Speaking the Language of Marketing

Irish Marketing Journal
January 2014
As his company approaches a quarter century of successfully placing marketing professionals, The People Group managing director Colm Buckley acknowledges that recruiters as well as candidates need to continually update their skills, writes Paul Golden.

'Trust, integrity and a specialist focus on marketing and sales are all vital to maintaining our brand and reputation. We have a genuine interest in people finding the right roles and companies in which to develop their careers. Our relationships with blue chip multinational organisations, as well as indigenous companies, are based on successfully filling roles with high calibre talent," says Colm Buckley, managing director of The People Group.

According to Buckley, all the consultants who work at The People Group have a marketing qualification and have worked successfully within industry at various levels of management prior to joining the company. But while he believes it is important for them to understand marketing as a discipline, Buckley also recognises that the industry is continually changing.

"A good recruiter has the ability to work closely with their client, listen to their needs and help them identify what it is they require. In many instances a client may not have fully worked through the balance between what they want and what they actually need. Our people can give them advice on their competitors, how departments are structured and what has worked in the past as well as - critically - what hasn't.

"We have been asked by clients to provide impartial feedback on talent gaps in conjunction with reviewing the strategic marketing plan for the company or business area. While technology has helped enormously in the recruitment efforts of client companies, the craft of good recruitment remains.

"Identifying top talent that clients cannot find themselves and bringing them to the table is a service that all of our people provide on a consistent basis. Our brand and reputation allows us to access unique candidates who, in many instances, are not actively looking for a move. In many instances we receive referrals from candidates we have not placed before".

The People Group has a reputation for providing solid career advice and understanding the types of organisations and cultures within which candidates can develop their careers, which is a crucial factor in generating repeat business.

A good recruiter will not merely source a panel of candidates - they will also make the client aware of a candidate's motivations and ambitions for a career move, Buckley explains. "They will manage the hiring process effectively and anticipate any issues. With the growth of social media and various online recruitment tools the process has become more commoditised, but finding he best possible talent for a company is not the same as purchasing a product online."

"The product we deal with is unique in that it can say 'no' at the last minute.Talent has an opinion and options as well as time contraints. It can be unpredictable, high maintenance, irrational and sometimes uncommunicative. It has thoughts and feelings, it will consult with friends and family members and if it doesn't like your culture, company values or management style it will not work for you. So the recruitment consultant is vital in managing the process successfully."

He admits that the recruitment landscape remains challenging, albeit on the up since late 2012."We have begun to see more opportunities at middle to senior level and have completed a number of projects at marketing director level. Companies seem to be more intent to rebuild their marketing teams."

Aside from good marketing experience and career progression, Buckley says more emphasis is being placed on digital marketing skills."That said, 'attitude & fit' are back with a bang. Most companies have suffered from morale issues over the last few years so a positive, can-do atitude is essential. Energy, initiative and drive are key attributes that are being sought after and it is critical that candidates fill clients with this confidence during an interview process."

He credits candidates for researching the industry before pursuing a career in marketing and maintaining realistic expectations in terms of likely salary and career progression."They are doing their research and they have an idea of where they want to be.Finding the right company, culture and management team/style where they can progress their career is important to candidates," he concludes.

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The Recruitment Revolution

The Sunday Business Post
 
January 19th, 2014


The recruitment sector is changing, but it's important to keep sight of the fundamentals, writes Gareth Naughton.
 
The advent of Linkedin and other social media tools has revolutionised the recruitment process, with the result that some companies are taking it in-house. Are they shooting themselves in the foot, however, by foregoing the expertise of an experienced recruitment agency or consultant who may be better positioned to secure them the best candidate available?

While recruiters have reported an upturn in business in the past year, there is no doubt that the playing field has changed. It is a small market and that means tougher competition and clients looking for agencies willing to go the extra mile. Added to that you have the advent of a raft of new ways of accessing potential candidates which cut out the middle man.

Colm Buckley, managing director of The People Group, which is celebrating 25 years in business this year, believes that this is a persistent issue for the recruitment industry and one which cannot be ignored." You won't get many recruitment company owners to admit this but the truth - globally - is that many clients have deserted or are deserting the recruitment industry, at the moment and over the last number of years," he said.

"In a lot of businesses they are cynical about the value we add to a process, they are sceptical about our ability to deliver anything that they cannot get themselves through LinkedIn or other social media."We are very concious that any decent-sized blue chip in Ireland and certainly globally, is building very sophisticated systems. They are using LinkedIn themselves, they are hiring internal recruiters who in many instances come from the recruitment industry. All of that is specifically designed to cut out third party recruiters."

