I get approached a lot by recruitment consultants trying to put me forward for various positions. I do not understand why they often ask questions that they can easily answer themselves by looking at my CV, which they invariably have in front of them. One of the questions that gets asked most is “do you have any B2C experience?” Again, a question that can easily be answered by looking at my CV. But does it really matter anyway?
The art of PR is understanding your audiences; understanding the message you need to get across to that audience, in order to have the effect that you desire; and then identifying the media that you need to use in order to get that message across. The technique is the same whether you are communicating direct to the consumer or to a business. Am I being naive by suggesting that there is no difference?
I did wonder if it is because the recruiters expect you to have an intimate knowledge of the consumer media or of the trade media but not both. Maybe they don’t realise that it doesn’t work like that (unless you are really specialising in a particular niche). I work in the B2B technology sector but when taking on a new client we still have to research their market and identify the media that we should be using.
It is an easy job nowadays to identify media. There are numerous on-line and printed resources to help us do that, and above all the client will invariably know which media he would use. Gone are the days that this information just existed in peoples heads.
I would therefore suggest that whether you have experience of B2B or B2C is irrelevant and recruiters, employers and clients should not get hung up about it. What is important is how skilled you are in understanding the messages, and how you get that across. For that you need to look deeper than the words written on the CV and ask relevant questions, not those that can easily be answered by reading the paper in front of you.
Related posts: