I was fortunate to attend the awards ceremony of the Pink slip awards last year where creative awards were given to agency and companies for creative excellence in recruitment advertising. This is a new and interesting initiative from the Times Group to encourage both the clients and the advertising agency to produce great work in the field of recruitment space which helps in companies to draw good talent especially in today’s employment market where there are ample opportunities but limited talent available.

The excellence awards are given across various industries such as finance, banking, pharma, BPO, technology and software etc. What is disturbing a bit here is that the big agencies are not involved in creating communication on recruitment ads and you mostly find mid-sized agency do this of which some of them has become specialist in creating only recruitment-advertising campaign. The larger agency does not recognize this has a major revenue earner and exciting opportunity for their creative team to do inspiring work. Hence invariably designing the recruitment advertisement takes a back seat. I only look forward with the introduction of Pink slip awards we get to spot larger agencies also create purposeful communication with strong idea for their clients and brands in the area of recruitment ads. Lets also remember recruitment advertisements is one of the most powerful way of building the corporate image of the brand internally, externally and to the company stakeholders.

Corporates ought to focus on creativity and original ideas:

In the 80s and in even in the 90’s corporates used print media with powerful communication to sell their companies to attract good talent. Since the only means of communication available was the daily press and business magazines limited space was allocated by media companies to release ads. Most publications earmarked some space and special dates in a week to release these recruitment ads and as a result the recruitment space was cluttered. Most of the appointment advertisements appeared in the supplements of the main issue in black and white for senior positions and you had the classified ads, which permitted companies to release ads for junior posts and walk in interviews.

The country is today in its growth path and industries have started flourishing across category and the need for quality talent is required on a continuous baisis. Earlier we had very few industries that used to advertise for manpower. That has taken a quantum leap and today the industry has grown leaps and bound beginning from BPO, Healthcare, Finance, Banking, Advertising, Media and Entertainment, Insurance, Software &Technology and the growing FMCG and Retail segment. All these up-and-coming industry are giving sleepless nights to the HR team and Search consultants, as there is a huge gap between demand and supply. The HR team is pulling all stocks and strategy to get the right candidate through various communication tools and headhunters. In doing so companies have forgotten the pivotal role and significance on the role of PR and recruitment advertisements, which has a strong pulling power for job seekers to respond. Companies now have realised this and are actively engaged in infusing newness with original idea and creativity on recruitment advertisements to beat the clutter and draw quality talents to their organisation. Also more companies are waiting for opportunity to get their companies covered on HR stories to supplement their image and credibility

What drives to create great recruitment ads?

If you pick up any newspaper containing recruitment ads you will notice high clutter and the paper is filled with a whole of lot advertisements without any differentiation. This has been the perpetual problem even decades back when we did not have job portals. Since most advertisements were in black &white it was all the more challenging for brands to shout and stand out. With the advent of colour the scope to increase one’s bandwidth in terms of creative opened up. To create great communication in the recruitment space the first and foremost objective is to speak truth to your prospects. You should not promise them the moon and disappoint them. Give a complete run down of the company right from its values, culture and the vision of the company. In your communication you must enlighten about the entire structure and the person to whom the prospect would be reporting in the work function. This is most critical as attrition rate invariably occurs due to lack of job satisfaction or the wrong chemistry with the boss. Many companies to create a strong image and build credibility release full-page advertisement to attract talent. This is one way of showing the bigness of the company and communicating to the prospects that we are a large conglomerate with strong guiding principles. Some MNC’s also try follow to create a design & grid with the right tone and style and use them as a template. This holds good if the post one is advertising for is at middle level. But it is always better to try and be different even within that template to catch your audience’s attention.

PR plays an important role in building credibility and image:

While through advertising you are able to get prospects to respond. It is PR with the help of stories in HR is what helps company to establish credibility of their company. Today more and more companies are looking for opportunities to be present on exclusive and industry related stories on HR topics. With huge attrition rate and shortage of talent , stories on HR has been keeping corporates on their toes to bring in attractive and friendly HR polices to nurture and retain talent. Being present in various articles and forums by brands is also being noticed by prospects to get better understanding of the corporates before one deicide to work with a particular company. Since HR is a very important tool in building the corporate image of any organisation companies needs to be more pragmatic and innovative in evolving their PR strategy to attract and retain good talent and thereby strengthening the equity of the corporate brand in the employment market.

