A recruiter’s outgoing resumes are arguably the biggest branding tool for their company.
Strong and consistent resume templates are crucial to making a positive impression on your clients and strengthening your brand awareness. Competing in such a saturated market leaves no room for sub-par formatting or inconsistent branding.
Spending time on creating a fantastic resume template now, will yield great return in the long-run.
Is your resume template up to scratch?
Importance of branding in job search
You want your resumes to stand out from others your clients might be receiving. When they receive a properly branded and formatted candidate resume like the one you can easily build with Allsorter, they’ll know each resume has gone through vigorous checks by your agency.
Get beautiful, formatted resumes & CVs in half the time with Allsorter!
And, since the resumes are formatted, they’ll be easy to skim through and get to the most important criteria.
Building a strong personal brand helps strengthen the trust your clients have in you! Being perceived as a credible brand starts with simple steps like resumes.
Next up? Differentiating yourself completely from other agencies hiring for similar roles!
How a strong personal brand can set a candidate apart from the competition
Similarly, you want to present your candidates as the standout talent to your clients. They’ll have to help you with that, so make sure your branding collateral includes enough room to let their highlights shine.
For example, you can emphasise the cover letter or summary section, using bold points to emphasise their credentials, additional experience, and awards.
If your clients highly value the industry experience of their new hire, create a specific section that addresses it.
If your candidates are active on social media and building their professional brand, ask them to include links to their most important posts. Then, incorporate them into the CVs to give the client a taste of what it would be like to work with the candidate.
Determine your candidates’ unique value proposition
- Identify your strengths and accomplishments – Identify the candidates’ values and the areas they excel at. For example, if they have experience in a specific area (industry, role type, etc.) of the role the client is hiring for, highlight it on the resume.
- Determine how they align with the needs of your target employer – Once you understand your client’s needs, create a checklist in your ATS to determine which candidates come closest to aligning with them.
- Craft a clear and compelling elevator pitch – Encourage the candidates to create an elevator pitch to make a strong first impression on the potential employers.
They should:
– Explain what they do
– State their USP
– Spark interest with a question or a story
– Always end with a clear CTA
Take a moment to check out our 5 quick-fix branding tips below.
5 Quick-fix Branding Tips
(1.) Featuring your company logo
on candidate resumes will ensure clients are familiar with your brand. Ensure it doesn’t distract from the content – discreet placement in the header or footer is ideal.
- Make sure your logo is simple, clear and consistent.
- Ensure your team uses your approved logo – consistent branding will have a greater impact on both clients and candidates.
(2.) Leave enough empty space between the various resume sections
for maximum readability. This enhances the client’s experience and helps them skim through a resume to determine if the candidate meets their criteria in a single glance.
On the other hand, tightly-packed text and big paragraphs can cause clients to miss important information about your candidate’s skills and experiences.
As a result, they’ll end up wasting more time examining each paragraph.
So, format your resumes well (you can even automate it), and your clients will thank you for making their life easier!
(3.) Be highly detailed-orientated with your template
Do you have specific line spacing requirements? Are you using consistent font size for your headings? Are all your bullet points aligned?
- Make the headings stand out by enlarging the text wherever applicable
- Highlight the important resume sections to help your clients skim them.
- Maintain consistency with the logo positioning, sizing, font styles, images, watermarks, tables or lines you’re using in your resumes.
- Use a professional headshot and email address, colour scheme and font.
(4.) Ensure all online profiles and social media accounts reflect your personal brand
A great way to build credibility (in front of candidates and clients) is to share valuable content that showcases your expertise as a recruiter and highlights your company values and USP. Do it while helping candidates grow their professional brands:
- Build a professional profile and a company page for your recruitment agency on LinkedIn
- Update the founder’s profile and share thought-leadership content to strengthen the brand
- Maintain consistency in your brand image through different channels
- Create content around your recruitment process, your SOPs, your company culture, recruitment tips, etc.
- Share frequent mistakes and best practices related to candidate resumes
( Creating a consistent candidate brand – Create a linkedin profile that showcases your professional brand – Use Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms to share…How to use social media and online profiles to complement and enhance a candidate’s resume branding efforts?
(5.) Tailor the candidates’ resume branding to the company and position they applied for
Sending out resumes based on a generic template to every employer doesn’t always work – especially when different employers have different recruiting needs.
For example, if an employer is hiring for a senior management role and looking for someone with strong leadership qualities, the resume should emphasise that.
- Highlight relevant skills and experience – if needed, reformat the resume to make their skills the resume’s focus point.
- Use keywords and phrases from the job posting and speak the employer’s jargon to make the resume more relevant.
- Design the resume based on a specific industry or work culture – if it’s for a creative role, make sure the creativity is reflected on the resume.