11.Jan.2010 Bachelor Thesis – Issue 3: Online Target Group

My thesis should supply students with the knowledge to differentiate themselves on the global job market. The difficulty is to get into contact with the HR department of the desired companies, that’s why I identified the HR managers as the target group of the Online Self-Marketing activities. As a next step within the Online Self-Marketing cycle the student has to make out the characteristics of their target group. HR managers of one firm use different strategies when it comes to searching personnel to the HR managers of another firm. I identified two types of HR managers when it comes to the usage of the internet:

What are the reasons for this? Ask yourself these questions and you can find out which type the human resource manager you’d like to contact belongs to!

• Are specially skilled and highly experienced experts needed?
• Does the company belong to the web 2.0 industry?
• Does the firm have high affinity to the internet and it’s services?
• Does the company have difficulties in finding suitable candidates?
• Is it rather small or unknown firm? (as a result can only generate a low number of applicants?)

If you answered most of this questions with YES  your target group consists of Type A HR managers.

BUT

• Is it a well-known company and as a result generates tons of applicants interested in a job?
• Is it a rather traditional firm with low or no affinity to the internet and it’s services?
• Does the company have a sufficient supply of applicants for posted job offers?

If you answered these questions with YES your target group consists of Type B HR managers.

Now you know your target group and can choose and appropriate marketing strategy in the next step of Online Self-Marketing. And no worries, there also will be a strategy helping you with a rather heterogeneous target group, which consists of both types of HR managers.

If you think about it, this differentiation in HR managers can be applied to customers as well.