Time to Try Something New?

As it starts to get closer to the end of the financial year for most companies, budgets and forecasted spend will be revisited. Where resource budgets have not been completely used, this might present opportunities for companies to buy in temporary support to progress specific projects or areas of work. This is great news for those of you looking to try out something new without committing to a new career. Departments in companies which can benefit from temporary support resource often include marketing. More staff may be required when big campaigns are being planned and implemented, so if you think you have the right skills for a career in marketing, then keep your eyes peeled for temporary jobs that might be being advertised with marketing recruitment agencies in Warwickshire. If you think you might enjoy a career in marketing, but you aren’t sure if you have the right skills, you can always pop into one of the many marketing recruitment agencies in Warwickshire for a quick chat about your suitability. Because marketing presents so many different aspects of work, you may be surprised to learn of the many and varied skills that can be of great value. Often people make the mistake of thinking that marketing is all about creatives, advertising and networking skills. However, there are many more practical aspects such as planning and project management which require a completely different set of skills yet are equally as important. There are also some very detailed roles such as market research, data analysis and brand management, which all require a great attention to detail. There are many areas where you might have appropriate skills. When making a career move, it can be difficult to fully anticipate what the new role will involve, so getting some experience in a temporary position is a great way to test it out. Other benefits of taking temporary jobs include the fact that you get to find out more about working for different employers, which will help you decide what type of company you want to work for when you are ready to apply for permanent positions. If you are very lucky and find a temporary job that you love and which suits you perfectly, there can sometimes be the possibility of moving from temporary to permanent. This is sometimes known at the outset of a temporary contract, so it’s worth checking with your recruitment agency when you are considering different roles. Temporary roles can often be part-time, which is a great way to help support yourself financially if you are studying to equip yourself for your career move. If you are taking a marketing course and you can get hands-on marketing experience at the same time in a temporary marketing job, your learning will start to make sense a lot quicker as you start to see the theory put into practice. While many permanent roles will ask for official marketing qualifications as part the selection criteria, experience can be just as important if not more so. If you have both, then you have given yourself a great chance against other candidates.

Are You Still Looking For That Ideal Job?

Finding your dream job can be difficult. You can spend lots of time and energy trawling through vacancy listings in papers and online yet still fail to find that dream job. If you find yourself stuck in this kind of rut, then it might be time to seek help from one of the many marketing recruitment agencies in the West Midlands. What you might find is that the ideal job is there, and you may even have read the job description, but you won’t know it because you don’t know what a good fit you might be with the organisation. Fitting in with a company can count a lot towards your job satisfaction and potential for further career opportunities. Sometimes you just need to get in to get on. How do you go about choosing which agency to sign up with or is it worth registering with a few marketing recruitment agencies in the West Midlands? It is worth visiting a few agencies to see what reception you get and how interested you think they are in getting to know you. It is also worth looking at what companies each agency works with if there is an employer you are keen to work for. Register with the ones you feel are committed to helping you find your fit and who are not just going to push you forward for opportunities to make up the candidate numbers. It is important that the agency you choose spends time getting to know you in order to be able to match you to your ideal job. Agencies should have good knowledge of various companies’ cultures and working practices and be able to advise on where your personality type, work ethic and skills might be best suited. Agencies who work closely with employers will also be aware of the internal development programmes available. Before you start meeting agencies, it is a good idea to think back through your employment history and make a list of all the elements of different jobs that you liked and all those bits that you didn’t. You may be surprised to find that many of the likes and dislikes are not related to the job details itself but possibly are more related to the company culture, internal processes, standards and expectations and the development support to enable you to meet expectations. These are not things you’ll find in vacancy listings and wouldn’t find out until you start in a job. You can get a little more insight by working with recruitment agencies that are tasked to find the right fit.

Is Your Advertising a One-Off Gamble?

Advertising can be a costly business, but if planned and managed carefully it can yield great returns. However, reacting to a spur of the moment offer can be money down the drain. If you are a start-up business or an SME, you are unlikely to have vast sums of money to spend on advertising or to try to test things in order to find what works for you. You will no doubt find yourself bombarded by sales calls offering you any number of advertising spaces. However much they may seem a bargain, if you didn’t plan them then it is better to say no. The key to successful advertising is to have a strategy — know what you want to achieve and make a plan to achieve it. Do your research into what has worked for businesses or products similar to yours to ensure you are going to get a return on your investment. When you are planning your advertising strategy and campaigns, you need to be able to measure and qualify your spend, so a golden rule should be that if you can’t measure it then don’t pay for it. If you are on a very tight budget, it can be tempting to take up the ‘bargain’ offers that sales people may present to you, but you should resist making snap decisions. When it comes to ‘too good to be true’ advertising offers, another golden rule should be if it isn’t in the plan then don’t do it. Don’t be pressurised into making on-the-spot decisions, however good the offer on the phone sounds. If it wasn’t in your plan this time round, then decline. If you really think it is a good idea, then build it into the plan for the next round of advertising. If you are really being given the hard sell on what an advertising offer can ‘guarantee’ you in terms of responses and new business, then ask the provider to give it you for free and tell them you’ll pay them based on the return you get. Then see how confident they are about their ‘guarantees’. Research is vital if you want to get something back from your campaigns. Pick your advertising routes and vehicles carefully and then repeat. It is better to be advertising in fewer targeted locations frequently than it is to take a huge scatter-gun approach on a one-off campaign. One-off advertising is unlikely to yield much as there is so much other advertising to compete with, so you need to keep getting your message out there for it to start to make an impact. Working on advertising campaigns or in the advertising industry can be exciting, challenging and very creative. If you are looking for a role in advertising, it is likely that the marketing recruitment agencies in Birmingham which you approach have been the most successful at frequent advertising. Their success in attracting you should give you the confidence that the same marketing recruitment agencies in Birmingham are attracting the right jobs too.

