Last night a friend and I drove 30 miles to get ice cream. Sure, we could have gotten it closer to home, but we drove to get the same kind of strawberry ice cream that we both remember having as kids (as opposed to what passes for it now).

I’ll bet you’ve done the same thing, gone way out of your way to get a product or service ‘the way it used to be made/done,’ and probably paid a premium for it, whether you found it regionally, nationally, or virtually.

The name of the marketing game today is using value-added/service/quality to sell to the individual and to capitalize on tiny segments of the market (just for the heck of it I searched personalized & ‘market niches’ and there were 111,000 hits). The result is a surge in the extra value/tailored to fit/my way/special order mentality.

OK, what does all this have to do with your ability to do your job as a manager? A lot, fortunately or not, depending on you and your MAP, because the mentality described above is the same mentality that you need to appeal to when hiring; in other words, you’ll need to sell the whole shebang to candidates, just as they are selling themselves to you.

Your [staffing] life will be easier if you determine your position’s niche and identify the characteristics of that market. Try matching the following programming jobs (answers at end)

1. upgrades
2. advanced development
3. maintenance

with the correct mentality

1. bleeding edge
2. tinkerer
3. improvement

Once you do this, you can make sure that both the req and ad target the correct buyer, saving yourself time, energy, and money, not to mention generating good review points.

Answer: 1-3; 2-1; 3-2

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 10:34 am and is filed under Business info, Culture, Hiring, Retention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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