Effective Hiring: The first rule of marketing a tech services firm September 27, 2011, by Peter Mirus in Marketing, Strategy Models
This blog post is the introduction to a new article, available in PDF format, about the value of an effective hiring process (including an outline of the process).
Effective Hiring: The first rule of marketing a tech services firm.
The first rule of effectively marketing a professional services firm is to hire the right people to provide those services. Hiring the right people will significantly minimize your marketing expense and hiring the wrong people can scuttle your ship before she sails.
As a marketer, representing the best interests of a client, you have something to say about the marketability of the product that is being put on the shelves. Shy away from this responsibility and you place both yourself and your client at risk.
In the blockbuster business book Good to Great, author Jim Collins makes very clear: to make a great company you need the right people. Having talented, disciplined people on board is critical—great companies get the right people on board before figuring out the best path to maximum business success.
For these reasons—and because I hate to raise a potential problem without helping to create a solution—building fundamentally sound methods for effective hiring has become fascinating to me.
This article is about the value and process of “effective” hiring. I define “effective” as providing the maximum opportunity for business prosperity and a great corporate culture. The subject matter of this article applies to all types of business—from the local coffee shop to the Fortune 500 company.
Perhaps ironically, this article does not discuss how to advertise the position you are hiring for. Most employers can find effective avenues within a matter of minutes. If you don’t know how to advertise the position, then you need an HR specialist. (There is an addendum to this piece which discusses Marketing, HR, and ROI.)
Rather, this article is intended to address fundamental issues of creating a hiring process that elicits the best from your candidates and results in the right hire.
Effective Hiring: The first rule of marketing a tech services firm.