BAD Personal Branding Case Study: Recruiters Doing It Wrong

I shared two very cool examples of how to position yourself as a subject matter expert and/or thought leader with Thom Singer and Marty Val Hill.

Here’s something that’s been on my mind for years.  About four years ago I was a relatively new blogger.  I wanted to network with other bloggers and thought that recruiters could be great evangelists for JibberJobber.  In general, that was a very bad assumption – most recruiters were so busy with their job that they really didn’t have much advice for job seekers….

Anyway, I blogged alongside many recruiters.  Back then there weren’t many resume writers or career coaches that were blogging, so these were the closest I got to identifying my career-minded peers online.

I didn’t realize how problematic it was at the time but I saw it a few months later… most recruiters were blogging to… get this… eachother!

They were trying to establish relationships with one another (that’s fine). They were trying to show one another who had what expertise.  They were talking to one another.

I guess that’s okay, with one major exception:

These bloggers were not talking with/to candidates (the job seeker).

And they were not talking with/to clients or potential clients (in other words, with companies who would hire them).

It was like a lot of inbred messaging… and frankly, probably a waste of everyone’s time.

If I had a recruiter come to me today and ask what they should blog about I would tell them to write to their audience.

Who’s the audience?

Not fellow recruiters.

Maybe not candidates.

Follow the money… the audience has to include the client – the company that writes the checks to the recruiter.

What would the recruiter write about?

Think about what Thom Singer is writing about, in the case study I did a couple of days ago… write to your audience!

Who is your audience?  I can’t answer that for you (I can coach you through figuring it out).  But you need to define your audience and then figure out what messages are relevant to them.

Not to you… to them.

Make sense?

1 thought on “BAD Personal Branding Case Study: Recruiters Doing It Wrong”

  1. … unless of course you are a recruiter who recruits recruiters 😉

    This GREAT advice Jason! Follow the money and speak to your “targeted” audience. Same advice to follow when applying for positions, during interviews or making a sales calls. “Qualify” your targeted audience (decision making) and position YOUrself accordingly.

    Great advice Jason – as always you ROCK!

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