You know your employer brand matters to your recruiting efforts. Companies with a strong brand get 50% more qualified applicants, spend 50% less to hire, and are able to hire faster.
But does your personal brand matter too?
Yes! As the CEO, your personal brand matters — because people care about who they work for.
You are the public face of your company. You set the tone. You are typically the most visible person in your firm, and when a job candidate researches your business, they are very likely to look at you.
Think about what happens next…
If they Google you, what will they find? Google yourself and see. Does what they discover sell you and your business as strongly as it could?
What if they look for you in social media? More than three-quarters of job seekers — 79% of them — say they use social media in their job search. So there’s a good chance they will go to LinkedIn and Twitter.
Here’s the bottom line: When recruiting is a priority, setting up a social media presence that appeals to ideal candidates is a strategic move.
So let’s talk about how to do that.
Why Your Company Is an Exciting Place to Work
Let’s start with the basics. You want your LinkedIn profile to tell the story of what you do and why you believe it matters.
Talk about the problems you can solve, who you solve them for, and how you solve them.
Share your traction, so people can see your business is growing, you have well-known clients, you have won awards. Everyone wants to work for a company that is successful in its industry.
Include your founding story — I bet it’s a good one. If you’re not a founder, someone with your background and experience could be doing a lot of different things. Why are you leading this company?
Let your passion come through. And although you might not think of it as passion, you do have passion for what you do or who you do it for. Being a CEO is too hard — you don’t do it unless you have a fire in your belly. What fuels your fire?
One of the things I like to do when I’m working with a CEO is to listen for what they are passionate about.
- For some, it’s the problem they solve. They are endlessly fascinated by that problem, and if they sell their current business, they will start another that addresses the same problem in a different way.
- Some are in love with their solution. They have developed an amazing solution, and if they start another business, they will build something similar (maybe a little better this time) and apply it in a different market.
- Others are in love with their customers. If they started another business, they would find another problem they can solve for this same group of people.
- Some CEOs are in love with their team. If they sell, they will start another business and bring the whole team over.
- Some are in love with the processes and systems they have developed, some with the technology they use.
Some company leaders are in love with more than one aspect of what they do. But they are usually “in like” with most of those things and only passionate about one or two.
Wherever your passion is, make it visible — and you’ll attract other people who bring that same level of energy to your company.
Share Your Management Style
Once you’ve discussed what you do and why, tell the story of you as a leader.
Most CEOs are deeply intentional about their management style and their leadership philosophy. When you share those principles, you attract people who want to be managed that way and want to be led by someone like you.
You can describe your style simply, or go more in-depth with a blog post or video. Either way, put it on your LinkedIn profile, where people can find it.
Help Others Experience Your Company Culture
Usually the culture will have been guided by you, but it really arises and takes on a life of its own as the team co-creates it.
Your culture might be that everyone stops work at 5pm Friday and you bring in pizza and beer. Maybe you go hiking together or do Habitat for Humanity. It might be that every Wednesday you have yoga in the office, like we do. It might be that people can bring their dogs into work.
Tell those stories in blog posts, use photos to show your team in action, or take videos of employees talking about what they like best about working for your company.
Make the point is that your company is different, and you have created that culture intentionally.
The very best people — the ones who will make the biggest difference to your company — are not only superstars in their role. They want to be managed by someone who manages like you do, and they want to work in a company that has the kind of culture you have created.
When you make those aspects transparent, when you allow people to see who you are as a leader and what your company culture is, you attract the people who will thrive in your business and who will have a huge impact.