Strong Pipelines for Sales and Growth

Chasing new business can be a never-ending task for the successful sales professional, but it needn’t be a race against time to find the next deal the minute you have secured the last one. Nor does it mean a life of constantly making cold calls and breaking the ice at endless networking events. There are many ways that you can build a strong pipeline which will give you a longer-term view of forthcoming opportunities and likely prospects. A pipeline takes the stress away from wondering where your next sales are going to come from and helps provide structure and an organised approach to the implementation of your new business strategy. Cold calls and following up on warm leads generated by telesales teams will form part of your pipeline creation. So too will the leads you pick up from your contacts and the connections that you make at networking events. However, these are not the only lines of approach. Keeping up with all industry knowledge is an important part of the sales process as you learn to anticipate who will be in need of what amongst your potential customers. You will already have identified your potential market. The next step is to keep abreast of changes which position companies nearer to the point of purchase. For example, sales recruitment agencies in Shropshire keep an eye on developments to gauge which companies are likely to be hiring in the near future. If your customers are within the public sector, then the opportunities for new business will be advertised in ways which present a level playing field to suppliers. Public-sector opportunities are often advertised in the form of tenders to which suppliers submit proposals and responses to bid documents. Approaches may vary slightly depending on the value of the contract and often there will be pre-qualification stages which must be passed before full tenders can be submitted. While public-sector tenders can appear to involve a long-winded process, the rewards can be great. As well as tenders for specific contracts, there are often opportunities to bid to become a council’s or public body’s preferred supplier, which will bring you ongoing business. The key to building your public-sector sales pipeline is to keep an eye on all the new tenders being published which are relevant to your business so that you have enough time to submit your proposals and responses before the deadlines. If you think a career in public-sector sales might be for you, then contact sales recruitment agencies in Shropshire to find out more.

How Do You Choose Your Recruitment Partner?

Whether your company has created new sales posts which need filling or your natural staff turnover is prompting the next recruitment drive, the support of a recruitment partner might be just what you need to find the best sales talent for your organisation. There are many sales recruitment agencies in Staffordshire, so how do you decide on which one to choose? First of all, you need to decide what it is you need from your recruitment partner. Do you just need quick and easy access to a pre-vetted resource pool? Do you need someone else with established routes to market to advertise your vacancies for you to generate the right interest? Or do you need someone to manage the early stages of recruitment and present you with a shortlist of candidates for the second-stage interviews? Look for the agencies which offer the services you need and who are willing to go the extra mile to ensure you achieve your goals. The best sales recruitment agencies in Staffordshire will work with you to advise on where they can be of most help to you during the process. If you are new to recruiting, especially if you are having to hire on a large scale, then recruitment partners can even help you learn the process and train your team in good recruitment practice. They should be with you every step of the way and work effectively as a natural extension to your team. The best recruitment partners will still be around after the positions have been filled to ensure that the placed candidates are meeting the expectations set at interview. Working with a recruitment partner can save you time and money if they are equipped to manage the advertising, the sifting of applications and conducting the first-stage interviews. You can benefit from their knowledge and expertise. If they are able to get to know your organisation and your resourcing needs properly, then they will be best placed to find you the ideal candidates. As well as promoting your vacancies, they will be promoting your organisation in order to attract the top talent. If your vacancy is simply added to a long list of similar-sounding roles, you have no chance of standing out as the vacancy the best candidates are looking for. Your recruitment partner should be bringing it to their attention not leaving it to be found by chance. You will be only too aware if you have picked the wrong recruitment partner, as you will quickly find that you are not their most important client and that you are just a number on a list for a call-back at some point. You want a partner who isn’t chasing so much business that they can’t focus on your needs. Obviously, your partner will be successful because they are good at what they do. Although you know you won’t be their only client, they will make you feel as if you are. You will never have to chase up to find out what is happening with your hiring process. You will receive updates just when you need them and you will find excellent candidates turning up for your interviews.

Is Your Knowledge Your Greatest Asset?

There are many areas of sales where having the product knowledge before you start the job can be the deciding factor when you are going through the recruitment process. If you have moved from one sales job to another, transferring your skills and learning new products each time, you may think this sounds odd. Equally, you may never have considered a career in sales if you are an expert in a particular field because you think your knowledge would be better suited to a more academic profession. Take a minute to consider that the sales function must operate in every form of business or organisation in some way shape or form. No one organisation is fully self-sufficient, however specialist, technical or leading-edge they may be. Hospitals need life-saving equipment, skilled engineering innovators need manufacturing solutions and researchers at the best universities can need technical equipment and instruments to aid their studies. In order to be able to confidently cater to such needs, you will need sales staff who fully understand the whole process. Very often that sales person will be the same person who trains the client in the use of the product, so they really will need to be the expert in this field. Knowledge is a most valuable commodity and can really set suppliers apart when technical and detailed items are your bread and butter. The representatives who usually fulfil these types of sales roles can be known as product specialists. If you have a technical or medical background but you are struggling to find a fit for the practical application of your knowledge or a place the academic world, there are great rewards to be gained by offering your skills and knowledge to industry. There are many ways you can approach entry into your chosen field. You can apply to companies directly, explaining exactly how your knowledge could benefit them. Some research into the most relevant companies may be required first. You can attend industry-related recruitment fairs to see what is available, or you could visit sales recruitment agencies in Worcestershire. If the sales recruitment agencies in Worcestershire that you visit don’t have much in the way of product specialist roles, then you may need to look for industry-specific recruitment partners. Whichever route you take, your knowledge and expertise will be recognised by those who most need it.