It is Buckley's contention that the fundamentals of recruitment - the craft of the business - are being forgotten as people look to technology to solve their staffing issues, rather than bring in a third party.This technology should be seen as an extremely useful tool, he believes, but it is not the cure-all for all recruitment problems.

"LinkedIn for us is, in fact, something that we use as a secondary tool. It is important and there is no doubt you will find very good people on LinkedIn, but we use our own methodology of tried and trusted relationships, of picking up the phone, of getting referrals, word of mouth," he said.
"I could name four or five companies that I have personally placed senior digital marketeers in over the last six months and I have found those individuals by word-of-mouth from other candidates that we had dealt with here and built up relationships with over months and years.We are running away with ourselves with the digital world and media, but they are only tools."

Underpinning the issue is that clients are no longer prepared to pay a fee for a bunch of CVs. They are looking for somthing more in-depth - the value-add that a recruiiter should bring to the table. They are looking for rcruiters capable of identifying the right talent and guiding those candidates to the point where they are willing to accept an offer.

"Recruiters need to be real experts at talent identification. There is no doubt that they need to build communities both on and off-line," he said."Ten years ago a good recruiter would have told you that their network, the people they know and could access, was the most critical thing in them being able to do their job above and beyond the competition.

"There is no doubt about it, integrated social media and digital marketing networks are very important in terms of building your brand and reputation but they are not a panacea for the recruitment process at the end of the day."

Karen O'Flaherty, chief operating officer at Morgan McKinley, said Ireland's recruitment industry had changed with a greater emphasis on specialist consultants with more in-depth knowledge.
"Because are own industry has changed, we have employed a lot of people who would have already worked in particular sectors. They are networked, they understand the industry and the people they are talking to are more affiliated with them," said O'Flaherty.

"If they are talking to those people and, equally, clients and candidates on a day-to-day basis they (have better knowledge and experience) in where the opportunities are, having the conversations to predict where the hiring might be and being able to match the skill-set with the employer better than anyone else."

Employers are looking for advice on what is out there on the market if they are planning potential hires, and a skilled recruitment agent should be able to provide the necessary insight, O'Flaherty said.
The recruitment agent acting as the middle man is beneficial to both the employer and the jobseeker, she argued, with the former likely to find a candidate who is going to stay put for a period of time and the latter bringing negotiation skills to the table.

"There are a number of employers who are happy to pay over and above for the right person, others canot afford to pay certain people, but they are looking for that expertise on how to serve them on benefits when they cannot necessarily afford to pay out on salary. Somebody who is actually very industry-specific and that has day-to-day knowledge can add a lot in that middle ground," she said.
The sector has changed as well because the "quick buck" mentality of the boom is no longer prevalent. The market is too small to sustain it.

"There is a realisation that you have to look after your customer, whether that is the professional or an employer. That has left are industry thankfully, and people are out to give a good service, knowing that if they don't get a return, in the first instance, that the jobseeker or the employer will come back to them," said O'Flaherty.

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Marketing sector making moves

The Sunday Business Post
Sunday, July 14th
Marketeers are reporting steady growth, especially in the digital area, writes Gareth Naughton
 
Recruiters are reporting that hiring in the sales and marketing sector has stabilised in the first half of the year bringing slow but steady growth.

Good salespeople survived the downturn because their impact on the bottom line is near immediate, but marketing is now recovering - giving a strong indication that companies are growing in confidence and thinking long-term again.

The growth is not isolated to one particular industry, according to Colm Buckley, managing director of The People Group, who said that there has been a noticeable shift in focus at board level.

"From talking to senior people, you get the sense that the commercial, sales and marketing directors are getting more voice at the boardroom table. It is more about growth and creating future markets, rather than cost-cutting. No disrepect to the finance people, but I think that all of the cost-cutting has been done and it is about moving it on now," said Buckley.

"For a lot of companies, their reaction in the past number of years has been to hire in sales people, and we have seen many marketing positions and teams decline. Now we are starting to see companies reinvesting in marketing and hiring in. These are new positions, not distress positions where someone is off on maternity leave or someone has retired," he said.

