Dare to be desirable: recruitment personal branding
‘Dare to be different’ she yells as if a shining example of a fabulous personality. Shirt half way up her belly, stuck in place by Chewit enriched dribble, she pogoes across the stage like a one legged gazelle after too much caffeine, completely unaware of the room staring in disbelief.
Not the ‘awe’ kind of disbelief…the kind where you die inside on their behalf.
‘How wild am I guys?’ she squawks, hysterical like Joaquin Phoenix in the Joker.
‘The f*ck is going on? Has she escaped from somewhere?’ says Eric to the back of Sally’s head. She rotates her bonce without moving her shoulders, like something out of The Exorcist.
Sally then chunders the following, ‘she’s trying way too hard, it’s embarrassing like this time my uncle was chasing my friends with a leaf blower.’
I’m with Sally on this, it IS embarrassing.
Personal branding doesn’t mean being a zany weirdo. It doesn’t mean talking about yourself on video, with the camera panned so far below your chin that viewers have a better view of your nose hair than your opinion.
It doesn't mean gliding into the building wearing healies and cowboy chaps singing the chorus to Bootylicious, on a loop, as you can’t remember Kelly Rowland's verse, either.
Personal branding is such a pile of old, filthy cabbage and it’s turned into this strange expression of empowerment rather than a tool to drive business.
‘Just be your weird self,’ she says,
‘That lady that binned a cat was being herself, didn’t work out too well for her, did it?
Here’s the reality in a single heading:
Nobody gives a f*ck who you are, get over yourself
And this is the conundrum. How do you position yourself as god of your recruitment niche, if nobody but your nan could care less that you’re alive?
The answer? Be a desirable personality. In case you’re not aware, that means:
Be what people desire.
Be a solution to their problem, the smile on their face, a laugh on a bad morning or make them look great to their boss, be a friend, a counsellor, a shoulder for their woes, be an attractive goddess or god like being.
If you’re a genuinely good person(and kinda hot), these things should come naturally.
Whatever you do, please avoid these deadly, embarrassing pitfalls:
Authenticity
If you try to be authentic, you’re not being authentic. People are suspicious of recruiters so the last thing you need is to try to force authenticity. Don’t even mention the word.
It’s like when weedy little, mackerel men try to play alpha or girls post a selfie on Insta with the caption ‘Felt cute, might delete later.’ It’s so obvious and a little bit cringe too.
A king doesn’t need to tell you he’s the king…. Authenticity is active, your behaviours build the picture, no matter what you claim to be.
Zanegagement and the EXTRA mile
Have you noticed that nobody laughs at clowns? It’s because they’re trying too hard to be funny with their massive shoes, except maybe Pennywise…for him it’s effortless and it shows.
There’s no point in forcing out the funnies if you’re poorly endowed(baked bean turf) in that department. It’s like your dad at your birthday party. He’s trying so hard to impress your pals in the hope of being invited for dinner to play ponies with their mums, while the husband is out at the massage parlour for the third night that week.
Dropping jokes about needing cold showers and ugh, I can’t even…
I saw another ‘personal branding’ guy put a video on LinkedIn of him sat in his pants in the bath. Why?
Why would you do that? This is where everyone is going wrong, they’re compensating so hard for their awful personalities. Do not fall into this trap. Ain’t my beef if you’re repulsive but your nips aren’t going to help matters.
‘But what if your personality sucks?’
Why are you bothering? Go eat worms. You’ve got bigger problems than gathering recruitment leads if you fit in as well as a yolk-thirsty crow in a chicken coop.
Be someone else
‘You didn’t just say that?’
I did and I stand by it. If you have a horrible personality, be someone else. Not everyone is a good person, most people aren’t that desirable. There are winners and losers and we have to play to our strengths.
At a minimum, you’re likely to be a more refined version of you anyway, polished with beautifully filtered bikini pics on Instagram to draw in those clients and candidates alike. Trust me, it works a treat.
