How To Use Direct Marketing Techniques To Get The Marketing Job You Want - A Guide For College Students

By Karl G. Dentino

GETTING OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT

Developing The Right Perspective:
What Business Are We Really In?

A marketing manager's perspective is the first-time job hunter's most valuable competitive weapon.

In a landmark Harvard Business Review article, "Marketing Myopia," Theodore Levitt stressed the need for businesses to define themselves not in terms of the products they sell, but in terms of the customers they serve. He was talking about a marketing perspective.

He used American railroads to illustrate his point. Throughout their decline in the 1950s the railroad companies held to the belief they were in the rail business--a product orientation. Had they realized they were in the transportation business--a marketing orientation--the near extinction of a major U.S. industry might have been avoided.

What business are you, the first-time job hunter, really in? The business of finding a job? Hardly. You're in the business of marketing, of creating a satisfied customer. If you can identify the right need, you can offer the right product (yourself) to satisfy that need and earn a profit (your salary).

To avoid the same kind of marketing myopia, think of yourself as a marketing manager trying to launch a new product (rather than thinking of yourself as one of several thousand students all trying to break into the job market). And think of the people for whom you want to work as prospective customers (rather than as prospective employers). That will put you in charge of a very important direct marketing campaign: your job hunt!

Once you start thinking like a marketing manager, you'll recognize that you are competing in a fierce and cluttered marketplace, often in a category where supply is high and demand is low. You'll see your target prospects as busy senior executives who have a host of stimuli competing for their attention at the same moment your resume comes calling. You'll recognize that you must persuade your time-starved prospect to see value in an expensive, unproven product: YOU!

It is precisely because the job hunt is a true marketing event that it requires the same kind of planning and intensity as a sophisticated marketing campaign. And you are the person in charge of every aspect of this critical campaign--strategy, planning, research, advertising and promotion, production, sales, and analysis.

Your first task as a marketing manager is to develop your direct marketing skills, since you'll be marketing your product directly to your prospective "customers."

Parallels with Direct Marketing

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term "direct marketing?" If you think of catalogs, magazine subscriptions, book clubs, music clubs, and the like, you're not alone. Most people think of these things, commonly referred to as mail order.

But mail order is only one aspect of direct marketing. Direct marketing also is used extensively when products and services are sold through a sales force. In this role, direct marketing isn't selling; rather, it makes face-to-face selling more effective. This process is called lead generation.

When you send out your resume, that's exactly what you're attempting to do...generate leads from prospects who have not yet agreed to buy, but who may be interested in what you have to offer.

The more effective a direct mail package is at piquing the prospect's interest, the greater the response and the greater the number of face-to-face meetings.

The same theory applies to your job hunt: It would be highly impractical for you to knock on doors uninvited. Your direct mail/resume package lets you begin a dialogue with prospects before you ask for the job. The more effective it is, the more interviews you'll get.

The striking similarity between your resume and lead-generation direct mail is just one of many parallels between direct marketing and job hunting. Here are some others.

If you were a marketing manager using direct marketing to enhance the effectiveness of your sales force, you'd guide your staff in several major activities: marketing planning, lead development, selling, and sales follow-up. When you view the job hunt as a marketing event, you become involved in four remarkably similar activities: preparation, resume distribution, interviewing, and interview follow-up.

Once you understand these simple parallels, you're ready to approach your job hunt the same way the marketing manager approaches a direct marketing program. The activities are essentially the same; they just have different names.

Section 2

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