(23/07/03)
Kartavya
Abhi
Vicky
Inder
ImageBuilder
The New Currency of Recruitment
If
plain/unstructured email resumes are the OLD currency of recruitment,
then the ImageBuilders are the NEW currency.
It
is our objective/goal: to replace all the old resumes with the new resumes.
i.e.
replace all plain/unstructured resumes with the ImageBuilder resumes.
Replace
all old currency-notes in circulation with the new currency-notes.
Whether
the old notes are lying with:
- Jobseekers
- Jobsites
- Placement
Agencies
- Employers
- HR
Consultants
How can we do this?
How long will it take?
What will motivate the “old-currency” holders
to come forward to exchange with the “new-currency”?
At how many places can we/shall we organise
such “exchange” to take place?
(No. of Currency-Exchange-Counters).
Why should any organisation (whether a
jobsite / a placement agency / HR Consultant / ultimate employer) want to
become our “Currency-Exchange-Counter”?
What
is in it for him? How does he stand to gain?
If we are to solely depend upon the
jobseekers only to visit recruitguru.com & exchange their old resumes with
new (ImageBuilders), then how long will it take?
How
can we entice/lure them to come forward in large numbers?
What
incentive can we offer them?
Companies which first built up
countrywide/worldwide distribution network dealers/agents/stockists/franchisees
etc.) for their goods/services,
and
then (subsequently) set up DIRECT SELLING from their own website, ran
into serious problems.
Distributors saw a threat in this move.
They
felt these companies were trying to save their distribution costs (dealers’
commissions) by bypassing them & booking orders DIRECTLY on their
website!
These companies are having a tough time
convincing their dealers/distributors, whom they cannot ditch in any case!
The companies NEED these dealers for:
- Physical
distribution / logistics support
- After-sales
service
- etc.
But companies like DELL COMPUTERS
adopted a DIRECT-SELLING MODEL from Day ONE!
DELL never appointed a single dealer—so they
had no problem, no vested interests to resist model-change!
Purpose
of this digression:
In
order to speed up the currency-switch, if we think of roping in many jobsites /
placement agencies / HR consultants etc. by “Licensing our Gummine/Gumtrack”
(where each agent makes some money—a commission—either from us, or from the
jobseeker),
then,
they will strongly resent/oppose any move on our part at DIRECT SELLING! They
will gang up against us (form a labour union!).
Of
course, no one knows what will work & what will not work on Internet.
We
must continue to experiment / continue to analyse the results & continue “course
correction” as we go along.
Most
important thing is that obsession with “In-depth analysis” must not result into
“action-paralysis”!
(signed)
27/07/03
PRICE OF PROMOTION
LESSONS TO BE LEARNT
TWO-BUCK-CHUCK
Lessons To be Learned – TWO-buck Chuck
(Eco. Times: 20/06/03)
Point | Lesson To be Learned (in our context) |
Fancy wines cost $300/bottle. Two-Buck Chuck wine costs $1.99 per bottle. | A wine meant for masses. We want to price Recruit-Guru transaction-tariffs so low that thousands of small/medium-sized companies would start using Recruit-Guru & would never think of installing/maintaining an in-house legacy system & then remain, forever, at the mercy of a software vendor! |
| Since it came on to the market last year, Two-Buck Chuck has become the fastest-growing wine in the history of America’s wine industry. Two-Buck Chuck accounted for 15% of the wine sold in California in the first 2 months of this year. | This is a repeat of the DoCoMo story (40 million mobile users in 1000 days i.e. avg. 40,000/day!).
Obviously there are lakhs of small/medium corporates around the world, who do not use any recruitment/HR software (because they simply cannot afford costly legacy systems). Given a simple/cheap alternative, they would grab it. |
Point | Lesson To be Learned (in our context) |
No single brand has ever had that kind of market share. It has become a “CULT” wine. — Shoppers carting it away, not by the case, but by the carload. | Obviously, a huge untapped market existed for a cheap/affordable wine, for middle-class Americans. Maybe they wanted to explore/experiment wines (having been fed up with beer/hard drinks?). Perhaps, it was all a question of having an “Affordable OPTION”! When Two-Buck Chuck gave them that option, it caught on as a wildfire! |
We must position Recruit-Guru as the “poor corporate’s option”. But here, the comparison ends! Although Recruit-Guru would be “cheap” (as compared to legacy systems), it is by no means, cheap-quality!
If anything, Recruit-Guru will have SUPERIOR QUALITY & far greater ease-of-use (simple elegance) as compared to legacy systems. Big corporates will adopt Recruit-Guru for this reason and not because it is cheap. |
Point | Lesson To be Learned (in our context) |
You have to try it – and then spring it on your friends alongside more expensive wines to see if they can tell the difference. | We hope that, when jobseekers receive their “ImageBuilder” version, they will show it to their friends/colleagues, who will instantly realize that there is absolutely nothing comparable available in the market! |
We hope this (realization) would tempt them to try it out on their own email resumes – especially since it is free!
Question is:
Will recruiters also realize – and appreciate – this “difference”?
And, if & when they do, will they be motivated to share their pleasant experience with their co-professionals (HR/Recruitment Mgrs. of other companies)?
How do we bring this about? |
Point | Lesson To be Learned (in our context) |
The appearance of such cheap wine in America, however, is something new, made possible by an unprecedented oversupply of grapes in California. | SUPPLY-SIDE: |
India produces over 1 lakh IT professionals (college graduates) annually – maybe 50 lakh college graduates of all kinds annually (from a net increase in population of 18.3 million/year!). |
| A series of excellent vintages.
Health benefits of wine.
Ageing baby boomers started drinking more of it. | DEMAND-SIDE:
Demand for IT/ITES is booming… So is demand for professionals in Telecom/Insurance/Retailing/Financial services/Auto/Health services/Infrastructure etc. etc.
We will need to convince HR professionals how they can dramatically improve their own productivity and their departmental productivity by using Recruit-Guru. They can save millions of rupees in Advt. costs & of course subscription-costs on Monster/Naukri etc. for Resume Database Search (7 lakh resumes free? – during Free Trial?).
Even a company having annual turnover of Rs. 5 crore can afford to subscribe to Recruit-Guru! (That is just $1 million!).
There are millions of such companies around the world! |
Point | Lesson To be Learned (in our context) |
The dollar rose, making imported wines cheaper. | If American companies can “buy” our resume database of Software Professionals at $0.10 / $0.20 per resume, they may want to bypass the “body shoppers” & contact the candidates directly! |
| It is cannibalising sales of mid-market wines below $10 a bottle, forcing producers to cut prices. | When we offer to 50,000 corporates, 7/8 lakh resumes “database-access” for Rs. 5000/= (Activation Fee) down payment, what would that do to the revenue models of:
→ Monster charging Rs. 1–3 Lakh/year
→ JobsAhead Rs. 1.5–7 Lakh/year
→ Jobstreet Rs. 0.5 Lakh/year
→ Naukri Rs. 1.5–2.0 Lakh/year |
| Two-Buck-Chuck’s low prices mean it is reaching new markets and changing patterns of wine consumption. | This could well be, for them, a “Life and Death” situation! But we do not want them to shut shop! They have 2 strengths, viz.:
(A) Large Resume Database
(B) Large Corporate Customer Base
By the time EGO & BARTER are over, their strength (A) would have gone, assuming we manage a MILLION resumes. But they can survive on (B) by becoming RecruitGuru “LICENSEES” (See HYBRID model note). |
