Positioning Yourself in the Job Search
Applying Principles from B2B and B2C Marketing to Personal Positioning
You are the “product.” I know this might sound crass. Sadly, it’s true.
Companies hiring—whether for full-time work, fractional/interim work, or a short consulting assignment—are evaluating all candidates as they would a product.
That premise leads to the following questions:
1. What can we learn from best practices in B2B and B2C marketing, especially around product positioning?
2. How can we apply these learnings to improving our odds of a positive outcome in a job search?
To attract attention, one needs to be different from the competition. Positioning (product or brand) is the effort to:
a) Accentuate the differences from the competitors and substitutes; and,
b) Communicate why and how those differences will be valuable to the buyer.
Hiring decisions include both an judgment of whether the candidate can do the job well (how B2B marketers think) and an evaluation of “fit” including ability to get along well with the candidate, be excited to work with them etc. (how B2C marketers think).
Evaluating Candidates as a B2B Product: Leading with a “Rational” Approach
In 2005, Clayton Christensen popularized the “Jobs to Be Done” theory. It offered a framework to understand how and why consumers and businesses adopt new products or services. Christensen built on the work of Tony Ulwick at Strategyn who introduced this idea in 1999.
Christensen explained the theory as follows: “People don’t simply buy products or services, they ‘hire’ them to make progress in specific circumstances.”
The employer is engaged in a hiring process because:
i. They have a problem or multiple problems;
ii. They have realized that the pain is high and that they need to find a solution; as well as,
iii. They have not yet found an optimal solution.
Candidates are potential solutions to the problem. All those representing the employer in the interview process will evaluate every candidate partially through lens applied to all B2B product purchases.
i. Will this person solve my problem(s)?
ii. How confident am I of that?
iii. What will the long-term cost be? (salary, bonus, equity etc.)
iv. What will the short-term cost be? (onboarding, time to ramp, training etc.)
Evaluating Candidates as a B2C Product: The Importance of Emotional Resonance
Hiring is not exclusively a rational decision. It involves a number of emotional elements.
The tremendous spend on brand building reflects the importance of emotional considerations in all decision-making. Marketers have long known that emotional factors influence consumer choice between similar products (especially when feature and functionality differentiation is limited or hard to trust).
Mimetic desire is a theory proposed by French philosopher and anthropologist Rene Girard. It states that after basic human needs are met, people’s desires (and thus decision-making) is influenced more by what other people (whom they respect and want to be like) desire and less by their own needs.
Mimetic desire influences hiring in the following ways:
- Trusted Recommendations: Sourcing candidates through your network, through Board members or through other employees at the company
- Endorsements: What references say, their following in career relevant social media / content domain (LinkedIn, Twitter, Newsletter/Blog, or other content)
- Social Proof: Branding of prior employers, branding of their university/degree, financial success of their prior companies during their tenure etc.
- Sense of Status: How the hiring manager/CEO imagines they will feel introducing the new hire to the company/investors etc.
- Personal Feelings: Did I like the candidate, get a positive vibe, feel comfortable around them etc.
Leveraging this Positioning Knowledge to Your Benefit as a Candidate
Over the past few weeks, I have been speaking with several executives in the job market. Finding a job that meets all your criteria is never easy. During COVID, with higher unemployment and companies taking fewer hiring risks, the challenge is even greater.
Some of the themes I have touched on with candidates are as follows.
1. Reframe Your Expertise as Something Broader than exactly What You Did in the Last Role:
Reflect on your accomplishments and distill out your competitive differentiator(s) or superpower(s). Be able to articulate this to an employer and provide examples of it in action.
In today’s job market, especially for full-time roles, I believe it is more important to have cross-functional strengths than deep vertical expertise. I counsel people to differentiate themselves by talking about how they are unique because of set of intersecting knowledge of a function (e.g. product marketing), and industry (e.g. hospitality) and a range of skills (e.g. motivating teams).
2. Be a Problem Solver, Not Just Another Candidate Applying for “The Role”:
Employers post roles. Thus, we tend to apply to roles. However, roles often mean different things at different companies (there is no single definition for a VP of Sales or VP of Finance role). And the circumstances of the company—flush with cash focused on high growth vs. cash constrained and focused on a turnaround—will warrant different strengths.
Delve into the actual problem(s) the employer is hoping to solve. Ask them what items are keeping them up at night or how they will define success in this role. Once you know the outcomes or solutions they want (the “what”), you can position yourself as the “how” to get them there.
3. Customize your Pitch to the Person you are Speaking with:
Once past the initial HR phone screen, each subsequent person you interview with is evaluating you in the framework of the job they hold, and how they expect to interact with the new hire. If you are interviewing for a head of sales role, the CEO will have different expectations and evaluation criteria, than the CMO/VP Marketing or the CFO/VP Finance. In answering their questions, help them understand how you would help them solve the their business and functional challenges.
4. Know Your Differentiator: Quality vs. Price
Pick a lane. Are you are going to be / willing to be cheaper than other candidates or simply “better?” It is challenging to be both, though many will try to position themselves as such.
I tend to counsel executives to focus on quality and base their value on a total cost of ownership solution. Be willing to tell employers that they should invest more upfront (i.e. a more lucrative total compensation package), for which you will deliver better returns over your tenure than the competition.
Better can come in the form of someone who can do range of tasks well, assemble and motivate a team, as well as decide what to insource vs. outsource. These skills can lead to cost savings in the long-term in the form of reduced friction and coordination as well as higher accountability.
5. Don’t Hide Weaknesses and Be Focused
The standard joke about most job descriptions is that the employer is seeking the combined skills of two people each with 20-years of experience at the cost of one person with 5-years of experience.
With the job specs being so expansive, the tendency is to inflate your skill set. Resist that urge. In fact, be open about your limitations. Everyone has weaknesses. The type of employer you want to work for (especially as a full-time hire) recognizes that no one is perfect and is realistic in their hiring practices. If the weakness would materially impact your candidacy and you really want this job, be able to propose solutions you would implement to overcome this.
Coming across as too broad is often a bad signal. Employers tend to be seeking out candidates who fit the stage of their company. Be clear about why you are interested in the particular problems the company is facing.
As a big Jeopardy! fan, I want to close with a quote from the late, great Alex Trebek: “Take your job seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously.”