Recruitment sales has had it pretty easy - there I said it. I am not saying it has been all rosy (I should know, I launched a "not very successful" job board for a legal publisher a few years ago), but the sector has benefited from year on year growth since its inception.
We all know now how this has all changed and changed dramatically.
But why are most job boards still targeting their teams on just call numbers? Yes, it is a "numbers game", but will 100 sales calls a day work in this environment when it is easy for the client to say "we are not recruiting"?
The last blog, I looked at creating lateral advertising opportunities, I want to look at some potential ideas for managing, targeting and rewarding online recruitment sales teams to succeed in this market. As before, these are just ideas, with no agenda, merely putting thoughts out there for feedback.
- When anyone makes any call, find out as much information as possible - who else are they using who signs off the budget, what roles/sector are difficult to hire, when is the next review, etc. focus the information for the next call.
- Sell to your strength, know your key markets which roles are hard to fill against your portfolio. Don't just point to massive application rates. call with a case study.
- Sell that case study effectively to the competitors of your clients.
- Why just sell ad space sell recruitment services - what are the cyclical timings for recruitment services (grad campaigns, summer placements, major project works)
- What rewards and incentives are you setting your sales guys? Can you be flexible in offering days in lieu, mornings off for most client wins or any other stat that you want to focus on?
- If you have a print brand, are you doing enough to effectively cross sell campaigns across both platforms
- Again cross platform sales across various niches?
- Get campaigns working, review amend track. Account management should mean manage the accounts.
- Can you offer clients reward/loyalty points for annual contracts?
- Can you offer brand affiliation spots across the site?
- Hunter/Farmers - should your key sales people be doing the numbers or would be more effective to create some dedicated telesales teams, with the strategic clients and deals focused by the "big guns"
Finally if there are no jobs, with that client that only means no jobs now - keep in touch with updated newsletters, relevant industry trends, add value.
The list goes on and on and most people are doing this and more, all I am saying, early in the morning (well it was when I begun this), is that there ways and means of focusing your sales and helping to focus the mind of the clients (agents or direct), by doing more than just selling ad space - I'm afraid that those days are gone for now.
The whole issue around what we should be doing in this market is a bit of a minefield right now and the crappy sales managers are getting away with telling people it’s about numbers. I’d be the first to admit I’m not a numbers guy but I know my market inside out and I know who’s spending at the moment. I can quite happily say that I’m doing pretty well right now by tweaking the offering I have and chasing the people who recognize that by being a bit different in what they offer they are going to be successful.
There’s the whole issues of Employer Brand and how that is communicated and managed right now and it’s a big one, every company with an online presence in whatever form is being besieged from all sides by hundreds if not thousands of candidates all clamoring for a job (and, lets face it with the current stats that’s only going to get worse). The thing is in all these applications there are bound to be a number of people you would actually love to hire, even if you don’t have a job for them right now. you’d love to keep them interested. How and employer then engages with these people and makes them feel like they want to retain a dialogue or long term interaction with them is an interesting point. This does start with the job boards, choosing a great job board partner that delivers quality results and that lets you manage the application process well is a great starting point.
There’s a huge amount that salespeople can do to generate revenue from that side of things but only if the company has it to offer and if the salesperson can build enough rapport to actually sell the idea.
All in all it’ll be interesting to see how the big guns cope when smaller and potentially more agile businesses may be able to move with the times and create an offering that people want and candidates engage with.
Posted by: matt Burney | February 12, 2009 at 10:35 AM