Adds values to the corporate brand:

A well thought out communication for a recruitment ad has direct bearing not only on the future prospects but also the stakeholders, business partners and employees within the company. A good recruitment ad also builds credibility and image of the organisation so long as the company paints the correct picture and information of the organisation. The power of recruitment ads also helps in enhancing the position of the company in the prospects mind by maintaining the right style and tone consistently in their communication. This is where creative excellence for recruitment ads will play a major role as that will motivate clients to think out of box and get their brand across in the most unique and outstanding manner instead of churning out the run of the mill formatted ads. Any piece of communication to attract talent must exhibit a good career path to entice the job seekers to respond. If that promise is delivered through strategic recruitment ads we will be able witness more and more HR personnel pushing their communication partners that much extra to create advertisements and implement hard working PR strategy to deliver great value to the brand and motivate and attract quality talent to the organisation.

We launched the India PR Jobs Board six months back and since then, there have been 25 job postings, more than 4000 views, and more than 150 applications.

The most popular posting was that of CMCG India on Aug 30, 2007 that was viewed 175 times and had 18 candidates applying for the job. The second was of K2 Communications on July 25, 2007 that was viewed 123 times and had 11 candidates applying for that job. The third most popular job posting was from brand-comm on Oct 30, 2007. It was viewed 112 times and 12 candidates applied for that job.

Some of the other organisations that have used the job board so far are LINOpinion, 20:20 MEDIA, Dag Communications, Text 100, Aarohan Communications, RockeTalk, P’zahn Consultants, India News Communications Ltd., Finesse PR, Corporate Voice | Weber Shandwick, Imprimis Life, PRHub, and IPAN.

Not bad. But it could have been better.

When we launched this job board, we focus more on HR professionals from PR agencies and corporates to post jobs and mails were sent out to them. We missed out one important player community in the whole job recruitment mix in India - i.e. the HR consultants/ or the recruitment specialists in independent firms. Many of these HR consultants today handle accounts of PR agencies and they are the ones looking for PR candidates pro actively.

If we look at how a recruitment works in a typical PR agency, the HR guy would focus more on internal stuff and simply outsource most of the recruitment to a HR consultant and also rely a bit on employee referral. Of course in some agencies, many of the HR professionals do the recruitment lead generation themselves.

So this is the official call from India PR Blog to all HR consultants/recruitment specialists looking out for PR professionals, content writers, event management professionals, and the like. People, please feel free to post all PR and related jobs out here.

India PR Jobs Board is an experimental free job board started by the India PR Blog to list available public relations and related jobs in India (in agencies and corporate communication departments).

This job board highlights PR job vacancies as posted by the HR/contact persons of PR agencies and corporates or by those who need the services of a PR professional/freelancer for short-term projects. These posts are available at the job board’s independent url, or through the combined India PR Blog RSS feed, or when readers subscribed to this blog on their email, thus accessible to hundreds of PR professionals across the country reading this blog.

More than job recruitment or facilitation service, take this as a social community of recruiters and candidates in the PR industry.

How do you add a new job posting - Click the orange color ‘Post a Job’ button at the top right hand side of the job board’s page. On the web form opened up, fill up the details, follow the instructions, and you are done. Preview your job posting before finalising it. There is a preview button on the job form page.

You can check out the FAQs and tips on posting here.

Image credit: http://www.job.co.nz/

Tech Tags: pr public+relations india HR HR India PR Jobs

This week I want to talk about the state of the PR firm business. Are PR firms people friendly?

What are the latest trends in human resource development that qualify for being people friendly and enable organizations to retain and yet allow employees or consultants to be productive, despite challenges of everyday life like large commuting distances, family emergencies, medical exigencies, maternity, or even something as common as burnout!

The record of PR firms in this regard has been rather poor I must confess. The report card on the other side of the table in buy side roles, whether in marketing or communications, has not been exactly inspiring either though there are instances of evolved organizations that have understood the benefits of such policies in retaining talent and keeping rare skills and IP (Intellectual Property) sticky despite the challenges that cycles of life pose to a typical employee.

