Group M calls for job applications, albeit with a twist

Group M, the media agency network had called for job applicants through a mass media vacancy announcement, on May 24. The announcement was made via an advertisement in the financial daily Mint with the starting words, “An Anthropologist, A Musician and A Coder Walk into a Media Agency.”

The agency network has a lot of open positions and is looking to fill in most of those through this advert. The company has been quite vocal about its strategy of hiring people from varied backgrounds as they start looking at advertising with a fresh mind and hence bring up innovative and new perspective on board.

Rohit Suri, Chief Talent Officer, GroupM, explained the need to invite people from different walks of life to come join the agency network. He said, “We have stayed ahead of the curve by investing in newer practices that benefit our clients and over the past couple of years we are moving to being a data-centric organisation. We can add value to our clients by being a data-centric and digitally charged agency and digital, data, creativity, technology and analytics are at the core and therefore the need for a very diverse set of talent.”

The company has a fairly large number of diverse open roles and these are available on the website. New open positions are continuously added on the website every day.

The advertisement moves beyond the bold words and goes on to read, “What happens next is no joke. It’s another day at work. Each day, each one of them bring their own special insights and expertise that help us offer unique solutions to our clients. Because, when diverse people work together, they work smarter. And this is what has set us apart.”

Since the older generations are quite settled in their lives and are not always readily able to embrace change, we wonder if this 'call to join' is majorly for the youngsters? Suri responds, “We are looking for people that will fit rolls we have on offer and they are across levels and skill sets. We do hire a large cohort of young talent for our Leadership Trainee programme from premier business schools like the IIMs, JBIMS and other such institutes.”

There is a wide understanding in the industry how talent is really scarce these days and 'poaching' good people from fellow players is possibly the only option left. Is this scarcity also a reason for opting for talents outside of media world? Suri suggested that there is more to it. “We hire talent from across industries but not limited to technology product and services firms, consumer internet firms, FMCG, consumer durable firms, telecom besides the media industry,” he added.

These vacancies have not been opened up for any specific projects or outfits, but across the board. The company has been opening across the board -- in their agencies as well as specialist units. “We are just looking for the best talent and that can come from anywhere,” said Suri.

The advertisement has mentioned the names of all the agencies and outfits across Group M -- Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom, Maxus, Essence, M/ Six, Motivator, ESP Properties, Gain Theory, Dialogue, MConsult, Quasar, Xaxis and interactive.

About sending some of this talent to the markets outside of India, Suri agreed that there is a possibility. “The position we are looking for at present are all based in our various offices across India. However, the fact is that GroupM India is the largest exporter of talent to the APAC region and over the years a lot of people have moved from India to various roles outside India and we have a robust regional/global mobility policy which provides opportunities for GroupM employees to move to other markets within the group, provided they qualify for the role.”

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