This is a good sign, said Buckley, because it takes time for marketeers to produce a return on investment. "If you hire in a good sales person, you will see a return on your investment within one or two months but, with a marketeer, it is six to 12 months which is a much more medium to long-term play. I think that is a really positive message that companies are genuinely looking at growth again. Marketeers do not come cheap and the results take a while, so there definitely seems to be a confidence in the business community in that respect." he said.

A lot of growth in the recent year or so has been driven by greater emphasis on digital marketing. Buckley said that we are heading toward a point where digital marketing becomes another channel to the market, rather than a "panacea for all your ills".

"Companies more and more are coming to us saying that they are looking for a strong, experienced marketing manager, and if they have some digital marketing skills at a strategic level, if they understand the language and the integrated marketing relaionship between digital and traditional, that would be fantastic," he said.

That said. there has been a clear change in the characteristics and competencies being included in job descriptions for sales and marketing roles. according to Karen O'Flaherty, chief operating officer of Morgan Mckinley.

"It is a hybrid of the traditional role with digital...You have to have a vocation for marketing and you can adapt or upskill depending on the market but you are never going to have an accountant who wants to be a marketeer. You need to have the mindset and competencies of someone who is particularly interested in that area, and what we are saying is that from there things have changed.

"Digital marketeers are in some ways old news - it has almost moved to data managers. Somebody from a marketing perspective who can manage that data as they see it," said O'Flaherty.

New areas of interest include marketing analytics - mining data to direct marketing strategy - with a number of companies setting up in Ireland. "You are still a marketeer but the difference is now that you are analysing in a different way how the customer behaves or the information from site, etc," she said.

Although marketing took a hit across the sectors in the boom, it does not necessarily follow that Ireland has an abundance of suitable candidates. Recruiters are increasingly accessing the passive market - candidates who are already employed - to source talent.

"We would consider this one of the areas where there is a skills shortage at the moment. There are the skill shortages because the people are not in the country and there is the skills availability, where the population of talent is here but they are gainfully employed, well looked after and not active," she said.

Sales roles are also picking up, which O'Flaherty also sees a good sign because those roles are the first to go when the market slackens. "Field sales roles have increased and we wouldn't have seen that for the past two years.

Employers can now afford to put people into cars and afford them the opportunity to go out and start selling their products and services. There are challenging areas to fill because employers' expectations on return of investment of somebody in that role need to be aligned with what people are willing to buy at this stage," she said.

With competition for experienced talent and increased activity in contract, temporary and permanent positions, there has been an impact on remuneration, according to John Mansell, manager of Abrivia's specialist sales and marketing team.

"Base salaries have slightly improved for sales and markeing professionals but a more noticeable increase and package improvements have not gone unnoticed in certain specialist and hard-to-fill roles. The technology market has continued to show an increase throughout the year as the market becomes more and more competitive. Sectors such as FMCG, medical and financial services have stabilised with high demand on product focus and/or qualifications necessary for many roles," he said.

This is likely to remain the case for the rest of the year with the shortage of skilled and suitable professionals willing to continuing.

"Due to lower turnover in staff and the focus on employee retention, employers will continue to reward good performance and over-achievement, and I anticipate that this will remain the case in 2013 and beyond as the market continues to improve in a slow but upward curve.

"The expectations for the remainder for 2013 will follow a similar pattern to the first six months - with the digital/online and social media sector seeing the strongest growth," said Mansell.
He said he also envisaged key growth areas to include the FMCG, telecoms and medical sectors, with steady growth of activity expected in the ICT sector



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Jobs set to grow in digital revolution

Colm Buckley, managing director of The People Group

The Sunday Business Post
Sunday, February 24th
 
The emergence of digital marketing is creating new roles that did not exist five years ago, but employers should take care to hire marketers with the right mix of digital and traditional skills, writes Gareth Naughton of 'The Sunday Business Post'.
 
These emerging roles are in search, social and mobile. In the search area, the roles on offer are in the areas of optimisation, search marketing and, particularly, analytics, according to Ian Dodson, chief executive of the Digital Marketing Institute.
 
"Ultimately, no matter what form of digital marketing you do, analytics and an understanding of how to pull the numbers together and deduce actionable insights out of them are crucial," said Dodson.


"It is a strong, emerging field. Pulling decent insights out of data is one of the challenges with digital. There is so much data available to companies, the challenge becomes how to decipher the data and pick the information that you use to make decisions like where to base spend or focus on."
 
Social networking
Social networking has been responsible for the most obvious shift in marketing departments with companies bringing in their own teams and to take care of Facebook, Twitter and the rest rather than outsource to an agency.
 
