Recruiting Digital Marketing Specialists

January 29, 2015/0 Comments/in Recruitment /by 1300 Hired

Recruiting a Digital Marketing Team

Coming from a technical and engineering background myself recruiting in a new space like digital marketing, I understand and generally quickly grasp matters of a technical and technology nature. Despite feeling like a novice, it’s surprising the number of times friends and colleagues call me up asking for advice about how to approach different problems or challenges.

A physiotherapist mate wanting to make a start on some Facebook marketing, a colleague in the construction industry looking to do the same, and a mate who is raising $100,000 for an Anti Cancer Charity by competing in and completing a marathon on each of the worlds 7 continents. He has completed 4 so far and is an inspiration to many.

Recruiting in 2015

Having raised $25k in his first 4 marathons, he now needs to raise another $75k over the next 3 marathons. Enter digital world. Facebook sponsored adverts, organic posts to his network, Groups on Facebook and LinkedIn, hashtag strategies for Twitter, Google searches, crowdfunding and much much more.

Having learned digital marketing and digital strategies through a combination of being self taught but mostly through real life business experience with paid SEO and Adwords (where I was ripped off by an unscrupulous supplier), through to a web developer and very smart digital marketing strategist who we use as website developer and who doubles as our digital marketing mentor.

Along the way we were approached by an innovative and much awarded digital strategy firm to recruit a Digital Marketing Specialist, a Digital Project Manager and a Creative Digital Designer. Our CRM and Cloud based systems were working overtime searching for expertise in web design, SEO, Adwords, Google Analytics, paid search, conversion rate optimisation, email, social and content, as well as those who understood psychological marketing, and sales strategies to bring it all together.

The concepts in marketing and sales for the “digital” age are the same as the “pre-digital” age, however the technologies available and the knowledge needed to deliver results, are much more complex and far more advanced than in the past.

No longer is marketing the domain of a commerce graduate, it is the domain also of those with skills in IT, web and cloud based systems, in programs and Apps. The traditional marketing theories and strategies as well as sales strategies and execution are equally important, however that alone is not enough.

Being “left behind” digitally would be daunting, like missing a big chunk of schooling and being expected to stay abreast of todays learnings. Imagine waking up out of a coma after 10 years and seeing all the changes that have occurred.

Recruiting and Technology

At 1300Hired, we stay abreast of technology and business trends through constant reading and through subscription to news publications, seminars and by engaging with suppliers who not only educate us, but help keep our business technology and operations at the forefront of recruitment.

Only when we can talk the talk, can we walk the walk and this is crucial when liaising with and understanding the clients’ businesses and the candidates they need to run a successful and profitable business. Recruiting is a tough task, why not let the experts handle it.

Recruiting in Perth

January 22, 2015/0 Comments/in Hiring /by 1300 Hired

Recruiting in Perth

Recruiting in Adelaide

January 22, 2015/0 Comments/in Hiring /by 1300 Hired

Recruiting in Adelaide

Disruption is the new “Norm”

January 22, 2015/0 Comments/in Hiring /by 1300 Hired

The world is changing rapidly and the world of business is no exception. What excites me greatly is the pace of change (which is not slowing down). In fact it is growing at an exponential pace with no let up. There is hardly a day that goes by where there are not exciting new developments, breakthroughs, or reports of changes that are only just being understood and hence, reported well after they happen. Some of these changes are positive, some are not so positive, and some – well it depends on which side of the fence you sit on, or what your perspective is.

How a disrupted business became a disruptor!

January 22, 2015/0 Comments/in Hiring /by 1300 Hired

In my previous article, I described how my recruitment and labour-hire business was disrupted in 4 separate ways and how the fourth stage of disruption, in fact, disrupted the first!

This didn’t help my recruitment and labour-hire business which serviced large national and multi-national clients in the engineering, mining and construction sectors.

In a nutshell, the advent of internal recruitment teams and increased competition for a smaller piece of the recruitment pie, meant shrinking revenues and shrinking margins in all service areas. This created a double whammy. The writing was on the wall.

The solution was defined in the problem itself. We needed to get to businesses that didn’t have the internal recruitment team. We wanted to get to businesses that didn’t have one or more of the people, financial or time expertise to do their own recruitment, and do it professionally and cost-effectively.

We knew that most firms wouldn’t have a recruitment or HR resource until they were some 70-100 strong, and even then many didn’t have the budget to recruit effectively.

We then defined the market as small to medium enterprises (SME’s) which were between 10-199 people in size. To our surprise our research showed that this was a huge market with about 95% of all Australian businesses in the SME category.

We also knew that SME’s were a lot tighter financially in terms of available funds for recruiting and generally, and our experience also showed that the smaller the business, the less breadth of expertise exists compared to a larger business.

Putting this all together, we decided that we had to either transform our existing business, or create a new one. We wanted the new business to:

Have very attractive fee structures
Be the lowest cost operation
Have compelling value propositions for SME’s
Be scaleable nationally
Deliver great candidates

A traditional recruitment business typically has full time salaried consultants working from leased offices with traditional office infrastructure, cars and car parking costs. Clients are charged high fees (usually 10-20% of salary package). In contrast to this we needed to deliver value to SME’s and this required a whole new mindset involving:

Provide fixed flat fee services

Engaging part-time specialist consultants

Working remotely, connected via cloud

Use the latest in technology

What we also did was analyse all the steps in the recruitment process and measure the activities and costs needed to deliver them. What we found was astounding and enlightening. It was enlightening because it highlighted the huge inefficiencies of “traditional recruitment”. It provided a huge opportunity cut out up to 90% in inefficient methods and previously accepted “recruitment practices”.

With quantum leaps across all aspects of the new business, this meant not only creating a new business but the acceptance of a quantum shift in thinking and a completely new mindset . Enter the belief system, culture and business model that is 1300Hired.

Personally speaking, I have been on a journey to transform myself as leader of one business from “the old school” and into the leader of a new business which is quantum shift from the old ways. It is also hugely disruptive to those invested in the old “% of salary package” recruitment business model. SME’s love us and recruiters hate us.

This has not been an instant transformation, rather it is a deliberate and planned journey towards what I believe will become accepted and mainstream in the future – until the next disruption!