So what are these things that make everyday life easier, yours and mine too?

Telecommuting: This simple means an ability or facility to be able to work from home in times of exigency after an agreement with the concerned manager. This is the hardest to get approved by the way (sic).

Flexi-timing: This could mean timings that beat the traffic or those that suit an individual because of other family or personal commitments like a study program.

Non-oppressive dress codes: Even today, I see some pretty strange dress codes that hark back to colonial mindsets or worse those that pander to cult predilections of individuals. This with the background of most PR firms being mostly individual or partner driven can become quite horrendous and a far tangent to the norm, lending to a perverse value set linked to early upbringing.

Without the embarrassment of the getting into these weird instances and details, it may be safe to say that there is no cultural homogeneity in what is the norm. The Individual should be trusted with this personal responsibility and not be subjected to convent and institutional trauma! While there can be no excuse for being slovenly in personal appearance, especially for those that are client facing, mostly we take things too far, far enough for them to becoming oppressive yokes, to the point of qualifying as professional hazards.

Maternity Benefits: These are completely non-standard today, and more often than not discriminate against women in the family way. Yes, we can find someone here or there that has a policy that makes a few concessions. Are these Industry best-practice standard? I definitely don’t think so!

Let’s begin with simple technology that enables Telecommuting.

The advent of the internet has meant an ability to work remote. While I don’t intend for this to become a rant, most PR Firms are so challenged in terms of growing beyond cities that they are headquartered in; the infrastructure they manage to percolate away to branch offices in other cities is rather abysmal. I am talking about the most basic of facilities today that clearly constitute hygiene but strangely still so tough to come by as facilities.

Consider getting a laptop from the organization or even an Internet connection if you have your own machine at home and see how tough it is to get the organization to pay for it. Getting help to get one installed is fantasy material.

The ability to avoid e-mail stress is a major factor in everyone’s life today! How many companies offer a web interface which enables you see mail on the Internet and sets you free from being glued to your desk? Some idiot in IT will find a zillion myopic reasons to scupper your access.

Take it one further into dreamland, those hand-held delights that you have often lusted after like the Blackberry or Windows Mobile beauties are darlings in making life simple, be it e-mail, calendar, to-do’s, besides making you look a part of the corporate jet set so that your customer sees you as someone of an equal and a professional.

Let’s talk a second about conference calling and enabling infrastructure. It does not cost a lot and unless the call is internal most times you may be able to bill clients. The fact is most old fogies are deeply suspicious of all working from remote and virtual teams are a non-starter. They want to see you in their face, sat in a bivouac around their desk, breathing their crusty, ironed everyday, breath.

Other fancy things include server dial-up access, which enables your machine to access files on the network server. Imagine the scope for collaboration.

The inertia to change and imbibe productivity solutions is immense and it would be incomplete to just direct ire in isolation at the IT Idiot. The other hall-of-famer here and most of you will recognize this persona, he or she is the proverbial loyalist, the holier-than-thou, often a combination of Administration, Finance and HR.

There is one other aspect that I’d like to spend some time on. This concerns on-boarding of fresh or lateral talent. It starts with the missing location map on the website, which in most cases was updated last year. Imagine showing up for work and not having a desk, a computer, an e-mail ID, to add insult to injury, have a form to fill thrust in your face with no help in deciphering the officialise. Things like assistance with a bank account; new cell phone; understanding the best way to get to work and finding a place to stay. Most good organizations fix this one shot with a Mentor program. This person for the initial journey is your survival guide, your friend, philosopher, your lunch menu guide, and a zillion things that are urgent but not important.

I get this constant chatter at Industry events about how attrition and retaining talent are prime concerns. What no one ever mentions is things like the ones above that really help an organisation make its relationship with the employee sticky and fruitful in the long term.

While it is true that people leave for greener pastures and those positions then need to be filled and that is another kind of stress. What are the chances that you will make it hard for people to leave if you have your act in shape and spend some senior management time on mitigating pet peeves. I know there are instances here and these where pioneering work has happened but as a business and as an industry in the Indian geography we will have crossed another milestone if we got our ducks-in-row on this one!