For organisations accustomed to delivering a centralised message and speaking with one voice, consumer demand for interaction over social media is a significant challenge. "With social, one of the problems is that you cannot outsource your soul," said Dodson.
 
"We are seeing companies hire people back in to deal with social media. You are talking about everything from copywriters and content writers right through to community managers.
"You need people who can write and communicate through social media, who are able to reflect the tone and extend  into that company's brand on the internet."
 
New Technologies
The advent of mobile, and the continuing evolution of smartphones and tablets, is giving companies a new marketing platform that will become increasingly important as the technology develops.
Although this may seem like an area for app developers, there are opportunities for marketing specialists, Dodson said.
 
"There are technical and programming roles, but it is very concretely sitting within the marketing sphere in terms of being able to communicate with people and now adding that additional element that mobile brings, which is that whole location aspect. It is not just sitting at a computer at home, now we are searching or interacting in a context," he said.
 
Companies also need to be mindful that digital goes beyond the marketing department and will become a factor throughout the organisation.
 
"What you are seeing are digital channels actually spreading right across the organisation, so it is not just the marketing people who will be challenged by these digital channels, it is everyone in the company," said Dodson. "Ultimately, it is a paradigm shift away from a company-centric view of the world to a customer-centric view and that means that companies have to adapt."
 
Skills shortage
The common refrain in digital marketing circles is that Ireland is about two years behind our British counterparts. There is an understandable skills shortage across the board, according to Colin Lewis, a fellow of the Marketing Institute of Ireland.
 
"It has exploded very quickly," Lewis said. "The training has not had a chance to catch up and people have not had a chance to train up their skills. A lot of companies believe they need to source this externally. It takes existing people a while to build up skills and there is a lag there: people who did not upskill five years ago are behind the times." 
 
This is a full-employment sector and those with the right skills are in high demand, Lewis said that companies needed a combination of people who are skilled in traditional and digital marketing.
"You have a fleet of specialists who need to be expert. The people who want to move up the marketing channel don't need to be experts but they need to be able to understand it, because with the talent to manage these people, understand the creative aspect and really see where they plug in right across all channels, those are the guys who can make the real difference. That is the digital end game."
 
Getting the skills necessary is not an insurmountable problem. Organisation like the DMI, MII and the Digital Skills Academy are among a number offering courses in digital marketing ranging from seminars right up to full-time postgrads and much of the training is practical.
 
"What we have now is this continuous education requirement and it does not stop, because you have to keep on top of both the features and the tecnology capabilities and what that means for the business and how to mange the people with those specific skills," he said.
 
"Instead of continuous professional development being something that was nice to have, it is now going to be the only thing that will make you survive in your marketing career. What you learn today, even with the best course, will have to change in two years time.
 
"The thinking is changing very quickly on the back of it. How you create brands used to be straightforward. People are now launching brands, huge international brands, without using the old channels."


While there is no doubt that the emergence of digital marketing has created new roles and significant opportunities for those with specific skills, at mid-to-senior level there is an emphasis on commercial marketeers who can oversee and plan across a wide range of channels both traditional and digital.

Colm Buckley, managing director of The People Group, said there had been a noticeable shift: employers were thinking less about cost-cutting and more about growth.
 
"The accountants and, to some degree, the HR people have been the power base in a lot of blue chip corporates in Ireland over the last three to four years", said Buckley, and " it has been about cost-cutting, reducing the numbers of people and doing more with less for less. Over the last year - and this will continue in 2013 - a lot of chief executives have been saying: 'how are we going to do more with less marketing spend and fewer sales people?'.
 
"Traditional marketing, or integrated marketing, including digital is coming back to the table. If someone is looking for a digital marketer only, I would question that. They are most probably looking for a good marketer in a practical sense who has digital knowledge and experience," he said.
That said, like the IT sector, there is a distinct shortage of strong traditional marketeers with a good solid grounding in digital in Ireland.
 
This supply and demand issue has resulted in those who do fit the bill being able to command a premium.
 
"There has been a bit of panic in the market over the last two or three years here. The supply of good digital marketeers has not been there. It is very new in Ireland so they do command higher salaries. Where you are getting a traditional marketing director in a blue chip company for 100,000, a digital marketing director is going to cost you 140,000," he said.
 
The traditional marketing manager should also take heed that burying their head in the sand and ignoring digital will do them no favours.
 
