Secrets to Successful Personal Branding with Darren Westall

Benjamin Mena [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter podcast with your host Benjamin Menna, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership and placements. Hey recruiters, have you heard about this tool? You have to check out hey Milo. It's the AI powered tool that's revolutionizing the hiring process. With hey Milo, you can scale your time and interview more candidates in a fraction of the time. Hey milos uses proprietary AI for two way conversational voice interviews, giving you the edge you need. Hundreds of recruiters and hiring managers are already using hey Milo to streamline their workflow, boost their success, and making four x the placements ready to transform your recruiting process? Check out heymylo AI and start making more placements in less time. You can try it out for free today.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:53]:
Hey Milo, thank you for sponsoring the elite Recruiter podcast.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:57]:
One last quick announcement before we get started. First of all, the AI recruiting summit registration is open. Check the show notes, get registered. Also, make sure that you're also registered for the recruiting growth summit. Finish the year strong, two summits to help you have your best year yet. Get registered. All right, let's go. I'm excited about this episode of the elite Recruiter podcast because one of the biggest things that recruiters suck at, and I am speaking about myself when I say suck at, is personal branding.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:25]:
I, for the longest time, believe that I should be known for the positions that I fill. I should be known for the hard work that I do. That should tell the story. But guess what? It doesn't. Maybe the company that you worked with then filled a position for. They know you, they have referrals. But at the end of the day, what is it? 25 people know how hard you work. Like, one of the biggest things in 2024 that recruiters need to understand is they need to go build their personal brand, whether they're working at an internal firm, whether they're working at an agency, whether they're a search firm owner.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:55]:
Personal branding is going to be one of the things that sets you apart from the hundreds of thousands of other recruiters. So I'm so excited that I have Darren Westall from Pager to talk about really just like building a personal brand and also like, how to lean in and safely use AI when it comes to building your personal brand. So, Darren, welcome to the podcast.

Darren Westall [00:02:15]:
Thank you very much for having me. We're excited to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:17]:
You're a little bit different when it comes to the recruiting field. You're on the software side of the house. But you've also been around the recruiting business for almost, what, well over a decade, right?

Darren Westall [00:02:27]:
Well over a decade, yes. My background is purely tech now. I'm a tech guy through and through, although I, ironically failed it at college. But we won't go into that because that's a whole other time in my life. But, yeah. So I was a software developer at a company called Broadbean. Straight out college. Somehow got through the interview.

Darren Westall [00:02:42]:
The CTO must have been off that day. I managed to get hired. I worked my way up the career ladder there for ten years and actually became the chief technology officer across EMEA, so oversaw their product and technical teams, which for a lot of people would have been their dream job. And it was mine. When I first started, I wanted that job, but the moment I got it, if I'm being honest, I felt empty. I was like, what's next? I was 27, 28, doing my dream job. My wife was extremely happy, but it was pretty much the day I got the job that I decided to quit it. So I decided to start my own business because I needed the next thing in my life.

Darren Westall [00:03:17]:
And that next thing was pager. So pager's been around for five and a half, six years now. We now work with just over 800 staffing companies. So my wife's finally forgiven me for quitting my job. That's basically where I'm at in my life.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:29]:
Five years of falling. Forgiven.

Darren Westall [00:03:31]:
Finally, finally forgiven.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:33]:
So I know broadbeen technology from my days of internal recruiting. Like, you guys got a lot of data, you guys did, worked with a lot of organizations, and being the CTO, you saw what companies were doing and how companies were winning and all that kind of stuff. Within that data. Before you jumped over to pager, what were the recruiters that were winning doing?

Darren Westall [00:03:55]:
The ones that were winning were actually doing different things. When Broadbean first started, people used to post to 1015 job boards. That was the reason the product really existed. There was a lot of different places you could advertise your jobs, and then over the years, we've seen that come down. So probably more like four or five. You've got your. Indeed, you've got your zip. Recruiters, you've got LinkedIn.

Darren Westall [00:04:16]:
LinkedIn really did change the way that people advertise jobs. And the ones that were, the ones that I think were doing successful were the ones that are thinking, right, everybody's advertising in the same space. My corporate clients are going to now advertise in the same space. I now need to think differently whether that's headhunting, whether that's building a personal brand, the ones that thought differently were the ones that I think went on to be the most successful that I'm aware of. So if you're still doing just those traditional methods, you know, your end clients are going to do those methods. The job boards want to work with your clients, they want to work with the employers. So you need to change up. And it's been an interesting shift for me.

