Bit of a buzz word this but I like the following definition……
“A personal brand is the unique combination of skills and experiences that make you who you are. It is how you present yourself to the world.” Credit Forbes
Why should you care about this?
Well it can help make you stand out and differentiate yourself from competition.
Starting with socials, expect companies to check out what you are doing online, this might be the first insight to you potential clients/companies have so make sure you portray yourself in the right way. Simple steps here such as setting facebook to private might help. As a contractor you might have a separate business and private facebook account and same applies here. It then really focuses on what you are posting here.
As a recruiter/headhunter a lot of my candidates come from linkedin. If you don’t have a profile , I’d suggest you probably should!
You want to reflect yourself in a way that your CV won’t. Linkedin and socials are a great way to show your expertise but also get across you.
Linkedin tips
- Start with a professional photo, this doesn’t need to be a professional, professional photograph (if you get what I mean) but equally not a blurred picture of you on a night out. This all helps add legitimacy to your profile and also helps with rankings on linkedin. (Maybe, algorithms are a whole different ball game!)
- Make sure you add a job title and location on linkedin. If you have an obscure job title you might want to change this to something that is more recognisable when people are searching for you so if you’re in sales go with this rather than account achievement visionary or other random things we’ve seen…..
- Linkedin also gives you a lovely bit of white space at the top of your profile that people are doing things with. Mine’s pretty simple but it’s better than the stock linkedin offering. Check out someone like Danny banner man and some of the clever things you can do here. This is a great way to get your personality across here.
- Make sure you’ve got some details under your roles, as a recruiter I’m looking out for this and want to understand a little bit more about what you do and hopefully this can help you stand out as an expert in your field.
- Linkedin gives you the opportunity to get recommendations, this is a really powerful tool, can really help you stand out and explain a bit about you, without you shouting it. Only thing I’d be mindful of , is only having recommendations where you have also left the recommender (is that an actual word?!, I’m doubting it) a recommendation. This kind of smacks of false.
- Content , content , content. This is where it gets interesting, to really get across YOU , content is a great differentiator. It can be difficult to decide what to post but post things that are interesting to you. Engagement is great (and can help you get recognised) but showing things you are interested in and getting your tone across is the name of the game and will be seen by recruiters/companies when looking at your profile. Share things about your industry, show you are an expert in. that field. Big tick boxes for hiring managers. Controversial comments can gain traction but be very careful about how you want to be portrayed.
- A good start point, is to engage in other people’s content. Connect with other experts/leaders in your field. Add your views to their posts and hopefully start to build up your own following.
- You can now attach a variety of things to your Linkedin profile , consider what you chose to use here , I’m using video’s to promote roles currently and you can see this here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyhall-selective/
Good luck! If you want any further help, drop us a message below.
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