Someone only has to whisper the term ‘personal brand’ within earshot and I break out in hives and run myself a bath.

Sadly, no amount of scrubbing seems to rid me of the stench.

The term’s become so ridiculed by the masses it’s a rod to bash people over the head with in the dark corners of LinkedIn.

“What are you messing around on LinkedIn for? Have you done your call times? ”

A personal brand, when all’s said and done, is how people talk about you when you’re not in the room. That’s about it.

A personal brand isn’t video job ads filmed in a nice car.

It’s not sharing photos of highlighted motivational quotes from books.

It’s not AI-written nonsense unashamedly copied from ShatGPT.

It’s not your morning routine.

It’s not quotes from Leo DiCaprio.

And it’s not selfies shared with absolutely zero relevance of the topic being talked about.

It’s just you.

The industry you operate in. The placements you make. The job you do. Your personality and character.

It’s also the way you speak to people on the phone. Or in a lift. Or the way you write job ads.

It’s the way you negotiate candidates’ salaries. It’s the way you treat the receptionist of the building your client works in. It’s the way you comment on other people’s updates and both the professionalism and downtime you share to the masses.

A personal brand, simply, is you.

It just so happens, some people share theirs online.

I do. A lot of recruiters I know do. And a lot more ridicule others for doing so, despite not having anywhere near the success of those they mock.

The iron fist

Some recruitment companies would rather you didn’t share much of your own thoughts on the internet. They’re worried you might say the wrong thing. They’re worried you’ll get them into trouble.

I call bullshit.

If either of those were true, they wouldn’t hire you in the first place. And certainly wouldn’t let you loose talking to clients on the phone.

The truth is, any business owner, Founder, MD or Manager who doesn’t let you post your own thoughts and musings online is worried you’ll become more tied to the industry and business than you need to be, and then leave.

With “their” business.

Of course it’s not their business to begin with, but that’s probably how they view it. Ironically in this case, it’s business they wouldn’t be taking a cut of, if you hadn’t brought it in and developed it.

But leave you will.

It’ll happen anyway. Unless you’re planning on staying in this job forever. But this is why restrictive covenants are so common in recruitment. And why every single person who’s ever signed one, in the history of recruitment, has used another name to do business with that list for the first 6 months.

Sorry if that’s news to you. Wait until about Kermit and what’s really going on under that belly of his. But I digress.

Acceptance is the first step towards healing

The second step after your boss accepting you’re “building your personal brand”… or, sharing your personality online, is them throwing money behind it.

If that sounds less likely than your boss levitating and giving you access to their entire personal wealth, here’s a secret:

You’re working for the wrong business.

The more you post with sincerity and honesty in the way you want to, the more you’ll connect with your industry. The more you connect, the more business you do. The more business you do, the better theirs does.

If they’d rather not pay for that, there are quite literally countless others who will. Go find one. And once you’ve done that, set up a profile on Recfindr.