Darren Westall [00:04:52]:
The ones that do something slightly differently are the ones that I think stand out. And personal branding is a way to stand out.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:58]:
And I'm just gonna say this, like, personal branding has absolutely changed over the last like year or two and up until like, I would say 2023 or maybe like sometime in 2023. Prior to that, I've been on LinkedIn since I think 2004. I hate, or maybe a 2000, it's somewhere on there. I hated LinkedIn with a passion. Even though I'm a recruiter, I'm like, I don't want to post. The algorithm has changed. I'm sitting there paying LinkedIn thousands of dollars and I'm like, why don't you push my posts like, I have an open job. Why can't people see this? Like, I'm paying for this? But, you know, they've changed the algorithm, they've catered to content creators, they've catered to all the stuff.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:33]:
So you almost have to like, play the game now with LinkedIn. What is working on personal branding now?

Darren Westall [00:05:40]:
Well, the big thing is to remember LinkedIn isn't a job board. Most recruiters think of LinkedIn as a job board, right? When it's not, LinkedIn's a social network, it's a b two B social network. So yes, you need to post your jobs and use your job slots. And the people that are actively looking will absolutely go to LinkedIn and look for a job. But actually most of the people you're interested in are the passive ones. And the passive ones is where personal branding really comes in. So the first thing I say is get posting. I know you said you didn't want to post, but get posting.

Darren Westall [00:06:07]:
And if you're going to do it, make it something that you actually commit time to and you're going to be consistent. That LinkedIn loves consistency. The more consistent you are on the platform, the more people they will show your post to. If you go on holiday for a couple of weeks, come back and post that first post, you do normally just dies of death, right? You need to be consistent. You need to keep it going. So don't dip your toe in. Actually get fully in. All right, let's get into our swim trunks, let's get into this pool and then really be consistent at it.

Darren Westall [00:06:33]:
What I mean by that is you're not going to see results within the first month, which is usually the biggest frustration for most people, because as human beings we want really quick wins. But personal branding doesn't work that way. It takes time to build up trust and credibility with people. It used to be seven touch points. They used to teach you in university for marketing. And with the digital world, they now think it's more like 33, 33 touch points. You need to have resolved for them to trust you. And obviously then once they trust you, they buy from you.

Darren Westall [00:06:59]:
So the more touch points you have, the better. And touch points can be a LinkedIn post, it can be a phone call, it can be a meeting, it can be commenting on their post. But you need to invest time, take time out of your day to actually invest in LinkedIn on the social side, not just the job board side.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:13]:
So out of all the recruiters out there, I feel like maybe like only five or 10% are actively posting on LinkedIn on a consistent basis.

Darren Westall [00:07:22]:
I think it's less so. LinkedIn's last stats I saw was the 1% of their user base post. So we.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:28]:
Wait, wait, hold on a second. So there's hundreds of thousands of recruiters that we're all actually looking for either new clients or filling positions, whether internal agency or search for. And LinkedIn is saying only 1% of people post.

Darren Westall [00:07:40]:
1% of people on LinkedIn Post. So of their members. Now that's not really recruiters. But if we take that, I doubt it's going to go up to say, 510 percent now. I think especially if you take out jobs, most recruiters just share the fact they're hiring. I'm hiring for this job. Did you know I'm a recruiter, by the way? I've got this job right now. That's not personal branding, that's treating LinkedIn as a job board.

Darren Westall [00:07:59]:
So the people that actually had valuable content. Yeah, I think it's probably be like more like two, 3% maybe in the recruitment space.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:07]:
And I'll just say this like I was the person that was like just sharing the, hey, I got this opening, like up until 2020 to 2023.

Darren Westall [00:08:15]:
Now you wonder, you've seen the line.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:19]:
And don't laugh at this. The podcast was like accidental branding. Like, that's a whole other topic for another day. Like, I wasn't trying to brand myself with a podcast, I just got excited sharing stories and it became an accidental personal branding.

Darren Westall [00:08:31]:
Yeah, you're obviously very personable. Look good in front of the camera, Benjamin. I don't mind saying that. Right, so there might be plenty of people that haven't got your confidence, right? So I'm not saying you need to start a podcast. I'm not saying you need to record video content. When I say get posting, I just literally mean a text based post. Just put your thoughts on there. If you're a python developer recruiter, for example, talk about the industry right now, where are you finding difficulties? Where are you seeing clients with challenges? Put that online.

Darren Westall [00:08:58]:
Create that conversation. If you can be the conversation starter, you'll also be the person they start to trust.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:03]:
So when it comes to creating these posts, it is so easy to create a post for the other recruiters out there. Cause it feels good, it's safe, you know, you'll get your likes. Other recruiters like, understand it. But how do you start writing posts for your industry or for the network, for the people that you wanna hire for or recruit for?

