Marketing Employment

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 - CV Tips, Job Advert, cv writing, job application, job search, tutorial

Marketing Employment

Charles asks: How would you effectively apply “pull marketing techniques” to a job search?

In answer:
Personal pull marketing gets into the realms of personal branding, to which Dan Schawbel is one of the leading writers. But, for the “average Joe” job seeker, I think personal branding is probably a step too far: you are not, for instance, a Clairol product! Secondly, if you were that good at pull marketing, then you probably wouldn’t be unemployed; or perhaps you are unemployed, as employers perceive you are too expensive to hire, and that’s why you are unemployed?

Personally I think therefore, the modern job seeker must fully engage that:

1. The modern jobs market is both a push and a pull jobs market, and to achieve that successfully…
2. You need to understand how employers and recruiters find skill sets

Putting aside the “how to” debate for a moment, accept that from statistics:

• 1/3 of all jobs are never advertised, but filled by internal promotion
• 1/3 are filled by known candidates – either other internal candidates, external suppliers or customers, previously rejected applicants, or most significantly employees making recommendations (ie – networking).

Only the final 1/3 of jobs are externally advertised in some form, either directly or via recruiters. Hence, if you could leverage pull marketing, the number of jobs available could rise by 100% above the “having seen an advert in” job application scenario. Actually, it could rise further than that if you can spot and create a need at a company that doesn’t know it needs to hire someone, but that’s another subject and best left to senior executives, directors and creative marketers

Pull Marketing Employment

Coming back to the “how to,” I don’t think the greatest change in the internet jobs market is the jobs board. In fact, pre this recession, jobs board usage was going down not upwards. The greatest change is in how search engines like Google and networking sites like LinkedIn allow recruiters and employers to find great candidates. Simply, by using simple networking like going to the industry conventions for the industry we are recruiting for, or going to the places on the internet where industry discussions take place (LinkedIn yes, but Facebook is pretty good for that, if you can cut through the teenage applications – five times more people means more opportunity).

However, one of the new internet techniques that recruiters and employers are using is based on creating a boolean search string to find candidates profiles at various online social networking points. You simply create a search string that takes the top five criteria the ideal candidate would have (eg: product marketing; City of London; qualifications; ex or current employer), and Google coughs up a short list of candidates. As all of the people thanks to the power and cash of a social networks marketing have filled out school and employer histories in their networking profiles, employers now have their contact details. Yes, not everyone is online at present, but if you are job seeking I can see no excuse these days not to be.

How does the job seeker exploit these new ways that recruiters and employers are finding candidates? Simply, reverse the process. Secondly, keep the message consistent across all mediums: doubt = unemployment.

For internet strategies, get social networking profiles up and complete on all the major social networks in both general business (ie – including LinkedIn and Facebook), as well as bespoke and specific industry related networks. If you understand how recruiters find candidates on social networks, you can hence see why keywords become a higher priority employment issue.

If you have been unemployed for longer than 3months, then one of the points of evidence that you tried and learnt a few things is to develop a blog, which comments both on how you have applied your experience in your industry area, as well as comments about developments in the industry. You can add as well a download of your CV/resume, and copies of relevant speeches and talks. There are many platforms where a free and professional blog can be developed, so no excuse on costs. I wouldn’t put a blog up there as the be all and end of of job searching, but I would say that it is a developing net by which to entice potential employers by, and by which they can find out more about you once they engage.

However, in closing the one issue of pull marketing that still amazes me that most job seekers don’t employ is the oldest in the book: networking. Let your network know that you are job seeking, and what ideally it is you are looking for. Networking also allows you to avoid the unseen and untalked about depression risk which many job seekers face, by keeping you involved in the community and outside your front door.

Pull marketing: because modern internet job seeking is not just about creating a CV, and apply for jobs in newspapers any more! If you are not using it – or are and have an inconsistent message or profile – you are losing out on at least half the jobs that could be available to you.

Good Luck!

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One Response to “Marketing Employment”

1. Tweets that mention Marketing Employment | CV4.BIZ - The Professional CV Writing Experts -- Topsy.com Says:
   September 9th, 2009 at 11:14 am

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by cv4biz. cv4biz said: socialmedian: Marketing Employment http://bit.ly/2TSEFk [...]

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