Marketing applied to Job Market

Job seeking is a marketing campaign whose success depends how you make you known by the potential recruiters. Basic Marketing principles are very useful in here, like those 5 P’s of Marketing Mix:

Product - Price - Packaging - Position - Promotion


The success of a business depends of how basic Marketing rules are used. Let's see how they do apply to your business of selling yourself to the job market.


- Product: this is you with your skills and the way you offer them. for example: "Computer programmer in a permanent contract". Some people do put this on top of their CV. Mine was not appropriate: I put on offer a wide range of skills that is barely compatible with a permanent contract. Since I changed my product to a ‘Contractor’ form instead of a ‘permanent role’ form I don’t have to look long for work now, even in tough economical times. Knowing what you're selling is key to define the rest;

- Price: this is your salary. Understating it makes you not credible, over evaluating it makes you less attractive. I prefer to reason in terms of Added Value and that's a question I like to ask in job interviews: "What is the added value you expect me to put in this role?" Then I can better estimate the salary I'll ask taking into account how much energy and means it will cost me to reach this targeted added value. Don't get your pricing wrong;

- Packaging : that's your presentation, and your CV and look are part of it. get it wrong and nobody would like to buy it. Get it accurate and don't lie on it. What's written on the outside should be what you've got on the inside. A good packaging is essential too as it often leads people buying a stuff even if there is crap in it, just because it looks good. So please stop focussing only on the inner value of your product. What's inside don't sell by itself, it needs an appropriate wrapping. Get a spotless CV, a clean LinkedIn profile, clean up your digital reputation (no bad result if you Google yourself) and an appropriate dressing at the interviews;

- Position: that's the mix of the industry you're in, the skills you're offering and the pay you want. Where you want to place yourself within the employment world? Get it right and be flexible on it. Want to travel or not? Don't make it an exclusion point to consider a job. Know where to position you in the market is essential. Once you have defined your position, you’re ready to define your target market (employers) too;

- Promotion is the most important in a job seeking campaign. Once you've got all the previous points right, you may still fail if your promotional campaign is wrong. The choice of your promotion channels is key. If you're an ‘non exec’, you won't walk in High Street handing your CV to all the shops you see. Alternatively if you only send your CV to an occasional recruiter you probably don’t let many people know you're out there looking to put your skills at their service. Seek for ways that are appropriate to your products.

When you say the hidden job marked doesn’t exist but only hidden jobseekers you cannot be more right. A job seeker who enter the employment market is like a shop who just opened downtown. If the shopkeeper just open for business and wait for the passer by to push the door in order to make some trading he will rapidly get broke. A targeted marketing campaign is necessary anyway.

Otherwise we won't name it a "market".