Darren Westall [00:09:23]:
The worst type of post I've ever seen is recruiters bad mouthing about candidates. For example, right now you're going to get engagement, you're gonna get likes, you're gonna get comments from other recruiters. But as a candidate viewing your profile, I'm just thinking, no, I don't wanna work with you. Right? So think about who you're actually writing for. So don't write for other recruiters because speaking very bluntly, they won't make you more money. You need to write for your candidates and for your clients. So the reason that I build a personal brand is to reach other recruiters, right? The reason you do it is to reach clients and reach candidates. So think about the purpose and then work backwards.

Darren Westall [00:09:54]:
Who do I want to see? My content. So let's assume it's candidates. Okay? Now, what do candidates care about, depending on the level of candidates? If I'm recruiting for senior candidates, there's no point of me talking about cv writing tips, right? There really isn't. Or, sorry, resume writing tips. That's the British in me coming out. Resume writing tips. So you need to make sure that you think about the person who you're talking to, but also the seniority. So if I was talking to senior software developers, for example, I would want to know, right? What's the latest release from AWS and how does that change their world? Maybe I could talk to hiring managers about how they're impacting plan to use it, and I'd then turn that into a post.

Darren Westall [00:10:29]:
So if I was talking about I want to reach senior software developers the next time on the phone with one, I'd say, what's the latest technology you're using? Oh, really interesting. How are you using that to change what you're doing today than what you were doing previously? I'd then write a post about that and I'd say, look, I was talking to a candidate just yesterday who's using AWS's new thing. This is changing how they're doing this in their business. Anyone else experiencing the same thing? So I would use my conversations throughout the day with my candidates and clients to create my content. And obviously we can talk a little bit about AI as well and how that can help you get there. But the first thing to do is define who am I talking to and why am I talking to them.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:04]:
So what you're saying is we're having these conversations during the day, we just need to start sharing some of these stories.

Darren Westall [00:11:09]:
Yes, you've got your content every single day, and you're probably brilliant at talking to people on the phone. Most recruiters I speak to can hold a conversation better than anybody else. All I'm asking you to do is bring that conversation online rather than offline. So put yourself out there a little bit and bring that conversation online.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:26]:
When you spend a month posting content and you have like no likes or no engagement, like, it's so hard to keep on going. You've got a month of like just nothing's happened, two months of nothing's happened. Have you been content? Like, how do you increase the engagement from your industry or icps?

Darren Westall [00:11:42]:
So the first thing to do is make sure you're posting the right content and structure in the right way. I'll give a few tips actually on how to structure your content to actually get the most engagement. So when you write for LinkedIn, I want you to think of that first sentence the same way you think of an email subject line. What's the reason they're going to open your email? What's the reason they're going to open your LinkedIn post? Every LinkedIn post shows the first sentence by default, and then it cuts off the rest. You have to click show more to read the rest of the post. Every time somebody clicks show more, LinkedIn tracks that, and the more people that click show more, they show it to more people. So it's one of their engagement metrics on a post. So make sure your first sentence is really, really strong.

Darren Westall [00:12:19]:
Really tease them with it a little bit. Then you've got your content and then you've got your call to action. So your call to action could be leave a comment below, right? Let me know your thoughts. Or it could be to your website. Think about what you want that call to action to be, because if it's taken them away from the post, you won't get the likes, you won't get the comments because they've opened up a new tab. They're away from your post, they're going to come back to leave their thoughts. So think about what you care about. You know, if you're sharing a job, for example, I would link to job on your website so they can apply because nobody's going to comment saying I'm looking for a job.

Darren Westall [00:12:51]:
Thank you for sharing this. Right, so think about your call to actions. That first sentence is the most important. And then you've got hashtags. LinkedIn loves free hashtags. So if you don't have thousands of connections right now, hashtags will probably be one of your good friends. They'll keep trying new things as they keep saying, oh, don't worry about your hashtags. In my experience, use three good ones and you're going to get good reach.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:11]:
I'm like half hashtag, don't use hashtag like LinkedIn. What do you want me to do now?

Darren Westall [00:13:17]:
I just, I've been sticking with three for a while and yeah, it seems to work for me. So on Brady, you want to stick to.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:23]:
So I have this personal theory that recruiter LinkedIn is one of the best community building platforms out there.

Darren Westall [00:13:31]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:31]:
So as a recruiter, if you're like focusing on, we'll say Java developers or Python developers or even AWS, you can now build like through connection requests, build out 1000, 5000, 10,000 professionals within that circle using connection requests. If a recruiter wants to start building that niche connection slash community, how do you go and actually make that connection request? Do you add like a personalized note or just send a blank please add me kind of thing?