When you’re building a brand, it starts by acting the part and the same applies to personal brands. Whichever way you look at it, you’re going to have to put yourself out there and become what people want from a recruiter.
The Brand Ambassador
This is how it really works. People don’t buy from people, they buy from people at businesses so let’s forget personal branding and talk about brand ambassadors instead, they’re way better.
We like to think that personality is king but that’s garbage, we’re in a branding ecosystem.
Your role is to become the Kimmy K of your recruitment niche, ideally without the sex tape and this is how you could do it:
You’re not that interesting, talk about something else
‘Hi I’m Steven, I collect dead insects from my garden, put them in test tubes and sing Westlife songs to the little guys every evening. I live off a diet of Mars bars and kitten food. I’m 27 years old, have a first aid certificate, half a GCSE(I ripped it) and a bottle of cider I purchased all by myself,’
He sounds like a company ‘about’ page doesn’t he? It’s irritating and you probably wouldn’t invite him for dinner nor would you want to talk to him.
Instead of being like Steven, use these rarely utilised secret weapons of being desirable:
Court attention — Aim at the wider market to grow your network but make sure everyone knows what you do. As a recruiter you have two sides to cater to: businesses and consumers. The mass market makes sense as a primary focus. We’re talking situational humour, gifs, videos of your beautiful face uttering persuasive purrs of seduction.
Be relatable— talk about experiences people can related to. The heating wars in the office, the nonsense you have to deal with in corporate environments, polarising issues about employment or terrible contract arrangements. Troll the norms:
‘28 days of holiday is a perk? F*ck off, it’s the law.’
Engage —if people engage with your posts, blogs, videos, articles…respond to them. Add them on social channels and speak to them. Maybe you could engage with their posts too? Send them the occasional message or let them know when you’re local as it would be great to meet them. Whatever you do, don’t send people pics of your noodle. I’m looking at you, Jim you toxic peasant.
Think about the words you’re using.
‘Hi Sandra, how are you?’ is better than ‘Hi’ in the same way that, ‘how has your day been, Sandra?’ is better than ‘good day?’ Charisma is about effort. Make people feel special, you might even smile once a day….
It’s the small stuff. The quality of custard with your dessert, the tightness of a hug that tells you the difference between a passionate embrace and a kidnapping and those cute accessories that complete your look, you sassy little kitten, you!
It helps if you’re interested in the person to begin with…narcissists need not bother.
Look at multiple channels
If you want to be a brand ambassador in recruitment, I’d recommend being active on these platforms and channels or a mix of your own choice:
LinkedIn: It’s the big one for engaging personalities as the algorithm is fairly loose. People with as few as 1,000 followers can get engagement of 100s of likes and comments. This helps with brand awareness and can result in a lot of inbound leads over time. Note that…OVER TIME.
Instagram: Great for job ad posts, tagging locations, affordable advertising and to show the world the prettiest version of yourself. You’ll have to think about this one, I’d probably focus mine around jokes, powerlifting, work and inspirational stuff like business milestones but spare the world from my mankini pics. You just ain’t ready for this 💁🏼♂️
PR and media: Podcasts, industry media, local news, TV. Podcasts are easy to get on, I get invited on them a lot but turn them down as they’re such low quality. I have 2 or 3 recruitment marketing ones in the pipeline, see you there.
Events: Attend target industry events(that’s not recruitment events unless you’re a rec2rec), meet people in person. Maybe put on your own private social events too? The more you can force yourself to be the centre of attention the more desirable you’ll appear.
That’s it for now, kiddos. If this has gone over your head, maybe you need to stop working 70 hour days already? Don’t buy into the hype about influencers, it has so many negative connotations would you really want to be one?
If you want to position yourself as a ‘celebrity’ within a niche, that’s absolutely fine and makes business sense to do so. You’re a brand ambassador, wear the badge with pride like it was your Duckling Swimming Award for making 50 meters without drowning.
If you’re after pats on the head, maybe you should whack on a collar and get yourself a Madam instead, this is business not your birthday party.
