Specialised courses order of the day: Media agencies

Month of July 2015 saw two key announcements on human resources front in advertising and media industry. Dentsu Aegis Network tied-up with Northpoint to launch the ‘Post Graduate Program in Out Of Home Advertising (The PGP-OOHA). And close on its heels, came the bigger announcement of launch of WPP School of Communication, a joint venture between WPP and the Indian School of Design and Innovation (ISDI).

MICA is already there – and besides these three schools directly connected with media groups, a number of specialised courses in media and communication are being offered by quite a few management institutes.

A clear indication that communication and media continues to be a favoured field for youngsters.

Campus interviews for this year are done with, and media agencies have recruited many promising youngsters. Gaurav Hirey, Chief Talent Officer – South Asia, GroupM says, “We are increasingly seeing good quality talent emerging from the campuses and that is very encouraging.” As for the methodology WPP group adopts, he says, “We normally hire summer trainees and make them PPOs and then again go to campuses to hire overall. We are very satisfied with the quality of the students and we intend to continue hiring from campuses.”

The agencies approach a number of management institutes to pick fresh talent, however, they prefer to recruit students with specialisation in specific fields. Sunil Seth, Vice President- HR, Dentsu Aegis Network comments, “The filtration process itself is very time consuming. We have a lot of business offerings at our end; it could be retail, media, advertising or others. Hence, we look at campuses which offer courses which are very close to this.”

While group M prefers media specific institutes like MICA and SIMC, it has also visited IMT Gaziabad, XIM Bubaneshwar in the past and has also hired from NMIS, MDI Gurgoan, SCMHRD, KJ Somiaya and Delhi School of Communications in the previous years.  Among the institutes that Madison visits are SIMC, NMIMS, IMT Ghaziabad, Wellingkar and others.

As the media spectrum continues to become complex, the industry is increasingly moving to get specialists on board. As per a Senior HR consultant, ‘It gives students a better understanding on media related terms and execution specially on the digital front’.

Lara Balsara, Executive Director, Madison World, believes that due to the syllabus and teaching methodology of these courses, students are attuned to the industry, and understand the basics.

She says, “Media specific courses are better, since the students do have some understanding of media before they join.”

Going by the recruitment trend, one tends to believe that opportunities for them would continue to mushroom. Hirey says, “It has been fantastic to see that media specific institutes have really upped the game. In the past few years the batch that we have hired has performed extremely well and we are highly encouraged by this.” He adds, “WPP, our parent company has also recently launched the WPP School of Communications in Mumbai in association with ISDN and we believe that for our industry media specific courses and institutes are the right places to go to for great entry level talent.”

Seth believes that it is the industry’s responsibility to make sure that courses are effective and specialisations are not just to allure the students. He says, “A number of institutes offer very plain course on retail, digital etc. as specialisation. It is our responsibility to see that good talent comes out. We have a market specific ownership, and are putting up a course along with North Point. We are creating talent which would be the right fit, we have taken a back step and we are the first ones to do so in India.”

With the increased focus on specialisation, class room teaching can only partially provide the expertise the industry is looking for. Experiential learning, practical training and willingness of senior industry professional to provide right guidance would define the success of media specific courses in times to come. The institutes and courses that manage to provide the same would blossom.

debarati(@)adgully.com