I was approached by a Talent Acquisition Consultant for some advice on building an Independent Head Hunter business. The primary question was, I am getting clients in different sectors and being able to create deals with them. Still, I struggle to find the talent because they are widespread, like UX Designer, Graphics Designer, Architect etc.
I immediately jumped into conclude of niching down. I have recently discovered that the more narrow and niche I go, I attract more people who talk to me.
Anyone starting their own business, including me, starts with a revenue target in mind. It is a rookie mistake because it should be either solving a problem for the market or a bigger mission.
Here are a few examples
- Making India the UX Capital of the world in the tech space
- Helping Close 1 million UX talent positions for tech companies
- Closing the gender pay gap for UX in the tech companies
You can create anything close to your heart, and you would take pride in telling it to others. The mission need not be realistic; it needs to be aspirational.
Remember, the objective of a positioning statement is to create interest so that the other person asks how you do that?
You can reply, for example, the last one, “By helping female UX Designers to ask for the industry standard salary when I place them in a tech company”. It is such a simple solution, but it is a great conversation starter.
The idea here is when you start, you don’t have any credentials yet to prove your mantle as an independent consultant. So the position statement, by niching down, can create a space for yourself. You could be the go-to person to fill the diversity requirement of the company. You can choose tech companies that sell only to females.
The biggest objection I often hear is that I don’t want to lose money from the rest of the market. But let’s do a simple check using LinkedIn to see how many UX professionals there are? I got a result back of 170K professionals.
I bet 1000 candidates at a time are looking for a job. It could mean the consultant can earn a high 6 figure monthly income.
Here are business reasons to pick a niche
Content Marketing – You know what your content will look like, A Weekly Resume Rewrite Webinar, Podcast with Product Manager on Hiring UX designers, Weekend Upskills Digital Meetups, Inside jokes on Bad Designers, Book Clubs on UX, Interview cases studies etc
Systems – You can build both on the client side and talent side.
On the Client side, everyone will follow the same steps from outreach, sales interviews, onboarding calls, contract drafting, setting up reporting system/working with their system, Weekly updates, Candidate confirmation, Invoicing, Collecting payments, Followup and asking for Referrals or more business.
On the talent side, the Candidate filling the details, a call to learn about job expectations, Updates tracking system for shortlisting, Interview setup, Following up and reminders for candidate to attend the interview, Post interview 5 min call and understand if any pivoted required, Congrats call once they get the offer letter, ask for the joining date and reminder 15 days before joining, Ask How was the first day? After 30 days Ask how the work is going on?
Community – You can help the community to raise the bar by sharing insights, articles and great talks that will help them to do a better job. You can create mentor and mentee connections for the people with initiatives. Build design personality types and kinds of jobs that will make them happy, Collect resource from the internet and curate it. No need to build it. Learning more insights into the people in UX
Productize Services – Package your knowledge in the space and sell it through 1-hour counselling call, Rewriting Resume Services, Writing Job Descriptions for the company, Creating online Assessment tests, Online Video courses, Salary Negotiation cheat sheets, and LinkedIn Review Live Sessions. Services can range from 1K to 5K, making a monthly side income of 40K-70K.
Value Creation – You will become a high-value consultant who gets respect from the product company and talent because they will not see you as another commodity. You will not be alienated like any other head hunter chasing clients or talent to complete their revenue target. You are vested in their career growth and making a long-term match. They know your business is thriving because you have repeat clients.
In conclusion, you will face ups and downs in business, and the vision is the only thing that will keep you going forward. Once the market sees you are not another vendor and you have some value to share with the world, there will be more collaboration, help and guidance from the market.
Vikram Shetty 