Hispanic Jobs

It’s easy to keep an eye on your own company, but doing some analysis of the competition is more challenging. However, it is an essential task that can lead to some good ideas and innovations, and keep you on your toes. I am not talking about copying but you can certainly learn some things that fit into your business model nicely.

LatPro has a few direct competitors in the Hispanic jobs and diversity job board niche. And a handful more in the general diversity job board niche. Some of the big boards have also tried to expand into the diversity realm, usually with little success, but we do make note nonetheless.

So where do we watch our competition? Their newsletters are a great start to finding out what is new with the company, what new products or upgrades they are offering, and any changes to expect. We also are very involved with sites like ERE, LinkedIn and many recruiting blogs, where members openly share remarks that often mention our competition or industry in general. Google Alerts provides a daily update of any new articles that mention those competitors that make the news, issue press releases or are mentioned online. We are on many third-party emailing lists that are used by our competition, so that is helpful as well. The competition websites often give insights as to new designs, new partners and other information.

Also, very importantly, my sales team is on the front line with recruiters and HR professionals that are also being approached by the competition. These clients often tell us things that warrant further research. Like when 3 or 4 clients in a one-month stretch a few years ago told us that CareerBuilder sales representatives were making the absolutely false claim that they cross-post all their jobs to LatPro, so there was no need to use us directly. That followed up by a stunning introduction at a SHRM annual event—a CareerBuilder staff member coming to our booth, shaking my hand and saying it was great to finally meet their partner (us-LatPro) face-to-face.

But there are strategies that are certainly off limits, from our perspective. I don’t think pretending you are a legitimate potential client and calling to get price lists and product information is a fair way to gather data. Also, signing up as a recruiter, doing a trial, that type of thing is out. I have been with this company for over 5 years, and both of those spying techniques have been used on us too many times to count, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. But, whatever, it’s flattering to be copied and we have nothing really to hide. When your direct competitors stalk you and peer around other exhibits at the trade shows to see what you’re doing and how busy you are, it’s kind’ve cool.

Since there are so many directions this information comes from, we’ve approached research a few different ways. We’ve tried to assign specific competitors to certain LatPro staff members to gather all data about them. We’ve also tried to have one area of research assigned to a particular person, e.g. competitor newsletters, across our top ten competitors. Neither has been exactly what we wanted, as some data always slipped through the cracks. Most recently, every person in the company that finds out any data about a particular competitor, whether it be a media mention or whatever, reports that data to a central repository segmented by company. That way, everyone in the company has access and responsibility for knowing what’s going on out there.

Basically, you can learn from the competition and it’s good to know what’s going on with them. But really the idea is to take the good and use it, in addition to learning from their mistakes. Then make yourself stand out with your competitive advantages, being unique and offering the best quality products and services available. And back it up with excellent customer service.

So we do watch the competition and know they are there. But we don’t go crazy with what they are doing, rather focusing on improving our own business.

Do you watch your competitors? Where? How much?

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.