Choosing a Recruiting Niche

We all know the drill, specialize and capitalize.....in the launch of Keenhire, I am looking at doing both.

Keenhire is a consulting firm that focuses on talent selection. (saas targeted selection interviewing tool, assessments, selection training)

It has been said to me more than once, that while selection is an emerging industry the ideal way to bring Keen's methodology to market is to bundle it inside a high level recruiting solution.

I thought I would sell it to the 3rd party recruiting population, however my instinct and research tells me the market is not 100% ready for this solution...just yet.

So here is my question, I am looking at bringing my 'shtuff' to market in 1 of 3 niches and given recruiting blogs has some of the most connected people on the planet reading it, I thought I'd do an industry survey.

Where do you feel I could make the biggest impact, the fastest?

1) Talent Management professionals - sourcers, recruiters, operations, org dev, etc. - placing both on the corp side and on the 3rd party side in high tech, emerging tech, high touch 'hot bed' industries (I could place, train and sell them the products/services they need to get more people like themselves)

2)Emerging, Middle & Sr. Management - Cross Functional Business Unit Leaders -Operations, Supply Chain, Engineering, Client Services, etc. in high tech, emerging tech, high touch 'hot bed' industries

3) Sales, Sales Engineers, Sales Management in high tech, emerging tech, high touch 'hot bed' industries

thanks in advance, Margo

Attachments:

KeenViewDeck.ppt, 715 KB

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Joshua Letourneau on July 22, 2008 at 9:46am

Margaret, are you proposing the above 3 markets as your potential beachhead segments for Keenhire?

If you want, feel free to reach out to me at jletourneau(at)lgexec.com. Before getting into recruiting, I ran an early-stage technology consulting/VC firm here in Atlanta.

Don't worry - I'm not trying to sell you anything, but if you'd like to touch base, I have some tips that may help in the selection of your initial headpin.

For example, I believe your question, "Where do you feel I could make the biggest impact, the fastest?" may present you some problems down the road. There is a time and place for making the biggest impact, quickly - it's the point of true commercialization (or scaling out, if you will). If you're truly early stage, I'd recommend choosing the following:

1. The niche you can dominate the fastest (note: domination may not lead to the $$$ you're looking for quite yet, but will lead to a critical mass and WOM upon which you can leverage and build as you move further down the alley).

2. The niche with the greatest "pain".

If you're open to a more strategic conversation about some of my experiences winning and losing in the above areas, I'd certainly be open to connecting.

Take it easy :)