Careers and Inbound Marketing

Photo Credit: deanmeyersnet on Flickr

Inbound marketing? What the heck does that have to do with the job market?

Well, first a quick definition of inbound marketing from the Hubspot blog, in a post by Rick Burnes:

Inbound Marketers flip outbound marketing on its head.

Instead of interrupting people with television ads, they create videos that potential customers want to see. Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they create their own blog that people subscribe to and look forward to reading. Instead of cold calling, they create useful content and tools so that people call them looking for more information.

This definition concentrates on content creation, but the real meat is the phrase “people call them.”

Again, what does this have to do with careers? It’s this: when was the last time you had to splat your resume all over the place looking for a position? What did these people know about you? Did you have any presence in the market before making these “cold calls” (and how many times has the job interview process been referred to as “sales?” Yuck). Wouldn’t it be great if people called you?

This has been my experience so far. It’s not some sort of snooty “people know me, they call me” thing, but more that the hard work many people put into spraying their resumes, I put in over the last several years in building up a network, and a body of content that, somehow, has earned me some respect and goodwill- and resulted in people seeking me out. It’s not that I am not doing any “outbound” work as well, but I am confident that this “inbound marketing” version of the career process leaves me with, to put it in marketing terms, higher quality, pre-qualified leads.

All wheat, no chaff. It has certainly made things easier this time around. And if I have talked to you about a job and you’re reading this; yes, I’m talking about you.