Personal Branding, pt 1

Greg Wyatt • April 30, 2024

This is the first in a two or three part series on personal branding.

It’s a viable tactic as part of a multi-channel approach to your job search, and it can bring opportunities to you.

I'll start off by saying I'm not a fan of the term personal branding. I think it can lead to make-work, which can even get in the way of what you should be doing.

However, writing and using content to create experiences that support a job search is a great idea, and, in this way, calling it personal branding - as a discrete activity - isn’t a bad thing.

I expect there are many mediums through which you can build a personal brand, such as this newsletter, but I'll focus on LinkedIn because of how entrenched it is in other job search activities.

Today I'll cover

What a personal brand is
How it sits in your wider job search
How to construct viral content, and why you shouldn't

In the next edition, I'll look at a nuanced approach to branding, and how you can build a content plan that supports getting a job.

What a personal brand is

Influencer marketing has come to the fore over the past few years.

If proof of its legitimacy is needed, you need only look at the celebrities on Strictly Come Dancing With the Stars.

The idea is that by building awareness of your personality, lifestyle and what you're actually promoting, you also build trust. So that when people are ready to buy, they'll buy your products.

But while the brand is personal, the goal is sales. It’s a B2B marketing strategy.

When you see personal branding on LinkedIn, it’s often essentially a mini-business that promotes their services through the account of the author.

“Here’s my puppy, buy my stuff.”

I’ve no doubt you’ve read a lot of advice on how to build a personal brand but take note that the target audience for these advice posts is the business people above. And these posts often seek to part them from their money, with the hope they’ll make money too.

However, the steps that lead to a business personal brand don’t mean they are directly equivalent to a jobseeker personal brand.

Your goals are similar but different. And if there’s a commercial outcome you want, it’s likely a single job, not a throughput of leads.

You’ll also see that spicy content gets huge engagement, but can also repel readers. If you need a job, what’s the danger of writing overly spicy content? Could a reader make a decision against you based on your words?

How much you need any job should inform the experience you want to create for your readers.

How it sits in your wider job search

Or - what’s the point of a personal brand?

For me, writing content is about raising awareness and starting conversations with the right people.

In many ways the hierarchy of relationships your content appeals to is the same as with networking. Have a read through this article for a reminder.

Content can be writing posts or commenting on the posts of others.

And while it has an effect when it sits in your readers’ feeds, it’s also something you can share directly, say as a reason to get back in touch.

I think of LinkedIn posts like a plumber’s van driving around town. Most of the time you’ll disregard the van, unless it cuts you up with noxious fumes. But when you have a leaky pipe, you’ll surely take note of their number.

It can support an application, if a hiring manager decides to surreptitiously stalk your profile.

And it can work against you, if it suggests problem behaviour.

A good balance for content, is the poster in my daughters’ primary school, from a few years back:

THINK.

Is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind?

Achieve those five points and content will rarely work against your job search.

Content should also be integrated into your wider activity. Integrated marketing means that everything that is experienced of a marketing campaign carries a complementary and non-contradictory message.

Content that contradicts your CV or Cover Letter, say, may lead to red flags, whether that’s fair or not.

Content should be intentional, like anything you do in a job search.

HOW TO GO viral , and why you shouldn’t

Anyone who writes content will enjoy the sweet, sweet flow of dopamine when you see likes and comments trickle in.

Such as that first flair post announcing you are available to help your next employer, with examples of your achievements and what you are looking for.

Do that and you’ll get loads of engagement. It’s a great idea too. Why haven’t you done it yet? Tag me in and I’ll support you!

Or you can do what most people do and say “I’m sorry to announce I’ve lost my job, please help” and that will get loads too.

Because it is relevant and relatable to fellow jobseekers, recruiters and sympathisers.

But then you feel the soul-crushing defeat of a well-thought-out post, highlighting a problem in your industry, and tumbleweed follows.

Both types of content have an place. That tumbleweed post is also relevant and relatable, just only to a niche audience.

I try to take a land and expand approach to content, balancing jobseeker advice, recruitment advice / stories, occasional ponderings and satire, which I use to tackle topics from different directions.

