A Top Tech Recruiter Shares His Secrets for Building a Personal Brand

There’s something about Tanmoy Saha’s LinkedIn profile that makes it stand out from the crowd. 

With just a few simple sentences, Tanmoy, who leads tech recruiting at Peloton, shares information about himself that might make a job candidate stop and take notice. Born in Bangladesh, he’s “super Desi when it comes to Cricket and Bollywood.” He’s traveled around the world volunteering in underserved communities. And he loves helping others, though he doesn’t like “pushy people.”

“My job is to find and hire the current and future bad-asses in the technology industry,” Tanmoy writes in the summary section of his profile. “If you are nice, I will go out of my way to help you.”

Memorable details like these add up to a powerful personal brand, and they offer a lesson to recruiters who are starting out in the business. Tanmoy owes his success, in part, to building a distinct identity online and offline that’s helped him connect with job candidates.

Your personal brand is the image you project, it’s what sets you apart from other recruiters. Given today’s fiercely tight job market, you can’t afford not to have a carefully crafted one. 

But what are the building blocks for crafting a personal brand? We asked Tanmoy to share some ideas for new recruiters to help them get started. 

1. Find your story 

Creating a personal brand starts with identifying the things that define you — your goals, passions, accomplishments, and mission — and telling a story that will resonate with your target audience. 

“What differentiates you,” Tanmoy asks, “and makes you an interesting person to talk to?” 

Tanmoy wants to be known as a leader in tech recruiting who is motivated by a desire to help others. An important part of Tanmoy’s story is his immigrant experience and the fact that he’s overcome big obstacles, a topic that’s meaningful to job seekers. 

“I’m very proud of the fact that my journey started from the bottom,” he says, “and I worked my way up the ladder.”

Pinned at the top of his LinkedIn page is a video showing Tanmoy addressing the Class of 2017 of his high school just twelve years after his own graduation. He talks about coming to the U.S. when he was 12 and knew no English, lived in a tiny basement in Queens, N.Y., and worked after school at Dunkin’ Donuts. 

“My point was don’t let anyone say no to you,” Tanmoy says. “Never give up.” 

2. Be authentic 

When establishing a personal brand, it’s not just the story you tell, but how you tell it. The words you choose should be genuine, not canned. 

Tanmoy isn’t a very formal person and the language he uses is a true reflection of his style.Whether he’s posting on social media or making a speech, Tanmoy skips fancy phrases and industry jargon in favor of straight talk. In doing so he comes across as someone who is likable and can be trusted to have a job candidate’s best interests at heart. 

“I love my job!” he states simply in his LinkedIn profile. “I hang out with a lot of tech nerds. I am a tech and political geek myself.” 

3. Make your visuals count

Your photo is the first thing candidates are likely to see when they check you out online, so it’s worth investing in a professional headshot.

Think carefully about the image you want to project. In his LinkedIn photo, Tanmoy has a natural smile and is dressed casually, an obvious choice given his target audience of software and hardware engineers.

Likewise, Tanmoy’s background banner image tells us something about his personal brand. He chose an illustration of elephants in Africa with the sun in the background, a nod to his support of social causes and his volunteer work in Uganda and South Africa. “To me,” he says, “it’s a symbol of hope.”

4. Raise your visibility

The more well-known you are, the higher the probability that a job candidate will respond to your InMails. But where do you start?

One way to raise your profile is by sharing valuable content on LinkedIn and other social media platforms or by creating your own content. By regularly sharing information, you will be seen by job candidates as an expert in your field.

Over the years, Tanmoy has increased his visibility by frequently attending tech meetups. He keeps his LinkedIn network up to date on where he’s heading. “I’ll say, ‘Hey, I’m going to this conference, sitting at this booth,’” Tanmoy says. “‘Anyone who is there, please stop by.’” 

5. Be generous with your online recommendations

It’s natural for job candidates to want to work with recruiters who are stars in their field and who receive rave reviews.

Tanmoy makes it a point to post recommendations on LinkedIn for deserving colleagues. “If you worked with somebody and they were really helpful as a manager or as a coworker, write a recommendation,” he says. “Give them that thank you and what you’ll see is that others will do the same for you.”

6. Play the long game by investing in relationships

Early in his career, Tanmoy saw the value of building long-term relationships with job candidates. 

All too often, Tanmoy says, recruiters are “transaction-minded.” “‘If you’re not a good fit for my role, I’m not going to talk to you,’” he says. “I never saw it that way. To me, it was more like, what can I do to really get to know you? And if I don’t have a job for you now, I might have one three years down the road. Let’s build that relationship.”

That attitude has helped Tanmoy cultivate a network of engineers and tech employees that he’s been able to tap as he’s moved from one recruiting role to the next. 

“Making that effort to get to know the other person, it really makes you different as a recruiter,” Tanmoy says. “When you are really genuine and want to be helpful to job seekers, they will have your name on top of their minds as well.”

Final thoughts

Building a powerful personal brand isn’t easy. As Tanmoy has shown, you need to think strategically about the things that define you, tell your story authentically, and continuously engage with your network. 

But there’s a clear payoff. The better you are at communicating your unique qualities, the better your chances of attracting top talent and advancing in your own career.

*Photo by La-Rel Easter on Unsplash

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