After a range of conversations with Marketing and BD leaders a few areas have come up as key focuses for professional services firms for the coming months and years. Potentially areas where they will need to strengthen or re organise their teams and I thought it might prove interesting to share some of these thoughts: Client relationships – creating a focussed process and team to concentrate on building closer ties with your existing clients, listening to their needs, understanding their
Why would I want to work for you? In a tight candidate market, such as business development in the professional services market, if you want to recruit the strongest candidates available then you need to be thinking about what might make them want to join you. There is usually a push or a pull factor when someone is leaving a job. Push factors are reasons why someone wants to leave their current job. Pull factors are why they would want to accept your job opportunity. If you are not
In a market where high quality skilled candidates are hard to find, what are you doing to help an individual choose your company to work for, over a competitor? In a recently completed assignment to source a Bids professional, which thankfully came to a successful conclusion, we got there, in large part, due to the willingness of the hiring team to move quickly, flexibly and when necessary to add a little extra to demonstrate to the individual why theirs should be the offer she accepted.
How do you approach hiring into your team? Do you map out your role, identify the key skill set required, brief agencies/direct source and start interviewing suitable candidates? Fairly standard process I would imagine, and it is getting harder and harder as it becomes more and more a candidate driven market within professional requirements. Why not add another step into the process? After you have identified your role, stop and think …why would someone want this role? Put yourself in
*Unless you are interested in a career in Legal Marketing & BD then I’d probably skip right on. Easter is upon us, classically a time of new beginnings, new starts …new careers? So if you are thinking about changing role or seeing what is out there then I wanted to give a bit of an overview of the current market – at least as far as Legal Marketing & BD goes. Let’s start by saying it’s still busy, lots of roles around, although the majority are tending to
When recruiting for Bid Managers in the Legal sector, at the top of the wish list for the employer is invariably "previous experience in the legal or professional services is a must"! But why? What makes professional services so unique that other sectors cannot offer the same skills. Here's what they are really looking for: Someone who can manage multiple bids at once. Someone who can manage multiple bids in multiple sectors. Someone who can manage multiple bids in multiple
Look after your existing clients as they provide most of your revenue - current and future. This mantra seems to be the hot topic in Law firms at the moment, with a focus on sourcing professionals who can bring an expertise to the management of these clients. Client Relationship Managers, Client Development Managers, Account Managers, Key account Managers etc etc whatever you want to call them, individuals who understand how to apply a process to building closer links to existing business,
Does more money equal a better career move? Does a higher salary equal more cash available in the bank? Do you put a financial value on your benefits when you move job? Do you look at the immediate financial here and now when making a move or do you look to where that move might take you in a few years’ time? What about the impact that a new role has on your personal life and everything that might be going on within it? So many things to consider but what comes top of the list? This
Who doesn't love a snow day? Business owners and Directors - that's who. Or at least those ones who don't have a flexible working policy. What do you do if your staff can't get into the office to work? Do you insist that they give it a go amongst the snow and ice or do you just write off that days’ work as a bit of bad luck? If you haven't already then surely this time of year is a good one to consider why it's beneficial to work
Behind every job search lies a real person…fairly obvious thing to say but too often at the moment that seems to be forgotten. What does that person expect from their job search? A new job? Yes but perhaps more realistically they expect the opportunity to try and get a new job and then some feedback to explain why they have or have not been successful. Anything less is just a little bit rude, any more is icing on the cake. I have recently been working with an individual who has