Over the past three years I’ve had between 3m to 5m views of my posts, and I’ve got a bit of business through them too.

What I don’t do is try to go viral any more.

Because when I have gone viral, with a couple of 1m impression posts, it’s taken weeks to extricate myself from them, and there hasn’t been real benefit.

Here’s one of my viral posts , for reference.

Moreover, I find my tumbleweed posts start better conversations from lurkers - those that never engage publicly.

The next article will be about helping you find the right balance for you, while showcasing your personality.

I promised you I’d show you how to go viral, so here you go. (feel free to send me plentiful validation tokens)

Relevance + relatability + readability + entitlement.

Maybe add a photo too.

If that seems too simple, feel free to cut and paste this as a post and tell me what happens:

An employee asked me if he can WORK from HOME permanently.
Here is what I told him.

"As long the work gets done I don't care whether you work from the South pole or the office. I hired you for a job and I trust you to get it done."

That employee saved 3 hours on commute. Happy employee = greater productivity.

I learned then that if you focus on presence, you get presence. If you focus on results, you get results.

If you can't trust your employees to work flexibly, why hire them in the first place?

Trust is key.

Agree?

“Does it really work?” asked Charles. I told him to try it as an experiment. He rarely got more than a few hundred impressions per post.

170,000 impressions, 2,000 likes. Pretty viral for a first timer.

But it is very much the wrong path, for a simple reason.

The weight and depth of opinion, which I’ll talk about next time. The weight of opinion of 100 job seekers does not compare to the depth of opinion of one relevant hiring manager.

One might lead to another, but not so straightforwardly as through high volume posts.

I talked about this in more depth in an enjoyable LinkedIn Live with Phil Sterne and Suzie Henriques. You can see it here , if you’re interested. Please don’t judge my wave, which was a private joke!

That’s it for today.

Next week I’ll write about

Building your content philosophy and plan
Types of content to try
Weight and depth of opinion
Why you should start now, even if you don’t see any benefit for months

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

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Jump the shark. A Recruitment AiDE, pt 13

