Your Job Advertisement Speaks About Your Organisational Culture

I noticed this job advertisement recently. I have just slightly tweaked it here and there to be able to put my point across more effectively

The company is a startup in Education/ Training industry that basically needs someone for business development and marketing.

That is it.

They begin the advertisement with a little bit of blowing the trumpet

How many institutions?

How many programs?

How many students?

What you will never get to know is the reality behind those numbers!

Wanting to have a part of your entity under every mango or banyan tree in the country to build your presence and prominence can speak nothing about how good you are, as a company.

The more programs you have, the better insight we have about your intentions. You just want it all as your market share. You do not specialize and you do not care. What any prospect needs, you have, if you do not have, you will include it within hours and churn content almost like factory model but you cannot let the prospect switch to another institute. In short, this approach is way too commercialized.

How many students have achieved something in life or reached a point worth mentioning? Is there any data or stats around that? 

Then the AD specifies requirements

Optimal knowledge of social media platforms desired.

Now if you have X number of programs, you sure must have one on Social Media. Why do you need someone with optimal knowledge? They can join you and bridge the gap in house. In all probability they realize what they teach is mainly for the certification, not for the real time work in real environment

MBA/ PG Diploma from recognized institution/ university

How exactly will this help the applicant or the company identify prospects, strategize and close deals? The point is what skills do you want the applicant to exhibit after his MBA from a recognized institution or is it given that a business grad from a recognized university will automatically have specific desired skills for the role?

Minimum 4 years of experience in marketing with excellent communication & presentation skills.

This part is fair enough and the only section in the whole advertisement that can make sense to applicants

Now comes the best part:

Candidates having throughout 1st Div. marks only need to apply.

I choose to pick the following words:

1^st Division

Throughout

Only they can apply

Does this mean?

Someone who scored 2^nd division cannot market or sell? For all you know as their academic intelligence is slightly weak, they may be twice as hard working with their social intelligence.

Why will somebody who scored 1^st Division throughout with 5 years of marketing experience be interested to develop business for an education company when he has the potential to develop his independent business?

Will it serve the purpose of hiring and the company's strategic agenda if they get an applicant with 1^st Division throughout, having five years of marketing experience and an MBA from a recognized university however with no past track record of closing deals?

How many potential candidates will this company lose only for this kind of Job Advertisement?

Are You Alive Online?

If your marketing road map is still about finding the ideal customer, creating a campaign and surveying your customers for a possible lead and your advertising channels are still broadcast and print, the action items below are for you:

Build Target Audience: How can you reach out to your target audience (Someone who needs what you offer) if you are not following them on social media channels? In all possibility they will follow you, even if they do not need your services right away. Each time you post about your company products, share a relevant article or event; it reaches the right people and the interested ones will subscribe to your newsletters to know more.

Soft Sell: Just keeping them in the radar is not enough. At regular intervals, get the experts and researchers of your company to reflect their knowledge about the industry through blogs and feed the same audience. Would a customer like to do business with someone who knows the market and is well informed about current industry trends? Would he wait for the blogger to call him or reach out to the company, when the need arises?

Experience Centric: Target not just the customers but aim to impact their overall experience. When this becomes company’s primary agenda, the focus is not just about product quality, delivery timelines etc it is about influencing client’s mind with each sale and service. That builds loyalty. If you can handle client’s negative feedback in record time speed for minimum customer impact, that will not only restore faith but build trust many fold.

There are many small and medium enterprises, outlet owners, high value product dealers, exporters and institutes who still run their business without being alive online, as the myth is, the Social Media exercise requires a full time resource and if not done right, it can impact existing business.

To break that myth and know more, contact advocating.outcomes@gmail.com. We will do a session with your employees who can contribute to your company’s content strategy and be part of the learning to achieve business outcomes. Serious business is not done just with a handshake anymore.