Mission
The Employers team’s objective is to help B2B clients develop their talent through online educational programs. They work with large and small companies to create highly inclusive tech talent pools, leveraging our revolutionary apprenticeship model.
This involves:
Finding companies who need to hire new employees (in apprenticeship). The team connects employers with apprentices who’ll spend part of their time working at the company and the other part learning as OpenClassrooms students.
Finding companies who’d like to train their employees in a cost and time-effective way. They might be interested in upskilling, reskilling, on-ramping, or education-as-a-benefit programs, leveraging our product offerings.
The Employers team isn't only about selling: They act as trusted advisors to help corporations tackle their talent development challenges.
Roles
Each member of the Employers team works on one of the team's missions:
Field Sales: This team sells our products to large companies in France, by meeting customers in the field (hence their name!). It can take a while to close a deal because processes take longer in larger companies, the contracts are big - and worth the wait. The contract size can go up to several hundred thousand euros, or even above a million euros with our largest customers!
Their role is to approach prospects and existing customers to help improve workforce development strategies affected by job transformation, shortage, or obsolescence. Sales include farmers and hunters, and profiles specialized in large accounts (+5,000 employees) and mid-market accounts (1,000 to 5,000 employees).
Apprenticeships Sales: The Apprenticeship Sales team is in charge of selling our apprenticeship program to corporate customers. They advise them and will suggest profiles or support them in navigating our online Talent marketplace.
International Employers: Our International team’s objective is to expand the OpenClassrooms brand and customer base in new markets and territories outside France. The primary focus right now is on the UK and the US. With the support of an advisory board in each country, they are developing clear and focused go-to-market strategies that help generate new business and establish the right brand/content partnerships. Early successes include global brands like Facebook, Amazon, and Deliveroo, who use our online education model to reskill and transition their employees, freelancers, or broader communities (through scholarships) into high-demand jobs of the future.
Sales ops and enablement: they are here to help the sales team work efficiently, making sure numbers are correct and reported to finance. They also oversee the team's training needs.
Note that Sales ops and enablement is independent from the Employers Team, but we have chosen to talk about them here to avoid creating a specific chapter.
Meetings or Habits
Every Monday, the Employers team has a sales call meeting to talk about:
Signed deals: Did they achieve last week’s goals? Which opportunities can they close this week? 🤑
Sales activity: How many meetings are scheduled with potential customers? How much do they expect to sell shortly? How confident are they about closing the deals?
Customer objections and current problems: What are customers saying? Does the program suit them? If not, how can they improve the proposals?
It’s the only formal meeting, but that doesn’t mean they don’t talk to each other for the rest of the week!
As the team grows and its missions evolve, this meeting agenda might change. It’s already something the team is considering.
Collaboration With Other Teams
Working with corporate customers is an exciting but challenging mission, as they are highly demanding. Making them happy is only possible thanks to a close collaboration between the Customer Success, Marketing, Learning, and Product teams, as well as close involvement with the Career Services and Legal teams, among others.