Darren Westall [00:13:59]:
So I would always try and personalize it. What I would start by doing is searching hashtags at the top. So in the search bar on LinkedIn, you could type in hash Java, for example, and that will show you the top posts that have been done in that community that day. I then go out of my way to add some comments, add some value to those people. So I'd say take the first ten posts and I comment on every single one. And then I'll work my way through the people that have commented and people that posted and send them a connection request, they will get notified that I've commented on their post or I've commented on the same post as them, and then I'm in their inbox where I wanted to connect so they're already familiar with me. It's one of those extra touch points. You'll see your connection requests be accepted a lot more if you can comment on the post that they've interacted with beforehand.

Darren Westall [00:14:39]:
So that's the way I do it. I take the top ten posts every single day in recruitment. I then interact with people, comment and connect, and you'll see your connection rates go through the roof.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:47]:
And just for the listeners, I think, like, if you do a combination of like building out a consistent connections within your space, and then you do exactly what Darren's talking about with your very industry focused posts, that is probably like one of the secret sauces to becoming a go to person in the industry.

Darren Westall [00:15:02]:
Yeah. You're adding value to your community through commenting. You're supporting others while also contributing as well. And it doesn't need to take a whole lot of time, right? You can build that into your routine. Once something becomes habit, you're really quick at it. The first time you do it will probably take you an hour. Fast forward a month, you'll probably in ten minutes, five minutes. Really depends how quick you are.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:19]:
Can you use AI to help you with some of this?

Darren Westall [00:15:23]:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, Wriston on my chest, right? Ages and AI tool for recruits and stuff. Yes, you can. But you can do all of these things without AI as well. Our best clients are people that have invested the time to do these things and then realize that actually I need to get the time back because I need to invest somewhere else. So we would want you to be doing these things already before we worked with you. AI's job is to make you more efficient. Right? That's the reason that for me is going to be a wonderful thing.

Darren Westall [00:15:47]:
Some people are scared about it. I'm not. I'm thinking this can make us more efficient as a human race. So I would take a list of all of your things that you do in a day and I look and go, can AI help me become more efficient at this? Whether it's posting on LinkedIn, whether it's commenting, whether it's writing job adverts, job specs, whatever it may be, work out the ones that you want to try and automate and then go shopping for it. So the biggest mistake people make when it comes to AI and tech in general is shiny toy syndrome. Oh, this looks good. This looks shiny. I'm going to use this.

Darren Westall [00:16:15]:
I want you to define why you're using something before you start. So with AI, figure out in shopping list, like, you wouldn't walk into Walmart if you weren't hungry or you already had a list, you're going there for a reason. If you walked in there and thought, I don't need anything and I'm not hungry, you're just going to walk around aimlessly. Now, don't do that with tech. Actually go with a shopping list and say, this is the problem I'm trying to solve. And yeah, pager can solve those problems for you, other AI's can solve those problems for you, but you must have the problem in the first place.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:42]:
This also goes into another question because there's tons of great AI tools. I am a shiny object syndrome junkie. Have you ever heard of a company called appsumo before?

Darren Westall [00:16:51]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:52]:
Yes, I am an appsumo junkie. I cried when I saw how much money I spent on them last year. When should a recruiter not be using AI?

Darren Westall [00:16:59]:
If you're happy with the level of business you're doing right now, or you don't want to do more money and you don't want to spend more time with your family, you're happy you've got the right work life balance, all of those things, then don't use AI. If you think either your work life balance can be improved or you can make more money, then you should be looking at how do I automate some of my processes? But if you're sitting there saying, no, everything's perfect. I'm happy with my work life balance. I'm happy with what I'm doing. I love my job. Don't use AI.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:24]:
Jumping back to personal branding. So I feel like LinkedIn is like where us recruiters live. Is there other places that we can go outside of LinkedIn to work and building a personal brand?

Darren Westall [00:17:32]:
Yeah, absolutely. And again, it depends on your specialism. So Twitter or X right now is used heavily by developers and technical people, but recruiters aren't there. They're not in that playing field. So if you want to, you should actually join a community like that. There'll also be real specialist communities outside of LinkedIn. So if we keep on the tech channel, for example, there's a community called Hacker News, which is run by wire combinator, one of the biggest investors in tech businesses. But there's no recruiters on that forum, it's full technical people, yet there's conversations every day like, what should my salary be based on this skill set? Or, I'm just relocating to XYZ, you know, could anyone make any recommendations for companies I should look at? All of those conversations happen where recruiters haven't actually gone and found that forum yet.

Darren Westall [00:18:17]:
So if you're listening to this in tech recruitment, put your time in and become part of that community. Attend the meetups, and you will absolutely stand out for the crowd even further.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:25]:
But LinkedIn's such a safe place for us.

