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Today I want to talk about a bit of an elephant in the room, and that is moving your recruiting sector or niche. [Excuse any typing errors as this is a direct transcription for your benefit.]
We are now four months into lockdown and during this time, people have vacillated back and forth about;
- What should they be doing; and should they even stop recruiting all together?
- Should they close their business down and restart?
- Should they furlough the team bring them back or make certain desks redundant?
- Should they change their recruiting sector?
So a wholescale change is something that comes up for a lot of people, and it’s a valid point so today I want to share three questions to consider before you do ANYTHING.
Think About The Long Game
I have mentioned this before in a recent post about the short versus long game. Though we’re in a weird situation now, we’ve got social distancing, some companies are back in offices and others aren’t and you can fly to certain destinations in Europe only- I would focus my business plans on the future, I certainly wouldn’t direct my focus on only being in a sector that’s relevant now.
Yes, you may make some money, but by the time you’ve got everything up and running, everything will have changed again. So think about the long game. Think about what are the markets that are growing that I think I could add value to?
And if you’re unsure what they might be, you have something called “Google.” Jump on Google, PwC, Deloitte, all of these different areas, and they’ll give you some data around what are the markets that are predicted to be growing quite soon and which are going to be sustainable over the next few years.
So think about that first of all, because you’ve got to enjoy what you’re doing and you’ve got to be somewhere where it’s going to be relevant for you. So be thinking about your five, 10, 15, 20-year plan. Forget the one or two years. It’s about the long game.
The Adjacent Few
The second thing if you are serious about switching and changing is what we like to call it, the “adjacent few.” Let me explain. Now it might be that, let’s say you’re an accountancy recruiter or whatever, that there is something aligned to what you do currently, where you think, “That is sustainable. I could work there. I’ve got transferable skills.”
I’ll give you an example from ourselves which might just help to focus is, we work in the recruitment sector and we also work with a small handful of learning and development organisations who we have been working with since the day we first opened shop!
Many of them have come to us recently about how they can convert their training events to online programmes; which will be a huge growth area moving forward over the coming months years and decades: So that is something we’ve thought about.
So what would your equivalent to that be; think about it. Where are the growth markets that are close or adjacent to what you currently do? Remember it will take much less work to get a handle moving into a sector like this-which are the areas that should be very easy to move into?
Because then, if you’re doing that, it’s not such a hard task to actually do that because you’re moving into a sector where you have some understanding as you aren’t starting from a baseline.
Your Marketing Resource
Next is to think about the resource that you will need because if you are moving into a new sector or a new market, you need to understand how you are going to market to that new sector.
- What are the types of clients that you want to work with?
- What’s your offer or additional offers?
- How do you get in front of them?
- Who’s your ideal avatar?
- How will you connect with them?
- What content will you provide?
- Will you have a brand new website?
- Will you have a different section on your website?
Take this seriously because if there’s ever a time to think about changing, it’s at a time of change where we are all now.
Thanks,
Denise
P.S. We are working with a number of recruitment and staffing clients who are adding new sectors ands services; would you like help to prepare and come out of COVID stronger than before? Then book a call with us here.
