate pipeline too. When you go the extra mile by helping a candidate with their personal branding, it’s likely they’ll stay loyal to you and refer other great candidates too.
So now you know why you should help your candidates witch personal branding, how do you bring candidates personal branding into your recruitment strategy?
6 ways to improve your candidate’s personal brand
1. Recommend they make their profiles private
Your candidate could have the perfect LinkedIn profile, but if their Facebook is filled with inappropriate content, they could be dropped from the interview process. Facebook isn’t a professional platform – they can post all the drunk photos they want. They just need to make sure their profiles are private so that hiring managers can’t see them.
2. Help them choose their LinkedIn profile picture
Your candidate’s profile picture doesn’t need to be taken by a professional photographer - a headshot with a plain background and some smart clothes is all they need. Just avoid using any photos taken in bars – your clients don’t want to see what they look like on a night out.
3. Make sure their LinkedIn matches their CV
If their LinkedIn profile doesn’t match up with their CV, your candidate won’t look credible and you might have to face some awkward questions from the hiring manager. Make sure the companies, dates and responsibilities all match up to avoid any recruitment interview disasters.
4. Suggest they gather recommendations
Encourage your candidate to fill their ‘Recommendations’ section of LinkedIn with testimonials from delighted clients or previous work colleagues singing their praises.
Providing social proof of your candidate’s skillset like this can push your candidate above others in shortlists.
5. Encourage them to post the right types of content
If your candidate shares relevant news from their industry on their LinkedIn, it shows your client they’re an expert in their field and engaged with the industry they are working in – two big boxes ticked for any hiring manager!
Just make sure your candidate avoids posting anything too controversial or divisive – political content, for example – as this might raise some red flags for your hiring manager.
6. Show them the two cents methodology
When you look at someone’s LinkedIn profile, one of the first things you see is what posts that person has commented on.
So just like posting the right content, commenting on relevant content or posts by thought leaders in their industry will help your candidate establish their credibility and expertise. This is even more powerful if your client is also connected the same people as your candidates comment could popup organically in their feed.
If they’re new to networking on social media, show them the ‘two cents’ methodology: Look for top-performing posts, read the content and leave your informed opinion – or your two cents – in a comment.
Looking to improve your own personal brand? Use these blogs to guide you.
- 5 Habits Every Recruiter Needs to Adopt to Build a Strong Personal Brand
- 7 Free Tools That Will Help You Build a Strong Personal Brand
Download the eBook to learn how to build your personal brand and start social selling your way to top-biller status.
