With a recent survey by CV-Library finding that almost 8 million people will be job seeking this year, it’s becoming a candidates’ market.
The focus has shifted; candidates are taking control and manipulating the market through the powers of personal branding by:
- Ensuring they have active profiles on Linkedin…
- Having a presence at local networking events
- Being creative with their personal branding, such as by answering the question “How do you make a difference?”
But what impact does this have on hiring managers and recruiters? Are candidates blinding you with their personal branding prowess?
When you advertise a new role, how many applicants do you get? And how do you differentiate between the CVs in order to select the top candidates?
According to recent research, 92% of companies are using social media in their recruitment process. LinkedIn dominates with 94% of recruiters using the tool, while 66% admit to using Facebook as part of their search according to Time.com.What’s interesting is that a substantial 79% of those recruiters actually found candidates via LinkedIn, compared to just 26% on Facebook – a great indicator of where you should concentrate your resources!
But this reliance on social media isn’t a secret. Far from it, and as a result candidates are becoming more digitally aware. In short, they’re cleaning up their act! And this is where personal branding comes in. If you Google your potential candidates, what will you find? Does their personal branding create confirmation bias? Or does it simply highlight different aspects and strengths that they have, allowing you to get a real feel for who they are? Or perhaps just who they want to be?
How can you see through the branding to the real person beneath?
When digging around your candidates, here are a few things to look out for:
- Authenticity: If they look too perfect, they probably are. A little bit of clever tweaking and personal branding can turn an average candidate into a superb looking one, so watch out for this.
- Knowledge: Does your candidate show an interest in the industry? Who are they connected to, and what articles do they share?
- Communication Skills: Do they communicate eloquently and professionally on their social media sites? It’s a good place to see if they can communicate well and strike up conversation with people.
With almost 8 million candidates sending out their CVs in 2016, are you managing to see through the branding to the person beneath?
And if you are one of the 8 million candidates how are you different from Joe Average?
____________________________