It’s been quite sometime since I wrote my first blog on how Jobsites can become a potential research tool for various professionals including sales guys, HR managers, entrepreneurs etc.
At this point in time, however, I would only like to address how sales guys and entrepreneurs can use jobsites to research and improve on their revenue from certain clients/industries.
When I was a child my sister, while reading her science book, asked me a question “Tell me where would you find Potato seeds?” I replied with all my innocence “with the farmers.” My sister and my parents laughed at my answer. Today as I’ve gained more knowledge, I know that potato has no seeds in particular and pieces of potato are sown as potato seeds. However, in all these years the validity of my answer hasn’t changed. This incidence has been narrated to all my relatives, family friends and after a wholehearted laughter they all agreed to the simple logic behind my answer.
The point I want to highlight here is that the question asked was “where” and not “what”. When I think of making a sale I need a product/service to be sold and a customer to sell to. In this blog we would look in to ways to find an answer for ‘Where to sell?’ with the help of hidden information contained in Jobsites.
The rule is simple. Somebody who is hiring many, will also require many other services. An organization which is hiring resources in large no.s would also require infrastructural services, office furniture, hospitality services, transportation, work stations, computers/laptops, printers, vending machines and what not... You don't need to cold call clients to find out potential for your products. Just check if they are hiring!!!
Log on to a jobsite and look for jobs in your city. Every jobsite has a feature where you can see 'all the jobs from a company' on a single page.
If they are hiring sales people in good numbers then they would require raw material also in good quantities. They might be looking to give a boost to sales; maybe they'll consider some advertising/branding campaign as well - time for media/PR organizations to be on a alert; maybe they’d like somebody to generate sales leads for them.
If they are hiring production people in good numbers they might be looking forward to a capacity expansion/ putting up a new plant. One of my friends working in a petrochemical company in Punjab was able to find out that one of his client was setting up a new unit and therefore he struck a deal with them for their additional demand for diesel and lubricants, even before other competitors could get the news for expansion. How did he get the lead?
He was looking for a job for himself on a jobsite and he found that his client was looking for 2-3 senior production professionals. He researched and found a business opportunity.
But what if some organization is hiring HR professionals only? Well... it may indicate 2 things
a) That the organization’s present HR structure lacks a bandwidth
This makes a perfect opportunity for HR process outsourcing firms, recruitment consultancy firms etc. to pitch for their services
b) That the organization is planning a major expansion and they are putting in systems before they could launch full-scale.
Again a bright opportunity for the firms mentioned above and for everybody else who is interested in selling any product/services they might require to support this expansion.
In a nutshell, if there is something different, than the normal pattern of hiring, in the list of jobs that you see for a company then there has to be a good reason behind it. Research it... you'll be surprised by the results.
Apart from an Organization-wise view of the opportunities, you may do a market analysis and spot business/sales opportunities.
To explain this I would like to pick the example of the SAP professionals, discussed in my previous post on this topic, where the no. of jobs for SAP functional consultants have increased by 90% within 3 months. However, the no. of resumes added on the same jobsite has increased by less than 50%.
Now if I am a training organization, I have a clear indication to run specific courses for SAP and help the industry fill in this gap. If I am a headhunter at a recruitment firm I must start mapping all the organizations with SAP professionals and then start charging a premium from my clients for closing their positions in short time.
As a sales person working with a jobsite it is time for me to approach all my clients who have SAP based profiles and suggest them innovative solutions to overcome this demand-supply inequality. These are the situations which push most of the companies to think about branding themselves as preferred employers, when they are under tremendous pressure of attracting resources from a very limited talent pool.
In my opinion the ideal way to start a research on a jobsite is to verify the market/industry trends (from other sources) on a website by making necessary job searches and establishing that the trends are reflected/not reflected on the jobsites. If they are then a sales person should move to organizational level of searches where one finds out what kind of hiring a particular client organization is engaged in. An entrepreneur on the other hand should, after verifying the trends, should do more research on the jobs/hiring scenario in the allied industry/vertically integrated industry.
Hope this article is able to add another facet to the utility of website in your professional lives, apart from uploading your resume ;)
Cheers… Keep Selling !!!
-- DK
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