There’s quite a lot of ads out there trying to attract people to join a particular industry.
The Police … Armed Forces … Finance Industry … they, and many others, are all spending up big in an attempt to get people to sign up.
Obviously with an aging workforce and a declining birth rate, companies don’t want to find themselves in a situation where there is a sudden gap between what they have and what they need – however with ever decreasing numbers entering the workforce [and an inherent snobbery regarding who many organisations will and will not take] the battle for the employee is hotting up.
Some industries obviously find the task of recruitment much easier than others …
The banking sector is in a particularly strong position.
Not only can they offer the potential [students of the World, note the word: POTENTIAL] of untold riches – via ever increasing annual bonuses [even when they lose trillions] – they offer, especially in Asia, the benefit of being seen as a highly regarded and [supposedly] intellectually based career.
For organisations like the Police and Armed Forces it’s much tougher.
Putting aside the fact their jobs involve elements of real danger, they just don’t stand a chance of competing interms of cash … so they counter by talking about things like ‘honour’ and ‘respect’ or any other marketing euphemism that means ‘dodgy pay / dangerous job / terrible hours’.
However there is a huge range of organisations that are stuck in the middle.
They can’t offer the pay of an industry like corporate finance … and they can’t offer the respect of something like nursing … so they focus on the fact their industry is in much demand so by signing up, you could end up travelling the World.
There’s loads of industries that use this strategy – hairdressing, accountancy, building – and they all end up creating crappy and pretentious ads like this …
However recently I saw a rather strange version of this ‘you could end up in all sorts of new places’ strategy … and I have to say I’m not so sure they’ve got it right.
As I wrote a while back, the number of people who want to become engineers is declining, and while there are many programs trying to change this situation [including Dean Kamen’s brilliant ‘Engineering Olympics‘] a number of the big engineering firms have obviously decided to take matters into their own hands because they’re spending a bloody fortune on a bunch of job/industry recruitment ads.
Now I don’t know if it’s because the Maersk Group originally hails from Denmark or whether they just have a really bad grasp on where people aspire to go, but this is their attempt to show how engineering can take you to all sorts of places …
Sorry Maersk Group, but I really don’t think telling people they could end up in the middle of the sea … hundreds of miles from anywhere … on an relatively small structure … most likely overrun by mass of [drunken?] blokes … dealing with a dangerous and volatile substance … in the freezing cold … day and night … away from your family … with few entertainment options … for months at a time … is going to do it.
But as they say, it’s the thought that counts 🙂