Before explaining how to do this, I want to make an explanation first: each industry contains multiple dimensions, such as industry history, current situation and future, market capacity, consumption scale, and the way it interacts with economy and politics. and degree, the survival status of enterprises in the industry, the distribution and dynamics of industry talents, etc.

When we need to figure out an industry in the short term, we do it based on the actual needs of the current work. Therefore, the following is mainly from the perspective of a headhunter to explain how to find out an industry within a week.

The headhunting workflow is generally as follows:

The client puts forward recruitment needs – Headhunting conducts job analysis – Determines sources of matching talents (industry/enterprise) – Sets talent search plans (i.e. how to contact target candidates) – Evaluates potential candidates – Recommends matching candidates for interviews – … —— Recruitment of qualified candidates

Usually, it takes 7 to 10 days from the headhunter receiving a new job assignment to recommending the first batch of matching candidates to the client. This requires the headhunting consultant to find out one or two or three industries within a week. , discover the talents that customers need and conduct comprehensive evaluations on them. For today’s topic, we only need to discuss the “communication with target candidates” aspect of headhunting work. The overall idea and operation of its implementation can be briefly described as follows:

1. Delineate corresponding industries, or expand to related industries.

1) Customers provide basic information about the industry, such as competitors;

2) Consult friends in relevant industries;

3) Understand the products/services/business models of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry through the Internet, industry magazines, industry reports, etc.

2. Determine the list of TOP5 or TOP10 companies in the industry, and pay attention to the ranking criteria of the list and the ranking changes in recent years.

1) Consult friends in the industry;

2) Refer to the annual Top 500; you can appropriately expand to understand the ranking changes in the past 3-5 years;

3) Query company rankings (such as sales, growth rate, number of retail terminals, etc.) through the Internet, industry associations, information disclosure of listed companies, etc., and also pay attention to the company's strategic adjustments, market layout, new product releases, mergers and acquisitions information, etc.;

4) Check industry/company analysis, case analysis, product analysis, industry forecast and other reports from PE/VC, securities and other financial institutions.

3. Target the target candidates for the corresponding positions in the organizational structure of the listed companies, and contact the target candidates through various channels.

1) Contact/consult friends in the industry/company, or friends of friends; (network resources)

2) Search the headhunting company’s own database for talent resources;

3) Third-party talent pool resources (such as Weibo, etc.);

4) Cold Call (unfamiliar call)

Key points:

1. Communicate in detail with everyone you contact, and use these people to maximize the data and information about the specific positions/employees/business/products/services of their companies and competitors;

2. Transform and absorb the information in a timely manner and use it with the people you contact later, while mutually confirming the accuracy and reliability of the information.

When you reach point 2, you can actually understand 70-80% of an industry (the author estimates based on experience) or even more. Most people may find it difficult to achieve point 3. In fact, the situation is not as good as yours. Bad idea.

Because you have a lot of friends, and your friends have a lot of friends, not to mention the unlimited network resources brought to you by the "Six Degrees of Segmentation Theory". As long as you want to explore, the information your existing network resources can bring you will be endless. It can increase you by 10-20% based on the existing 70-80%. Conservatively speaking, you are already half an expert in this industry at this time.

Give an example to illustrate.

I once worked on a case where I was looking for a South China GM candidate for a top 3 international sugar industry group. When I first came into this position, I was a complete layman in the sugar industry. I only knew the concepts of sucrose, white sugar, and brown sugar that I came into contact with in my daily life, as well as the sugar added in various juices, coffee, and biscuits. I knew nothing about anything else. I don’t know, let alone poaching people and assessing their competence.

After starting the project, follow the above method. In accordance with the customer's requirements and the qualifications of the position, we carry out the following operations:

1. Define the industry

First, search for keywords such as "sugar companies" and "sugar industry rankings" on the Internet. From the search results, we learned that domestic sugar companies are almost all local private enterprises and state-owned enterprises, and are divided into southern ones mainly based on sucrose and those based on stevia. Sugar-based northern sugar manufacturing enterprises.

Secondly, from the search results of "Sugar Industry Analysis" and "Sugar Industry Research Report", we learned about the industrial layout of the sugar industry in China, advantageous provinces, product characteristics, upstream and downstream products of the industry, etc., and learned about the upstream planting of the sugar industry. (Cultivation of sugar cane and stevia), midstream manufacturing (sugar mills, residue processing, etc.), downstream distribution (food processing companies, beverage manufacturers, food additive companies, etc., spot/futures markets, etc.).

Finally, expand to companies in China where international groups related to the upstream and downstream industries carry out corresponding business, such as international food groups, the four major international grain merchants, Nestlé, PepsiCo, CP Feed and other industries to which companies belong.

2. Determine the list of companies in the industry

1) Domestic sugar companies: Yangpu Nanhua, Guangxi Nongken, Guitang, East Asia Sugar, Nanning Sugar, Feng Sugar, Yingmao Sugar, etc.;

2) The four major international grain merchants ABCD and domestic COFCO;

3) According to the Top 500, determine the list of food manufacturing or retail companies according to the company's product classification: Nestlé, Pepsi, Kraft, Coca-Cola, AB InBev, Tyson, etc.;

3. Rank the target candidates for the corresponding positions based on the company list, and obtain company/industry information to the maximum extent to enrich the content of the first two steps.

Since this article mainly aims to understand the industry, step 3 will not be described again. Through the information collection, sorting, and analysis in the first and second steps, plus the information refinement and mutual verification in the third step (which can also be called the utilization of network resources), I have figured out a good idea in less than a week. industry, and even related industries, and based on this, complete the customer's entrustment.

Text丨Organize the network