Recruitment challenging as demands far exceeds supplies

Recruitment challenging as demands far exceeds supplies

JAKARTA (JP): In the advertising industry as a whole,
recruitment is quite challenging because the supply of skilled
workers is limited, while new agencies are formed overnight. This
is not surprising for a booming industry like advertising.

Sources of new recruits are varied. The universities and
college level institutions are just some of the places where
headhunters go. However, as Aryanto Zainal said, "We feel more
confident in recruiting a person if he has a reference from
people that we know."

What about job interviews?

"We've found out that some people can impress us tremendously
during the interview but become short of performing the moment
they get employed," says Zainal.

Recruits can come from a wide variety of backgrounds. For
graphic design, of course, graduates from related university
departments are sought.

Luckily Indonesia has a number of universities and institutes
such as the Bandung Institute of Technology and the private Tri
Sakti University in Jakarta that offer excellent programs in this
area. The Jakarta Arts Institute located at the Taman Ismail
Marzuki Art Center is another source of recruits.

Those who have studied communication abroad are also in high
demand. "With their background in communication, these people can
enter the advertising world and quickly grasp the nuts and bolts
of the industry."

Then there are also graduates from the school of advertising
within the University of Indonesia.

But, surprisingly, the most successful practitioners in the
industry may not have formal educational backgrounds in this
field. The industry proves that motivation, the drive to advance,
self-discipline and willingness to learn and work hard are more
important keys to success than what has been studied at a
university.

As in the case of many other hierarchical organizations,
dynamic beginners in ad agencies do not hesitate to move from one
agency to another. Causing a relatively high rate of turnover,
they seek advancement not only in responsibility and
remuneration, but opportunities to learn new and different things
and reap more experience. It is not surprising that, after
wandering around for several years, these ambitious people often
find themselves working for exactly the same agency that they
first worked for, albeit probably at a higher level.

We have to keep in mind that in general only the large
agencies with international ties provide training for their
staff, the smaller ones simply do not have the resources to give
the necessary training. Therefore, practitioners who are still
climbing the stairs of their career may stay with a large agency
just to get the training opportunity. It might sound a bit
strange, but this kind of experience and knowledge seeking is
deemed perfectly acceptable in the industry.

Once they reach the executive levels, however, practitioners
in the ad industry do not move around anymore. If they leave an
agency at all, it may be the case that they are starting a new
one of their own.

We could ask ourselves the question whether -- because demands
far exceed supplies -- there is hijacking of personnel among
agencies. Aryanto Zainal explained that it is not prevalent in
the industry in general, although smaller and newer agencies may
have to resort to that in order to survive.

But, he said, generally people do not leave an agency just
because another promises a higher income. "Creative people are
artists, and therefore they have their own way of thinking," he
added.

Besides, it is always easy to find out where somebody who left
your company a month ago is working now, because the industry is
very closely knit and basically everybody knows what everybody
else is doing. (zia)