As CEO of a recruiting firm, you know that the stronger your people are, the stronger your company is.

When CEOs invest in the skills and knowledge of their recruiters, it pays off for everyone involved.

It’s my experience and belief that investing in the personal brand of your individual recruiters is one of the best investments you can make.

The highest producing recruiters are leaders in a particular industry or niche; that leadership position attracts business. To establish your recruiters as leaders, your firm needs to focus on each recruiter as an individual brand, and invest in that brand just as you would a company brand.

The goal is to carve out a niche for each recruiter to claim as their own, and then strengthen and broadcast their leadership position throughout their niche with effective use of web presence, content marketing and social media.

When done well, personal branding drives traffic to your business and increases your bottom line by making each individual recruiter stronger and more capable of attracting better quality clients and candidates.

Let’s take a closer look at how to put personal branding into play for your recruitment business.

You Asked: Why Do Recruiters Need a Personal Brand?

If your firm’s branding is rock-solid on its own, why bother with developing personal brands for individual recruiters? Because any great business is as good as the sum of its team members, and your recruiting firm is no exception.

As CEO, you’re already aware that you’ve got a stellar team – but the rest of your market needs to know it too.

Some of the top reasons why your recruiters need a personal brand are to:

Solidify their position of expertise and influence within their favorite sectors.

Every recruiter falls into at least one industry where they’ve had the most experience with their placements.

Recruiters can leverage their past success to become experts in sectors they’re passionate about. Expertise attracts prospects across your database who are also interested in that field to look for their next job using your firm.

Form relationships with future clients.

Cold calling potential leads should be the model your team is moving away from. Recruiters must build an established position in their industry to connect with new clients from a position of strength. This confidence translates into more powerful and memorable connections to manage future clients.

Network and form relationships with potential talent.

According to the Rule of Seven effect, a prospect needs exposure to your business at least seven times before noticing you.

In the staffing industry, the stronger a recruiter’s brand/presence is within the job market, the more sought after they will become.

Strong personal branding makes your recruiters stand out in a sea of competitors. 

Drive traffic to your company’s job boards.

Strategic personal branding makes your recruiters known among job seekers. With an established reputation, future talent will search for them when they’re looking for work within their focus areas. In-demand recruiters bring waves of talented and eager candidates straight to your company.

More talent = better placements = happier businesses all around. Personal branding is a win for everyone.

Next Question: How Can CEOs Help Recruiters Establish a Personal Brand?

While it's not necessarily difficult to develop your recruiters personal brands, it's an exercise they may not be familiar with and will require your leadership.

Like any significant new project at your business, you need to demonstrate that this is an important strategic initiative, and provide a plan for them to execute against.

Here are 6 steps we recommend you use to develop a plan for success.

Some of the best ways to draw out a recruiter’s personal brand are:

Teach them the benefits of creating a personal presence.

The process of personal branding doesn’t just benefit you as CEO, it’s advantageous for your recruiter’s bottom line too.

Showing them the advantages of taking ownership of their brand motivates your recruiters to embrace the branding process as part of their career development and success.

Establish a target area of expertise.

Recruiters who don’t have an area of expertise may need help uncovering their forte. Which placements did they have the most success with? What industries interest them or do they have personal experience in?

Asking the right questions will develop a specialized niche vs. remaining generic. Having a tangible specialty to focus their brand around gives recruiters a strong advantage.

Map their values and skills through SWOT analysis.

Strengths. Weaknesses. Opportunities. Threats. The better your recruiters know themselves, the better they’ll be at creating their personal brand.

A SWOT analysis helps your team map out where their best qualities lie. From uncovering personality traits, to their preferred learning styles, nothing is off the table when it comes to personal analysis.

Create a content marketing plan for each team member.

The modern recruiter’s personal brand shows in everything they do. This could be blog posts, panels they contribute to, or presentations.

Assist your team in defining key topics to focus on to help them create consistent content that’s meaningful to your clients in order to attract their attention and position your team as an authority.

A strong content marketing plan centers on topics that your people are passionate and knowledgeable about.

Solidify their social media presence.

Consistency is king when it comes to mastering social media. For your recruiters, this means up to date, professional profiles that they post to on a regular basis.

Recruiters must update social media channels with job postings and relevant industry information to be an integral part of the broader conversation. 

Help establish a strong web presence across all channels.

What happens when your recruiters Google themselves? A chaotic or inconsistent presence is as detrimental as a bland one, or worse – one that doesn’t even exist.

Giving your recruiters tools to form their brand will help build a unique web presence. They can use this to engage the modern job seeker who turns to Google before making decisions on who to work with.

Personal brand matters

Ultimately a recruiter’s personal brand is as important to your business as your firm’s own identity is.

Each recruiter can leverage their unique qualities and experience to craft a specific place for themselves in the market. When this happens, you’ll have a dramatic advantage over competitors who have not made personal branding a priority.

A team of specialized individuals with great personal branding and presence attracts the hottest candidates to fill positions with the most sought-after companies.

The time it takes to develop a recruiter’s personal brand is an investment in the future success of your firm and will quickly position you and your firm as leaders in your industry.