Darren Westall [00:18:28]:
Yeah, it's the thing about fishing in the same pond, right? Keep getting the same fish. But if you want the big fish, you know, how are you going to meet the CTO of a funded company that's got like 100 million in funding? You'll meet them at Hacker news event. You will, but you won't necessarily meet them on LinkedIn.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:43]:
But LinkedIn has now added games. Sorry, I'm kind of pissed at that. I just saw it pop up on my feed yesterday that LinkedIn is like, adding games, and I'm like, no, invest in something else.

Darren Westall [00:18:52]:
I don't know why they've done that. What I would have preferred is just them to merge the inbox of my paid inbox. Am I not paid inbox? I'm tired of having two separate inboxes.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:00]:
Oh, my God, that would be great. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, I mean, there's a thousand things I feel like LinkedIn could do, like maybe not highlight the memes. So actually, here's a question. Here's a question. So you want to be an authority in the space, and it is sometimes tough to chase the engagement game. Do you kind of, like, add in, like, memes and fun things in the industry, or do you want to just kind of focus on, like, serious stuff?

Darren Westall [00:19:24]:
We do. We use memes in our paid advertising. It's a really good way to break people's scroll if you like, you know, if you're trying to get people's attention. But I would say again, it depends on your audience. You know, I think recruiters are fun people. Right? If I was recruiting in legal, for example, I probably wouldn't be sharing a meme. So I think you need to know your audience, know who you want to talk to. And if you're doing it for just likes, you're probably doing it for the wrong reason.

Darren Westall [00:19:47]:
So I just want to come back to that. You know, I'm not getting. I'm not getting the likes I'm not getting the comments. That's not the reason you're doing this. At the bare minimum, the reason you're doing it is because every email you send, every phone call you make, if they don't know you, the first thing they do is check you out on LinkedIn and they're asking themselves one question, do I trust this person with my business? Do I trust this person? My career? And you want the answer to be yes. The only way for that to be yes is to be sharing good, credible, valued content. And when they look at you on LinkedIn, they think, yes, this is the person I'm going to respond to. Out of the hundred cold emails I got this month, I'm going to come back to this person.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:21]:
I just had to ask that because it is so easy to share fun stuff and share stories and like you said, share the negative things. Like, you'll get the likes, you'll get the engagement. But at the end of the day, if a client, potential client, sat down and saw your posts, what would they think?

Darren Westall [00:20:35]:
Yeah. And that's what you need to be thinking. I always say, just drive the conversation. Right. You don't need to necessarily give your opinion on something. You can just say, talk about the topic. So you could find a news article about something like, maybe it's a new piece of legislation that affects your industry. Perfect.

Darren Westall [00:20:48]:
Let's put it onto LinkedIn. Let's start the conversation about it. You don't need to give an opinion on it. Just start the conversation.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:54]:
That also goes into another question. There's so many things as a recruiter that we're dealing on a daily basis. There are so many hats that we have to wear, you know, numbers, KPI's, so many things that we're dealing with. How also do you stay really in tune and up to date with what's going on in the industry outside of the conversations that you're having with candidates?

Darren Westall [00:21:11]:
Well, and this wasn't a setup. That's one of the features of pager. So think of pager as your own assistance. So you train it on the content your audience will find interesting. So on news websites, they read what podcast is and see what YouTube channels they watch. And we send all of that to you every single day in like, a personalized newspaper. So you can then bring that conversation online. So my answer is, subscribe to news websites, subscribe to podcasts, or you can obviously use a tool to do that for you.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:34]:
I'm in the Govcon space, so my inbox is hit with, like, Govcon articles. Who won this work? Which company got this new billion dollar program? But it is also hard to stay up to date with everything.

Darren Westall [00:21:44]:
It is, especially if you've got multiple, I guess the word subscriptions like newsletters, right? Your inbox is busy enough already. You've got candidates coming in, you've got clients coming in. You need to again, build that habit of reading that one newsletter a day. So there's plenty of tools out there to do it. But my advice would be to find the top sort of voices in your space, what websites or podcasts, and then try to consolidate it into sort of a daily newspaper that you can re digest first thing them all, ideally, because it really gets your brain going. And you can then have those conversations with candidates and clients on the phone as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:13]:
I know you know the data behind this, which is why I'm asking this question. What's a good way to use, like, all these news updates and conversations and podcasts within your bd sequences?

Darren Westall [00:22:22]:
Yes, it's a really interesting question. So I for a long time used to send video messages to people, my prospects, if you like. I say, hey, I'm Darren, nice to meet you. This is the reason I'm reaching out. I then re record the same video because I end up swearing because I said the wrong thing or end up swearing because I'm lazy or I was showing too much, right? So I spend like 2030 minutes to send one video. And I used to get so frustrated. What I switched to was actually just finding a piece of news that people would find nutritional podcasts connecting with them and putting it in there and saying, look, I just was listening to this, came across your profile, thought actually you might enjoy it as well. It's a really good way to build that warm connection and also start the conversation again.

