Category Entry Points (CEPs) are the situations, events, and pain points that put an HR leader "in the market" for recruiting solutions. These are the triggers that marketing should depict in creative.
Top 15 category entry points ranked by how often HR leaders cited them as reasons they evaluate recruiting solutions. Respondent base: 100 HR leaders.
When non-users experience each buying situation, which brand (if any) comes to mind? The critical finding: most CEPs are open territory. No brand is strongly linked to most buying situations.
| Category Entry Point | BambooHR | Workday | Greenhouse | No Brand Linked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rapid headcount growth | 31.0% | 10.3% | 6.9% | 53.4% |
| Backfilling departures | 2.3% | 0% | 2.3% | 95.5% |
| Slow time-to-hire | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% |
| Seasonal hiring surge | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% |
| Department/team expansion | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% |
| New location/office opening | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% |
| High turnover/revolving door | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% |
| Lack of analytics/reporting | 0% | 6.2% | 18.8% | 56.2% |
| Sourcing difficulty | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% |
| Acquisition/merger integration | 0% | 0% | 18.8% | 75.0% |
The vast majority of CEPs are unowned territory. No brand has built strong mental links to the specific situations that trigger HR leaders to seek recruiting solutions. This represents a massive first-mover opportunity for BambooHR.
"We closed a Series C in January, so there's been a lot of pressure to scale the engineering team fast."
HR Director, 400-person SaaS company"We had a bit of a turnover spike in Q4, so the past couple months have been about figuring out why people were leaving."
VP People Operations, 600-person company"Losing candidates to competing offers because we moved too slowly."
Talent Acquisition Manager, 350-person company"The biggest frustration is candidate drop-off. We'll get someone through two rounds and then they ghost us."
Head of Recruiting, 500-person company