Guest blogger Linzi Boyd discusses buidling your personal profile to build your business brand.
While the importance of brand is becoming well understood by business leaders, we believe there’s more to it than simply ‘brand’ alone. We’ve identified three key pillars to help clients jump their businesses smoothly: brand, people and purpose.
Why build your profile into an asset?
In this article I’m concentrating on the ‘people’ aspect of brand because in the digital era ‘people’ has become as important, if not more so, than ‘brand’. Why? Because the new school way of doing business is ‘people buy from people’. Customers, in particular, want to see the people and culture behind a brand and to trust in the business’s authenticity.
As we launch into the new financial year Arete Executive is enjoying a very busy period, both in terms of our executive recruitment services, and also our career coaching and advocacy. In my discussions with CEOs and Chairs, the job market in South East Queensland still seems to be slower than in Sydney and Melbourne. That said, there is still a reasonable amount of hiring going on across most sectors other than Mining (which remains fairly stagnant from a recruitment perspective).
I’ve often talked about the failings of the recruitment industry, despite the fact that I and many other good people strive for the highest standards of professionalism.
But we don’t talk enough about what candidates can do to be professional in their dealings with us.
When I’m working with job seekers – either as a career coaching client or as an applicant for a job I’m recruiting – I find it frustrating when they can’t identify their employers of choice.
It’s like asking someone what they want to eat, and they say “Anything will do.” That bugs me because I can’t pick up the phone and order ”anything” from my local takeaway. It also bugs me because it shows there’s no thought going into it.
Why does an executive recruiter like me write a book telling people how to “uncover the hidden job market” for themselves?
For two reasons.
One, I genuinely want to serve people. I’m very aware that recruitment is not well respected as an industry. Often, when I tell people I’m a recruiter, they can’t wait to share some awful experience they’ve had.
So I want to show that many recruiters are in fact caring professionals who treat clients and candidates with respect and integrity.
Two, I’m very aware that most people will not find their next role via a recruiter, even a good one.
That’s because only a small percentage of jobs are actually filled by recruiters.
In my career coaching practice, I frequently work with people who are not currently employed.
This has come about for all sorts of reasons. They may have been made redundant due to a contracting industry, difficult economic conditions or a change in company direction.
They may have taken a voluntary redundancy, sometimes cashing in a payout to fund a new business.
They might have had to relocate for family reasons, away from their previous employer.
They may have been terminated. The common thread is that being unemployed is a really difficult situation.
We are conditioned to value ourselves based on our career success, which sets us up for struggle when our career isn’t going well.
And of course, we’re in a world where we need to earn money to support ourselves and our loved ones.
For those that don’t know me, I’m the Managing Partner of a Brisbane based executive recruitment company, Arete Executive. I’ve also recently launched the Arete Podcast, where I interview leading CEOs, Non Executive Directors and other leaders about their careers, key achievements, lessons learnt along the way and so on. The motivation for the podcast is to allow those who aspire to achieving similar career success, to learn from those who have walked the path before them, in order to hopefully accelerate their own careers.
I thought for this article I would summarise some of the key learnings from my early guests; those that I found most interesting and pertinent.
Why does an executive recruiter like me write a book telling people how to “uncover the hidden job market” for themselves?
For two reasons.
One, I genuinely want to serve people. I’m very aware that recruitment is not well respected as an industry. Often, when I tell people I’m a recruiter, they can’t wait to share some awful experience they’ve had.
So I want to show that many recruiters are in fact caring professionals who treat clients and candidates with respect and integrity.
I want to give you an example of this in action, so you can understand how to apply these principles for yourself.
If you search on LinkedIn for “executive search” in Australia, my profile will appear at the top of the search results.
And if you search for “career coach” in Australia, my profile will again appear at the top of the list.
Please take a moment to do this search, putting “executive search” and “Australia” into an Advanced search (located at the right of the search bar at the top of the LinkedIn page). As you’ll see, I am currently ranked No. 1 in Australia.
In my previous article, I talked about the Zero Moment of Truth concept. I said that, as a job seeker, you need to carefully manage the first impression you create, by ensuring your LinkedIn profile does an excellent job of showcasing your experience.
I also reminded you that recruiters and companies are filling a lot of roles by searching the LinkedIn database.
So before someone can read your excellent profile, you need to ensure that it gets found.
It’s the same principle of search engine optimisation (SEO) that websites use to ensure they appear on page one of Google’s search results.
While the importance of brand is becoming well understood by business leaders, we believe there’s more to it than simply ‘brand’ alone. We’ve identified three key pillars to help clients jump their businesses smoothly: brand, people and purpose.
