What Makes A Recruitment Consultant Stand Out From The Crowd?

The recruitment industry is one of the most competitive markets in business. Wherever you are based and in whichever sector(s) you operate in, it is crucial that you stand out from the crowd, and the easiest way to do this is to have a USP, a unique selling point.

This is difficult though in recruitment and there’s not a great deal of ways in which you can demonstrate this to potential clients. Most, if not all agencies talk about ‘treating their clients better and ‘understanding their business’, thus they’re not really being that different at all.

The simplest and most effective way is to focus on the one thing that really is different about your agency. You.

YOU are your own USP
There is only one you. You don’t work for anyone else, certainly not for your competitors.

In a market where competition is fierce and margins are tight, you may be the only significant difference between your company and it’s competitors, and so it is vital to both understand what your personal brand as a recruiter is, and develop it into a tool that can help promote you, your business and bring in revenue.

Carry out a brand review

Firstly, you need to realise what your personal brand is at the moment. How are you perceived by your clients and potential clients? What are you portraying? Be brutally honest with yourself, it will help in the long run.

Ideally, your personal brand should be perfectly aligned with your company’s brand, with a dash of individuality. Therefore, if your company brands itself as a dynamic market leader, do you honestly portray this and how do you do this?

Think about your attitude, how you dress, how you communicate both verbally and non-verbally. Are you ever late? Are you always early? Do you drive meetings forward or are you happy for people to wander off the topic.

A personal brand review will help focus your brand and make sure it is working for you in a positive way. Be the brand that you want to be.

Promote your brand

Now that you have an idea of what your brand is, then it is crucial to get out there and promote it. When talking to a potential client, don’t just talk about what your company can do for them, talk to them as well about what YOU can do for them.

Remember, YOU are the difference between your company and your competitors. Always remember that you are an embodiment of your company and its values.

Understand that ‘people buy people’

Selling is key to the recruitment industry. It’s very easy in this era of social media to forget some of the fundamentals of sales and marketing, one of these being ‘people buy people’.

What this means is that in an industry such as recruitment, where the services being offered are largely the same, the client’s choice of provider will rest on the consultant who they feel the most connection with, the consultant who personally portrays the service they are looking for, the consultant whose ‘personal brand’ speaks to them.

Drawing attention to personal brands can have huge benefits for any recruitment consultancy, simultaneously helping its consultants align themselves with the company ethos, whilst letting their individuality shine through, putting competitors firmly in the shade.

‘Till next time,

Cheryl