Lawrence Tan Speaks at John Clements Monthly Confab
by Paul Catiang

Innovative and Cost-Effective Marketing was the order of the day for the October John Clements Sales Conference, which doubled as the recruitment firm’s Halloween party. In keeping with the marketing spirit, John Clements employees dressed up in various costumes and heard sales and marketing wizard Lawrence Tan share his ideas on effective and cost-efficient selling.

The first piece of advice Mr. Tan gave was, “Know your target market.” This applies to both applicants and clients. Mr. Tan, citing a recently conducted quantitative study, gave as an example the increasingly huge demand for qualified call center workers. For the purposes of the talk, qualified agents were defined as people aged 18 to 35, college level, with good English and communication skills.

How do these people get jobs? The study, Mr. Tan cited, said that they apply for jobs mostly by hearing about them through advertisements, whether online, print or radio and television. They also find out about openings through job fairs, and to a limited extend, referrals. The dire news is that recruitment firms were on the bottom of that list.

Most job applicants have a misconception when it comes to human resources firms: the first thing that comes to mind is an international placement agency, with all the attendant placement fees, costs and effort involved. They also have the impression that applying directly to a company means direct action and fast decisions as to whether they are employed or not. Referrals are also favored over recruitment firms because it is traditionally believed that employment is more or less assured for them.

Mr. Tan’s news isn’t all so bleak, however. Recruitment firms have strengths to capitalize on. Recruits can be provided with training and workshops, ensuring that their skills are more polished and increasing their chance of employment. They also have a greater range of choices as far as job opportunities go. Mr. Tan suggests harnessing a recruit’s ambition through job opportunities; by showing recruits several options to choose from, placement agencies can then paint exactly how green other pastures can be.

Lastly, Mr. Tan notes that placement agencies and recruitment firms can serve as career advisors to recruits by showing them what lies ahead on their career paths. A common misconception about the BPO industry is that there is little professional growth to be expected in working at a call center. Call centers are now providing more diversity in the jobs they offer, and recruitment firms can help enlighten potential agents as to what they can expect in the long run.

A lot of misconceptions about human resources firms abound, says Mr. Tan. The image of the placement firm with exorbitant placement fees is hard to shake, and most recruits will need reassurance on this point. While this seems to be a minor detail, it is nonetheless important to keep the waiting time of recruits to a minimum. Mr. Tan observes that the longer an interviewee waits for interview, the more his or her fear of being put on the spot increases. Finally, most jobseekers are of the belief that placement firms only offer contractual jobs. While this is not entirely false, Mr. Tan advises that it will help to tell recruits that contractual jobs can lead to more permanent jobs, and give them the professional longevity they seek.

Mr. Tan then returns to where he started: knowing the target market. To this end, he suggests knowing the targets’ demographics and psychographics. Demographics, while a familiar term, bears some reviewing: they are the tangible influences on a person’s life: age, gender, socio-economic class, educational background, and so on. Psychographics, on the other hand, are the mental and emotional influences on a person’s life: musical preferences, recreational activities, dreams, aspirations, attitudes and behavior. In researching a target market’s psychographics, Mr. Tan stresses the need to find out what they think of placement agencies and human resources firms. By mapping out a market’s demographics and by imbibing their psychographics, a company can better market its job offers and openings to them.

This also applies to clients. Their demographics includes their employee count, their clients, their competitors, their officers and decision-makers, and their business objectives and targets. A corporate psychographics profile would include corporate culture, mission and vision, corporate values, and other such ephemeral practices. By knowing its clients, a human resources firm can put them at ease by adapting to their needs and principles.

On the other hand, while knowing a target market may aid a recruitment firm in better selling its job openings to recruits, Mr. Tan is quick to note that sales consultants should not forget to capitalize on their personal selling abilities and to emphasize their selling strengths. He notes that not everyone has the ability to sell, and building on this skill will increase their effectiveness in their jobs.

In conclusion, Mr. Tan’s presentation can be summed up in three points: first, sales and recruitment consultants should know themselves, that their strengths may be emphasized; second, they should know the people they recruit: their beliefs, their dreams, their goals, that the perfect job can be found for them; third and last, they should know their clients, to smoothen partnerships and increase the effectiveness with which the clients are served.