By Greg Wyatt • January 29, 2026

May 2023 You’ve heard the phrase, I take it – “jump the shark”? It’s the moment when one surprising or absurd experience can indicate a rapid descent into rubbishness and obscurity. When it’s time to get off the bus. Typically in media. Jumping the Shark comes from an episode of Happy Days in which the Fonz does a water ski jump over a shark. 👈 Aaaaay. 👉 A sign creators have run out of ideas, or can’t be bothered to come up with fresh ones. In movies, sequelitis is a good example of this – an unnecessary sequel done to make some cash, in the hope the audience doesn’t care about its quality. Sometimes they become dead horses to flog, such as the missteps that are any Terminator film after 2. It’s an issue that can lead to consumers abandoning what they were doing, with such a precipitous drop in engagement that the thing itself is then cancelled. Partly because of breaking trust in what was expected to happen next. And because it’s a sign that the disbelief that was temporarily suspended has come crashing down. If you don’t believe that your current poor experience will lead to further, better experiences, why would you bother? Once you’ve had your fingers burnt, how hard is it to find that trust in similar experiences? It doesn’t have to be a single vein of experience for all to be affected. Watch one dodgy superhero movie and how does it whet your appetite for the next? You didn’t see The Eternals? Lucky you. Or how about that time we had really bad service at Café Rouge, a sign of new management that didn’t care, and we never went again? Just me? Did they sauter par-dessus le requin? Here’s the rub – it matters less that these experiences have jumped the shark. It matters more what the experience means for expectation. So it is in candidate experience. It’s not just the experience you provide that tempers expectations – it’s the cumulated experience of other processes that creates an assumption of what might be expected of yours. If you’re starting from a low trust point, what will it take for your process to ‘jump the shark’ and lose, not just an engaged audience, but those brilliant candidates that might only have considered talking to you if their experience hadn’t been off-putting? Not fair, is it, that the experience provided by other poor recruitment processes might affect what people expect of yours? Their experiences aren’t in your control, the experience you provide is. Of my 700 or so calls with exec job seekers, since The Pandemic: Lockdown Pt 1, many described the candidate experience touchpoints that led to them deciding not to proceed with an application. These were calls that were purely about job search strategy, and not people I could place. However, one benefit for me is that they are the Gemba , and I get to hear their direct experiences outside of my recruitment processes. Experiences such as - ‘£Competitive salary’ in an advert or DM, which they know full well means a lowball offer every time, because it happened to them once or twice, or perhaps it was just a LinkedIn post they read. Maybe it isn’t your problem at all, maybe your £competitive is upper 1% - how does their experience inform their assumptions? Or when adverts lend ambiguity to generic words, what meaning do they find, no matter how far from the truth? How the arrogance of a one-sided interview process affects their interest. The apparent narcissism in many outreaches in recruitment (unamazing, isn’t it, that bad outreach can close doors, rather than open them). Those ATS ‘duplicate your CV’ data entry beasts? Fool me once… Instances that are the catalysts for them withdrawing. I’d find myself telling them to look past these experiences, because a poor process can hide a good job. It’s a common theme in my jobseeker posts, such as a recent one offering a counterpoint to the virality that is “COVER LETTERS DON’T M4TT£R agree?” Experiences that may not be meant by the employer, or even thought of as necessarily bad, yet are drivers for decisions and behaviour. I can only appeal to these job seekers through my posts and calls. What about those other jobseekers who I’m not aware of, who’ve only experienced nonsense advice? What about those people who aren’t jobseekers? What about those people who think they love their roles? What about all those great candidates who won’t put up with bad experiences? The more sceptical they are, and the further they are from the need for a new role, the less bullshit they’ll put up with. What happens when an otherwise acceptable process presents something unpalatable? Might this jumping the shark mean they go no further? Every time the experience you provide doesn’t put their needs front and centre or if it’s correlated to their bad experiences…. these can prevent otherwise willing candidates from progressing with your process, whether that’s an advert they don’t apply to, a job they don’t start, or everything in between. Decisions that may stem from false assumptions of what a bad experience will mean. Instead, look to these ‘bad experience’ touchpoints as opportunities to do better: instead of £competitive, either state a salary or a legitimate reason why you can’t disclose salary (e.g. “see below” if limited by a job board field and “we negotiate a fair salary based on the contribution of the successful candidate, and don’t want to limit compensation by a band”) instead of a 1-way interrogation… an interview instead of radio silence when there’s no news - an update to say there’s no update, and ‘How are things with you by the way?’ instead of Apply Now via our Applicant Torture Sadistificator, ‘drop me a line if you have any questions’ or ‘don’t worry if you don’t have an updated CV - we’ll sort that later’. Opportunity from adversity. And why you can look at bad experiences other processes provide as a chance to do better. With the benefit that, if you eliminate poor experience, you'll lose fewer candidates unnecessarily, including those ideal ones you never knew about. Bad experiences are the yin to good experience’s yang and both are key parts of the E that is Experience in the AIDE framework. The good is for next time. Thanks for reading. Regards, Greg