Darren Westall [00:23:01]:
Rather they come back and say, oh, I actually heard that, or I haven't heard that one. Thank you very much for sharing that. So think about beyond LinkedIn status updates. How can you share that news as well in your prospect sequences and candidates as well? You know, you might have a candidate that you've not spoken to in two years, but maybe you placed them two years ago, right? And that message to them, rather than say, not enjoying work anymore, do you want a new job? Right? You could literally say, I was listening to this podcast and it made me think of you. How have you been?

Benjamin Mena [00:23:28]:
Well, that's smooth. The amount of recruiters that have hit their inbox, that's something completely different.

Darren Westall [00:23:32]:
Completely different. And that cans they already trust you with their career? Right. The reason they're in that job already is you. So they're going to come back and they're going to say, yeah, great. How have you been? Thank you so much. Actually, while I have you, I was actually thinking of a move. I don't suppose you've got anything else.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:47]:
That'S smooth, that's awesome. With everything that you know about personal branding, because you've been hardcore in this space for the last five years, what other pieces of advice would you give to recruiters out there to build their own personal brand?

Darren Westall [00:23:58]:
Number one thing is just get over yourself. All right? Normally the reason people don't do it is they're too worried what people will think. So much as I was joking, my first video that I posted on LinkedIn probably took me 45 minutes to record and I ended up with a 32nd click, right. I was constantly re recording, re recording, because I thought people would comment saying, oh, you fat guy, you shouldn't be putting out LinkedIn or your lazy eyes showing, right. All these things in my head, which when I didn't, I just put it out on LinkedIn and everyone was really lovely, right? And I think the thing to remind yourself is people wanting to do well, people want you to succeed, right? There's trolls on the Internet, there really are, but screw them, right? They're not normally on LinkedIn and LinkedIn, quite a really supportive community. So get over yourself, put yourself out there and then do it consistently. But if you're thinking about doing it, my answer is just do it now because timing's a big thing and you could wait another six months before you start doing it, but then you're six months behind and these things take time to build up. So marketing is long term sales, right? You can't afford to wait.

Darren Westall [00:24:56]:
So please prioritize it as well. Make sure you do it today, start posting today, embrace it, because in six months time it's going to help your business. And I think we could all do with that right now.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:06]:
It's definitely the difference between the tactical business side of the house where you're out there hunting, and the farming side of the business where you're planting those seeds for tomorrow or six months a year from now. Love that. Before I jump over to the quick fire questions, is there anything else that you want to share?

Darren Westall [00:25:21]:
Oh, anything else I want to share? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Obviously people do want to in touch with me, just Darren west on LinkedIn. Connect with me. I'd love to connect with you and support each other.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:31]:
Awesome. So when it comes to, we're taking a little bit of a different angle because you have so much data when it comes to what recruiters are doing, how they're doing things different. So if somebody wasn't just getting started in the recruiting industry this year, 2024, what advice would you give to them to see success?

Darren Westall [00:25:47]:
Are they joining another business?

Benjamin Mena [00:25:48]:
Think of it as either a solo recruiter or they're joining an agency or they're an internal recruiter. So just somebody that's green, that's never been in an industry before.

Darren Westall [00:25:57]:
Okay. Number one is act like a sponge. Act like a sponge. Soak everything in, find the person that's probably doing the most success in the business and ask to sit next to them and actually just watch, observe, find out what they do. That's different. Right. Because there's going to be things that they do that aren't in the manual. They give you when you start the onboarding document they give you and say, this is what we want you to do.

Darren Westall [00:26:18]:
I can almost guarantee you the top pillars not doing that. I really can. So I would find that person and say, look, what works for you? What are you doing this different? I would then ideally, you've got a marketing person. Internally, I would go to them and say, I really want your help. How can you help me? Because marketing want to help you be successful, and most people don't go to them and say, look, I really want your help. It's normally the other way around. Marketing is trying to force someone to do something. If you're the person that's receptive to it, marketing will invest in you and they will really accelerate all of the things you're trying to do with them.

Darren Westall [00:26:49]:
So I'd seek out marketing, seek out the top pillar, act like a sponge, and then I turn all of that into my own way of doing things. And I would try my very best to create an inbound model. I don't really want you having to hit the phone 200 times a day. What I would really love you to do is build your personal brand. Start that straight away with help from marketing. Take the things from the top. Bill, what are the challenges he's talking to about with prospects, what the challenges that she's talking to her candidates about. Learn from those and start building that straight away.

