There are many tell-tale signs that a company's hiring needs are increasing. In this post we list 14 tried-and-tested buying signals that staffing sales professionals should act on now.
In today's business landscape, technology is eating the world, and the staffing and recruitment industry might be next on the menu if they don’t actively look for new and innovative ways to serve their candidates and customers.
Instead of manually scanning job boards, news sites and company career pages for information about important buying signals, use a smart aggregator like Vainu to automate the grunt work. Vainu’s web indexing technology indexes information on every registered company from millions of websites every single day. The hundreds of filters in our software allows our users to track exactly the events that indicate a window of opportunity for them.
14 Buying Signals to Act on Now
1. Swings in Hiring Volume
This is one of the most obvious buying signals. A company that hires frequently probably has a strong growth and will need to continue to hire more people to keep it up. Also companies that have been forced to downsize might be of interest for you. Don’t just position yourself as someone who can fill available positions, make sure you understand the reasons for the change before you reach out to them and offer your expertise to help them reach their end goal.
2. Specific talent being hired
The bare minimum of prospecting is to follow job boards and look for companies recruiting to specific roles or with certain keywords relevant to you.
3. Changes on a company’s career page
Don’t stop at job boards – go through company career pages as well. Instead of setting up alerts for each site, a B2B sales platform like Vainu will automate the sales process and let you filter through the ads in one place.
4. New executives (VP/C-suites)
A new exec in the company will be there to make a change. These new hires have authority to make decisions and are looking to demonstrate their value and make an impact with their new organization. As such, they might well be open to making new hires with your assistance.
5. Mergers and acquisitions
One of the best buying signals for sales people in the staffing industry, especially if you’re recruiting within IT. Imagine all the internal systems being combined and the modifications made to product and service offerings, all the areas of expertise missing within the new company.
6. A new office or branch
A new office equals new people. Use your knowledge of the account’s current staff count to predict how many people they’ll be adding on and find out what operations will be run out of the new office to be able to suggest how you could be of assistance. This may be a cross-sell opportunity with an existing customer or a brand new introduction all together.
7. Relocation
A relocated office is essentially a new office. The company will need new roles to get the daily operations going.
8. Expansion to a new market
Companies entering a new market most likely need new employees to run the daily operation there. Finding the right people is always hard, and it’s even harder to recruit on a market where you’re new. Your help will come in handy for sure.
9. Funding
Companies taking in VC money or investments of any kind often have a high rate of growth, and in order to keep growing they need more employees. Simple.
10. Large won customers / contracts
A company that takes on a new, large customer or project will likely require some special attention and extra pairs of hands.
11. New product / service announcement
When a company announces a new product or service, they’re facing the unknown, as they don’t know how it will be taken by the market. If the response is good, they will need new people to meet the market’s demand. This could be an opportune time to reach out, acknowledge the new product or service and simply let the company know that you’re there to help.
12. Poor OR strong quarterly earnings
Regardless of whether your prospect killed it last quarter or if they had poor earnings, now is a time to give them a call. If they had strong growth recently, they’re likely open for suggestions for how they can keep up the speed. If their revenue and/or grow profit fell, find out why and present a suggestion for how your services can help them back on track.
13. Fast-growing companies
It should be a no brainer – a company that has had a steady economic growth and increased its number of employees over the last year(s) will probably continue to grow and recruit.
14. Changes in competitors
You can count on that your prospect is planning a counter attack if one of their competitors just launched a new product or service. The same goes for if your prospect’s competitor recently rolled out a new marketing campaign or website. This is a good time to reach out to see how you can help them respond.