Yes, they need to have solid marketing foundations but the future will be in integrated marketing where companies reach out to consumers with a cohesive strategy, and digital is going to play a significant role in that. It is not going away.
 
"There is no doubt about it but the people in their 30s and 40s need to get with the script, upskill, get some digital skills and be able to talk that language. But at the end of the day, companies who are looking for people in that age and experience bracket are always looking for a commercial marketeers - If someone has digital skills, that will definitely enhance their position in the running," said Buckley.  

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The Sales Institute - How to Recruit Winners

How to Recruit Winners Wednesday 12th December The Sales Institute is delighted to confirm details of a breakfast seminar on December 12th focusing on 'How to Recruit Winners'. Featuring speakers from LinkedIn and Goldenpages.ie, this seminar will provide valuable insight into the best practice hiring and development used by two highly successful and dynamic organisations. This event takes place in the Alexander Hotel Dublin on the 12th December from 7.30-9.15am and is free to attend for current members of the Sales Institute of Ireland (non-members €80). To reserve your place please click here or contact the Sales Institute on 01 662 6904 or e-mail info@salesinstitute.ie The Sales Institute of Ireland Knowledge and insight to help you compete more effectively Event kindly sponsored by The People Group Carol Murphy, Head of Training, Sales & Fulfilment, Goldenpages.ie Carol Murphy has worked in Training and Development for ten years and has been involved in the design and delivery of an innovative range of training programmes for sales professionals. She combines her extensive knowledge of tried and true models with current organisational trends and a deep understanding of systems operation and human behaviour, to design and develop effective programs. Carol is a qualified trainer and coach and holds a Degree in Commerce and a MBS from NUI, Galway. Carol will discuss her company's vision and recruitment strategy, the recruitment and selection process at Goldenpages and what the company looks for in the interview process. Lindsay Browning, EMEA Lead Recruiter, LinkedIn Prior to her current role as EMEA Recruitment Leader at LinkedIn, Lindsay Browning was EMEA Recruiting Specialist at Google. Previously, she held the role of Senior Marketing Recruitment Specialist at CPL and before that Lindsay was a Director and Recruitment Manager at Elite Placement Agency. "Talent is any company’s number 1 asset and that's why I love the world of recruiting as we can connect career aspirations with opportunity". Lorcan Carpenter, Strategic Recruiter, EMEA, LinkedIn Lorcan Carpenter is a Senior Recruiter for Executive and Emerging Market roles with LinkedIn EMEA. He has been championing social media recruitment since July 2006. Prior to working with Linkedin, Lorcan was a Recruitment Specialist at Google / YouTube. Previous to this Lorcan was with CPL as a Principal Consultant. This event takes place in the Alexander Hotel Dublin on the 12th December from 7.30-9.15am and is free to attend for current members of the Sales Institute of Ireland (non-members €80). To reserve your place please click here or contact the Sales Institute on 01 662 6904 or e-mail info@salesinstitute.ie

The Sales Institute of Ireland 68 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland Tel: +353 1 662 6904. Email info@salesinstitute.ie © The Sales Institute of Ireland 2012

Cautious Optimism Lifts the Jobs Market

Business Plus Magazine
 
October 2012

Despite high unemploment, specialist recruitment agencies and head-hunters report buoyancy on the jobs front compared with last year writes Robert O'Brien
 
Colm Buckley, Managing Director of 'The People Group' gives his  opinion on the state of the market
 
The People Group has been trading steadily throughout 2012. There has been a pickup in the volume of sales and marketing roles we've been dealing with throughout the summer, which is a marked difference over the past few difficult years. Business sentiment seems to be somewhat more positive and there are indications of cautious optimism across a range of industires. We have seen a bigger increase in hiring for interim positions that have translated to permanent roles a number of months later.
 
While we have continued to successfully fulfil assignments in the FMCG and drinks sector, we have also had good sucess in the technology, services and busines-to-business spaces. Digital marketing skills are increasingly in demand and Ireland is behind the UK and the US in this respect.
 
Most employers we are dealing with are not only only seeking levels of technical skill and experience but also the right attitude and fit for their companies and cultures. For a mid to senior level hire, it is vital that the right type of individual is introduced to the recruiting process.
 
While we have embraced many of the new social media channels, we continue to maintain our reputation for producing the right results by focusing on the tried-and-tested methods of recruitment. We continue to meet with candidates, where possible, and fully explore their experience, attitude and fit for roles and work cultures we are dealing with on behalf of our client.

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