Recruiter tips: Improving your personal brand to maximise your employability

In recent years, personal branding has become just as important as business branding.

We’d all agree that when we hear the names Adidas and Nike, 3 words come to mind. Sporty, current and up-beat. Simply put, that is branding. Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos once said, "Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room." And it works just the same for an individual.

To help you improve your personal brand online and become more employable, we've asked our recruitment team for their best tips.

Here's what they had to say:

Define yourself

As with anything, planning is a must.

Mark Wallace, Business Manager for our Oil & Gas team suggests that all candidates should map out their personal branding goals.

"Ask yourself 'Who would I like to be?', 'How would I like to be portrayed?' and 'What would I like to be remembered for?'

"By asking yourself these questions, you can start creating the ideal version of you. Identify what key traits you would like to have, then you can start to remodel yourself and set yourself goals to work towards."

Put yourself in an employer’s shoes

When it comes to job applications, you're not the only person researching. As much as you research companies to see if you'd like to work with them, employers who receive your applications will do the same research about you.

Our team's advice is to Google yourself. This will give you an idea of what an employer finds when they search for you too. In the majority of cases, your social media pages will appear, which leads us to our next point.

Be careful what you post online

Your social media profiles summarise you as a person online and the ‘you of today’ isn’t the same as the person you were 10 years ago.

Hannah Richardson, Head of Marketing at First recommends tidying up your digital presence: 'I advise everyone to have a clear out of your social media, just like you’d have a clear out of your wardrobe. Be sure to remove any ancient posts or pictures that may come back to haunt you in the future.'

Use LinkedIn to your advantage

If you don’t already have a LinkedIn account, we highly suggest creating one.

Ryan Kirkpatrick, First Recruitment Group Delivery coordinator says: "Not only is it a fantastic platform to connect and interact with the right people within your industry, it’s also a great way to learn new things and keep up to date on the latest industry news. Candidates should aim to stay active on LinkedIn, posting relevant articles to their sector and interacting with connections."

If you’re struggling to find content, you can try using the website BuzzSumo.

If you’ve got it, flaunt it

Depending on the type of work you do, you could create a website to display your talents.

According to Kevin Riley, Business Manager for IT recruitment, this could generate more interest in you from employers:

"Creating a website nowadays couldn’t be easier. There are many sites that have templates for various purposes, industries etc. A great example would be Wix. They have designs for a wide range of industries where you can showcase your work at no cost.

"Say for example you’re a Graphic Designer, you have the ability to upload your designs quickly and easily into 1 of many templates that look slick and professional, with the freedom to make tweaks where necessary. This will maximise how much of your work you’re able to showcase including only a short link to your website on your CV."

Get involved in events

Whichever industry you work in, there’s a very high chance there’s an event being held this year within travelling distance.

First Recruitment Consultant Katie Marnell recommends attending as many as you can:

"It is not only an interesting learning experience, but it’s the perfect opportunity to network with other people within your industry. Sometimes it’s not necessarily what you know but who you know that will get your foot in the door."

Share your knowledge

Don't sit on your knowledge.! Whether it's sharing the latest articles about your industry or thoughts on how to improve business processes, your insights set you apart.

Andrew Curran, Senior Recruitment Consultant for our Permanent Recruitment team says: "Sharing knowledge is a great way to build trust and real, lasting relationships with your connections. It proves you know what you’re talking about and people are more likely to come to you if they need advice or information.

"You become a reliable and approachable source leading to recommendations and valuable connections from others in your field."

Building a personal brand isn’t easy but if you work hard at it, the hard work will pay off. We hope you found these tips useful and if you have any additional advice, we’d love to hear it! Join in the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.