Darren Westall [00:27:16]:
So, yeah, act like a sponge, but from the right people.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:20]:
I love that same question before. Experienced recruiters have been in the industry for a while. What advice would you give to them based on everything that you're saying?

Darren Westall [00:27:27]:
My biggest piece of advice to experienced recruiters is to not, if they've only got a handful of customers, right. A lot of time the experienced recruiters end up with say five or six customers that give them repeat jobs and they get lazy. And it sounds really horrible, but laziness could be what kills you, right? Because actually those clients can stop recruiting overnight. We've seen it before with COVID we've seen it before with other things. So I would never stop doing business development and that includes personal branding. So as an experienced recruiter right now, if you're sitting here thinking my job flow is good, I've got enough jobs to work that's not guaranteed. And it may have been the case for a year, but it might not be the case next year. So I would always have one eye on personal brand in business development.

Darren Westall [00:28:09]:
No matter how experienced you are when.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:11]:
It comes to AI and recruiting, how do you think AI is going to impact the world of recruiting over the next few years?

Darren Westall [00:28:17]:
I think it will make us more efficient. So we are in an odd space in the world. We are b two b marketing with b two c, marketing, which really means we're human to human. We're the only industry, I think, that actually deals with humans so much. We help humans get jobs, we help humans feel jobs. That's never going to change and that's what's going to make us unique. I think AI is going to get rid of bad recruiters. I think the ones that are the lazy ones that just send out 2000 emails and get one response back and then they place that candidate with sort of flak free jeopardist recruiters, I think they will struggle.

Darren Westall [00:28:50]:
But the people that work in a real specialism and they really invest in community will actually be the ones that thrive. Because all AI is going to enable you to do is have more conversations. The more conversations you have, the more money you make. So you're going to speak to more human beings and that's going to be a good thing. But for the people that don't want to do that or perhaps are slightly lazy, I think they may be finding a new job.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:11]:
Okay. Has there been a book that's had a huge impact on your own personal career?

Darren Westall [00:29:16]:
The biggest one actually was Steve Job biography. He was a big inspiration when it comes to marketing. Starting a business and reading that book was one of the reasons I wanted to do my own thing. It was probably the bit that hit home where I was like, yeah, that guy said, the people that are crazy enough to think they can change the world will do it. And I thought, I consider myself pretty crazy. So let's try and change the world. Not had the impact that Apple has, but yeah, in the recruitment industry, I've definitely made a wave, at least.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:44]:
So did you read that book like, right when you got that CTO role or right beforehand?

Darren Westall [00:29:48]:
No. I wanted to start my business when I was 21, 22, but there was always a reason not to do it. You know, I met my now wife and I couldn't do quit my job and start a business. We bought a house. I've got a mortgage to pay. I can't quit my job. We had our first child, I can't quit my job. Now I've got to pay for the nappies, right? Or I got promoted.

Darren Westall [00:30:08]:
I had a big sense of loyalty to broadbeen because they gave me a job when I couldn't get a job in tech, right. So every time I got promoted, I didn't want to leave because I owed it to them, or I just took over a team. My team just got bigger. I just hired people. Can't leave now. There was always this thing that stopped me from doing it, but the final thing was when actually I didn't have anywhere more to grow. That was what made me go, okay, I can leave now.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:30]:
I think this is an important question because people that are recruiting business owners are great recruiters. Being a business owner is almost a completely different hat.

Darren Westall [00:30:38]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:39]:
What have you learned just from being a software developer that has helped you with that business?

Darren Westall [00:30:44]:
Hack the analytical thinking and also planning for the future. So there's something in software development called tech debt, where every time you code something, it's technically tech debt straight away, because it's our old code. The moment it goes live, it's old code. How often do you revisit that? So if you think about processes in the business, the moment that process is there, it's now an old process because it could be changed. So I'm always reevaluating what we're doing as a business. Every single process, one of our values as a business is called challenge everything. So I never want to hear, we've always done it that way. And that's the same thing in tech, and it's the same thing in the business.

Darren Westall [00:31:16]:
So you always need to be moving forward, pushing the tech forward, pushing the business forward, re evaluating your processes constantly. Just because it worked last year doesn't mean it will work this year.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:25]:
So, and this is kind of my favorite question, and I'm going to ask it two ways. Okay. Everything that you've learned, your ups and downs, you know how hard business is, the recruiting world. But like, if you got a chance to sit down with yourself in the very first few months of your career outside of university or college, what advice would you give yourself?