How To Network For A Job - Jobseeker Basics XIV

By Greg Wyatt • January 26, 2026

The following is Chapter 42 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . In a sense it's a microcosm of how any commercial activity can see a better return - which is to put the needs of the person you are appealing to above your own. It feels counterintuitive, especially when you have a burning need, but you can see the problem of NOT doing this simply by looking at 99% of job adverts: We are. We need. We want. What you'll do for us. What you might get in return. Capped off by the classic "don't call us, we'll call you." If you didn't need a job, how would you respond to that kind of advert? In the same vein, if you want networking to pay off, how will your contact's life improve by your contact? What's in it for them? 42 - How to network for a job Who are the two types of people you remember at networking events? For me two types stand out. One will be the instant pitch networker. This might work if you happen to be in need right now of what they have to offer or if mutual selling is your goal. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this but it’s a selling activity pretending to be networking. If you want to sell, go and overtly sell rather than disguise it with subterfuge. Lest we mark your face and avoid you where possible in future. The second is the one who gets to know you, shows interest and tries to add to your experience. You share ideas, and there’s no push to buy something. They believe that through building the relationship when you have a problem they can solve, you’ll think to go to them. It’s a relationship built on reciprocity. One where if you always build something together there is reason to keep in touch. And where the outcome is what you need if the right elements come together: right person, right time, right message, right place, right offering, right price. Job search networking is no different. The purpose of networking in a job search is to build a network where you are seen as a go-to solution should a suitable problem come up. In this case the problem you solve is a vacancy. Either because your active network is recruiting, or because they advocate for you when someone they know is recruiting. It is always a two-way conversation you both benefit from. Knowledge sharing, sounding board, see how you’re doing - because of what the relationship brings to you both. It is not contacting someone only to ask for a job or a recommendation. A one-way conversation that relies on lucky timing. That second approach can be effective as a type of direct sales rather than networking. If you get it wrong it may even work against you. How would you feel if someone asked to network with you, when it became clear they want you to do something for them? You might get lucky and network with someone who is recruiting now - more likely is that you nurture that relationship over time. If your goal is only to ask for help each networking opportunity will have a low chance of success. While if your goal is to nurture a relationship that may produce a lead, you’ll only have constructive outcomes. This makes it sensible to start by building a network with people that already know you: Former direct colleagues and company colleagues Industry leaders and peers Recruiters you have employed or applied through Don’t forget the friends you aren’t in regular touch with - there is no shame in being out of work and it would be a shame if they didn’t think of you when aware of a suitable opening. These people are a priority because they know you, your capability and your approach and trust has already been built. Whereas networking with people you don't know requires helping them come to know and trust you. Networking with people you know is the most overlooked tactic by the exec job seekers I talk to (followed by personal branding). These are the same people who see the hidden jobs market as where their next role is, yet overlook what’s in front of them. If you are looking for a new role on the quiet - networking is a go-to approach that invites proactive contact to you. Networking with people who know people you know, then people in a similar domain, then people outside of this domain - these are in decreasing order of priority. Let's not forget the other type of networking. Talking to fellow job seekers is a great way to share your pain, take a load off your shoulders, bounce ideas off each other, and hold each other accountable. LinkedIn is the perfect platform to find the right people if you haven't kept in touch directly. Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a conduit to conversation. It isn’t the conversation itself. Speaking in real life is where networking shines because while you might build a facsimile of a relationship in text, it's no replacement for a fluid conversation. Whether by phone and video calls, real life meetups, business events, seminars, conferences, expos, or in my case - on dog walks and waiting outside of the school gates. Both these last two have led to friends and business for me though the latter hasn’t been available since 2021. Networking isn’t 'What can I get out of it?' Instead, ‘What’s in it for them?’ The difference is the same as those ransom list job adverts compared to the rare one that speaks to you personally. How can you build on this relationship by keeping in touch? Networking is systematic, periodic and iterative: Map out your real life career network. Revisit anyone you’ve ever worked with and where Find them on LinkedIn Get in touch ‘I was thinking about our time at xxx. Perhaps we could reconnect - would be great to catch up’ If they don’t reply, because life can be busy, diarise a follow up What could be of interest to them? A LinkedIn post might be a reason to catch up When you look up your contact’s profile look at the companies they’ve worked at. They worked there for a reason, which may be because of a common capability to you Research these companies. Are there people in relevant roles worth introducing yourself to? Maybe the company looks a fit with your aspirations - worth getting in touch with someone who may be a hiring manager or relevant recruiter? Maybe they aren’t recruiting now. Someone to keep in touch with because of mutual interests. Click on Job on their company page, then "I'm interested" - this helps for many reasons, including flagging your interest as a potential employee Keep iterating your network and find new companies as you look at new contacts. This is one way we map the market in recruitment to headhunt candidates - you can mirror this with your networking The more proactive networking you build into your job search, the luckier you might get. While you might need to nurture a sizeable network and there are no guarantees, think about the other virtues of networking - how does that compare to endless unreplied applications? I often hear from job seekers who found their next role through networking. This includes those who got the job because of their network even though hundreds of applicants were vying for it. While this may be unfair on the applicants sometimes you can make unfair work for you. It can be effective at any level.