Make your ad an innovative one

Good recruitment ads come from companies that are innovators, market-leaders and preferred employers. Bad recruitment ads come from companies that are not. These two ads are the bad kind.

The Singapore Press Holdings ad also grates. What’s more insulting? The truth-impaired headline asking me to be part of a “dynamic, multi-media company”? Or the awesome photo of the Toa Payoh headquarters? I guess “dynamic, multi-media company” sounded better than “sluggish, old-fashioned media company”.

If you can get past the boasting, you’ll see it’s an ad for someone to assist in accounts and for someone to book classifieds over the phone. Because accounts is so dynamic! And booking ads in old mediums is so multi-media!

This ad is not good as it says “come and do the boring jobs at a company that loves itself”. Essentially, both ads proclaim “we don’t care”. These ads can only be considered successful if the people being sought for recruitment are the desperate and the unambitious.

When Google was looking for clever engineers, they put up a billboard on the highway that links Silicon Valley to San Francisco. The billboard said:
{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com

The answer to this maths equation was 7427466391.com. The select few who solved this puzzle made it to a website that offered another riddle. Solving it led to another web page where they were finally invited to submit their curriculum vitae to Google. There were no logos or tagline - just one smart employer setting up a challenging filter to attract only the brightest applicants.

Someone should remind SPH that the 20th century ended seven years ago.

James Scanlon
Creative director
Eleven