Let's face it - Fearful of the spotlight and conservative to a fault, HR pros generally aren't the best examples to look towards when it comes to professional branding. Kris Dunn (Kinetix RPO, The HR Capitalist) and Tim Sackett (HRU Technical Resources, TimSackett.com) think that needs to change.  That's why they created this series - The Top 20 Branded HR Pros(sponsored by the team at Glassdoor).

KD and Tim searched the globe for HR Pros who used the tools at their disposal (writing, speaking, social and more) to brand themselves in the HR space, but limited the results to actual practitioners in the areas of HR, Recruiting and Talent Management.  No consultants, no vendors. They found out well-branded HR pros who are actual practitioners are hard to find.  

Tim and KD are running the Top 20 they found here on the HR Capitalist and at TimSackett.com.  No rankings, just inclusion in the list and some notes on why.  There are at least 20 well-branded HR Pros in the world.  These are their stories. 

----------------------------------

Most of the HR pros with the best professional brands have one thing in common - work ethic.  It takes time to brand yourself, and the results aren't necessarily evident until years in the future.  DC's own Pete Radloff surely knows this, because he's been giving gifts to the recruiting community for 5+ years.  He didn't start doing those things to build a brand, but here we are - featuring him in a series on the Top 20 Branded HR Pros.  Check out the graphic below of his profile and we'll talk after the jump (email subscribers click through for the graphic):

Most of the HR pros we feature don't have even strengths in all the areas we rate them in, and Radloff is no exception.   The area of his branding that has the most impact to the community around him is his involvement in a local conference - a great show called recruitDC.  recruitDC is one of the most powerful local HR/recruiting shows in America, known for it's responsive community throughout the year as well as great content and attendance in DC when the shows are held 2X per year.  Radloff has a 5+ year track record of involvement in the leadership of the group/show, and his willingness to serve consistently is a big part of his branding.

But Radloff's persistence in giving gifts back to the recruiting community doesn't stop there.  He's the author of a deep recruiting-focused blog at Recruiting in 3D, where he writes deep, long-form pieces about what's he working on, thinking about or reading at least a couple of times per month.  A great example is his analysis of a recent Quora post by a candidate asking whether he should accept an offer from Uber or Zenefits.  Radloff breaks down the good, bad and ugly of the issue and the resulting fallout, and it's representative of the depth he brings to the table.  He also runs his writing game at RecruitingDaily.com on a regular basis as well.

Conferences/communities at recruitDc.com and deep writing make Radloff branded in a way that most of us can't touch.  But Pete has strength in other areas, including social - with a strong LinkedIn presence (6K in connections) and Twitter game (3K in followers vs 1.7K he's following).  

Another area that shows the impact of the branding work that Pete has done is his network of friends.  In addition to others, Pete has worked with some of DC's finest, including Lars Schmidt and Susan Strayer Lamotte, both of which surely resulted from his willingness to work on behalf of the community with conferences and consistent writing.  Career opportunities are the natural extension of doing branded work with no expectation/hard sell.

What can we learn from Pete Radloff?  Volunteering for the greater good works from a branding perspective, as does writing for the community you serve. Things natural flow from those honest gifts, including things you might not expect - like new jobs.

You can be an overnight success like Pete Radloff - it just takes consistency - otherwise known as showing up for 5 straight years in activities that have no guarentee of payoff.  You have to do it because you love it.