Darren Westall [00:31:44]:
Do this job for one year, then quit and start your business. Just do it. Do it much sooner. If you're a business owner, you might not want your recruiters to listen to this podcast, right? But if you're able to do recruitment and you've got an urge to start a business, just do it. Stop relying on everyone else. Stop using everyone else as an excuse. Whose permission is it you're looking for? Is it your mom's permission? Is it your dad's? Is it your wife? Is it your girlfriend? Is it your husband? Somebody out there, you're waiting for them to say do it and they're not going to tell you to do it. So you have to be the ones to tell yourself to do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:13]:
And I'm going to ask this question again, but let's put this on your pager. Hat on. Looking back, if you got a chance to sit down with yourself five years ago, and like Darren, I know everything that happened over the last five years, I'm going to sit down and give yourself some advice. What actually would you tell yourself at the beginning of your pager journey?

Darren Westall [00:32:30]:
I'm going to hope they're not listening to this, but if they are, I love you. Really don't work with friends.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:36]:
Why is that?

Darren Westall [00:32:37]:
Because it muddies the water too much. And actually, to be running a successful business, you need to be able to make decisions without emotion. And if they're friends, it becomes a hell of a lot harder. And when you make those decisions, it hits a hell of a lot harder as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:50]:
That's interesting because I know in recruiting ive seen some very successful businesses that are friends, like very successful companies that theyre friends. But ive also seen a lot of companies or teams blow up when they have to put that business hat on. When theyve been friends for so long.

Darren Westall [00:33:06]:
Are they colleagues or are they co founders?

Benjamin Mena [00:33:08]:
I think they started as colleagues and then they turned into co founders.

Darren Westall [00:33:11]:
Okay, so I think thats a different relationship. I would start a business with a friend, but dont have that boss employee relationship with a friend.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:18]:
If somebody that's thinking about starting a business with a friend, what advice would you give them for it to work outside of? Maybe don't do it.

Darren Westall [00:33:25]:
No, don't do it. But the big thing is get together, do the paperwork, agree all of the equity split. And don't just do it over a handshake get together. Do the paperwork. It will serve you best for the long run. Because all that's going to happen is it could end up being an argument that destroys the business down the line if you don't invest the time to do it properly at the start. So many businesses, like co founders, friends, a shake on it and that's where it's going to be. No, don't do that.

Darren Westall [00:33:50]:
Shake on it. But then put it in writing, agree it, sign it, and it will really help you in the future. Awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:56]:
Well, Derek, before I let you go, I know you mentioned this earlier. How can people follow you?

Darren Westall [00:34:00]:
First thing is connect on LinkedIn, just Darren Westall. I live on my phone, guys, so day or night, send me a message. I'll probably accept it. I've always got two young children, so they keep me awake most of night, so I'm always there. The other thing to do is if you're interested in building your personal brand business development, you want to use AI to help yourself do that better. Head over to pager dot Co, Paiger dot co not.com. we didn't have enough budget to buy the.com, such as dot co, and you can book a demo there. So, yeah, I'd love to hear from you.

Darren Westall [00:34:25]:
Whether it's just to connect or if you're interested in pager, absolutely love to hear from you as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:29]:
And I'll have his LinkedIn profile in the show notes and also a link for pager. So you can just scroll down and click the button. Before I let you go, is there anything else that you would love to share with the listeners?

Darren Westall [00:34:38]:
No, I don't think so. I think that's been a really enjoyable episode. Hopefully I didn't say too many things I shouldn't have, but, yeah, if I've inspired anyone to start their own business, whether it's in recruitment or not, please do connect with me as well, because I would love to offer advice. And if you're ever having a day where you just think, I shouldn't have done this, send me a message and we can jump on the phone. I wish I had somebody back in the early days that I could just moan to. So I'm quite happy to do that for you.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:02]:
That's awesome. Well, Darren, I just want to say thank you for coming on and for the listeners. Like, I know when you hop on LinkedIn, you see the people posting, constantly posting consistently, and you feel like it's over. It's already being done. Based on what Darren said, if you actually look at the numbers, it's only, like, probably two to 3% of recruiters out there, the hundreds of thousands of recruiters out there that are posting consistent content. So this is the window of the opportunity to build your brand. And I'll just say this, like, I think LinkedIn right now is the perfect place to build your brand. I missed out on TikTok, like, the exponential growth when I was busy laughing at people on TikTok.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:38]:
That's when people were getting the 500, 600,000 followers. And it's impacted their personal success. It's impacted their money. LinkedIn, right now, I think the way the algorithm is working, it is a perfect place where you can spend some time, grow your brand, that will have an impact on you six months, a year later, even the rest of your career. So, Darren, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the podcast, sharing some of these LinkedIn secrets that I actually. I didn't know. And I really want you to invest whether you're internal, external, your own firm, and building your brand that shares. So thank you, Darren.

Darren Westall [00:36:11]:
Thank you very much for having me.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:13]:
All right, until next time, guys. Cheers.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:16]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of the elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.