Next week; Employer pet peeves, watch this space!

Tech Tags: pr public+relations india HR

Some of my industry colleagues and I had a discussion on whether it is better to work in a big agency or in a small/ medium size agency for say a PR professional with 1-3 years of experience.

Lets say big agencies are those with more than 3 branch offices in India with more than 50 employees. Small/ medium size agencies can be those in a particular city, work through affiliates in other cities, and have around 10-20 employees.

While the popular belief is that a big agency is a better place to work comparatively, there might be some advantages of working in a small agency as well.  

A stint at a small agency can provide a good exposure to things that you might miss at a bigger agency. In smaller agencies, you manage added responsibilities and thus learn more faster. A PR Account Executive level professional might be doing what an Account Manager in some big agency is doing. Thus, you learn to manage this and that and so on.

For instance in a small agency, if you are working on a particular account, you might be required to interface with the client yourself, network with the media, make the reports yourself, and handle everything yourself all the activities that come with the account.

Additionally, if you know how to negotiate well, you can demand a bigger pay packet. That said, there are small agencies that are way below the industry standards when it comes to paying their employees.

Now what happens at a big agency? These agencies typically have different departments to take care of different things like the media monitoring department, the media team that go out to distribute the press releases, the client servicing team that interface with the clients, the accounts planning team, etc. You learn to wok under established systems and protocols that are in place. The agency name looks good in your resume. There might be big clients and you learn to work together with their global PR agencies in other countries.

On the other hand regarding the pay scale, there are salary brackets and you cannot expect the agency to favor you out of the rest and give you a better pay unless you are a super performer. That said, big agencies often pay well.

Maybe every young PR professional in the early years should at least experience the work atmospheres at both a big agency and a relatively smaller agency. Grinding oneself and mastering the art in these diverse environments - the combined experience can be a loaded one when you are some years old in the industry.

Some of my colleagues and I had a discussion about what could be a good growth path of a PR professional in terms of work profile and these are what some of us agreed upon, subject to further discussion:

1. Inculcating PR style newspaper reading and studying habits – Scanning newspapers for relevant news items, identifying important clips/ news footages, understanding different types of media, journalists and their beats and styles of writing, stories, etc.
2. Understanding of client business and industry
3. Basic reporting documentations – Mastering use of templates and tools for daily media monitoring reports, monthly PR activity reports, Scope of Work, ad-value analysis reports of media clippings, analysing a media story, etc.
4. PR writing – Media invites, press releases, written Q&As, etc.
5. Familiarisation of dealing with the media – media follow ups on press releases and RSVPs, media rounds, etc.
6. Research – Secondary research on the Internet, media dip stick studies, more understanding of client business, requirements, competition, issues, and industry
7. Basic Client Servicing – Day-to-day client correspondence, updates, etc.
8. Organising media activities as part of a team – Pitching media interactions, organising press and other events, coordination with third parties and office branches, etc.
9. Developing good contacts with the media
10. Organisational abilities – Dealer meets, store openings, anniversary celebrations, partnership opportunities with the media, etc.
11. Planning – Developing PR activities plan and conceptualisation of events, working on new client briefs,
12. Intermediate writing work – PR plans, background information documents, spokesperson profiles, journalist and media profiles, etc.
13. Intermediate Client Servicing – Updates to clients on status on organising PR activities and ideas, client counsel on issues, presentation of plans and ideas, etc.
14. Ability to handle and sustain multiple client accounts
15. Advanced writing – white papers, speeches, case studies, brochures, website contents, newsletters, etc.
16. Ability to lead a team and motivate team members – honing leadership skills
17. Advanced client servicing – Strategic counsel on clients’ businesses and long-term planning, spokesperson media training, etc.
18. Foray into other PR disciplines like investor relations, crisis communications, and public affairs
19. New business development – Expanding network in the media and industry, getting new businesses, etc.
20. Ability to lead multiple teams and head a business unit within an organisation (or ultimately the organisation in case of an agency)
21. Representing an organisation as the spokesperson/ PRO to the media, stakeholders, etc.