CAREERS MEDIA: Thailand struggling as post-recession talent pool dries up

The return to the good times highlights a chronic shortage of talent. Returning confidence in Thailand, and especially within Thailand, is seeing both international and local clients increasing their advertising investments. Budgets are up, new products are coming to the market and new business pitches are rampant. Of course, all of this is great news for the advertising agencies and media specialists. The only problem - where are the young talented staff we all need to handle this business? The recent lean years have taken their toll. Many have left the industry altogether. Others have sought refuge in the comparatively secure and well-paid client-side of the business. And who has had the time, resource or foresight to recruit and train new staff? Sadly, the answer is very few companies indeed. And then there are the dotcoms. Thailand has been at least six months behind Hong Kong and Singapore's rapid development, but we can now say that dotcom fever has truly hit. More than US$1 million was spent promoting websites in traditional media during Q1 this year. That's more than three times the total for whole of 1999. While individual budgets are small, there are plenty of them, and every week sees more new entrants. (MindShare has helped launch seven sites this year with many more to come). We are only just starting to see a talent exodus to the dotcoms, and I fear the impact it will have on the chronic shortage of media professionals in this market. What can we do about this? It's simple really; we need to recruit and train. As an industry, we must agree to invest in the future. The launch of media specialists has at last brought focus to this part of the business and we must leverage the increased scale of operations to invest more in software, media tools and training. Unfortunately, it is often easier to simply poach talent. At MindShare, we have acknowledged the only way to continue growth, while meeting the challenges of the new media era, is to develop talent ... and quickly. We have hired several fresh graduates and will soon implement locally a brand new worldwide training system focused on total communication solutions. I hope that this achieves more than to reinforce our image as the prime recruiting ground for other media specialists entering the market. Let's all accept the responsibility to find and develop new talent. Of course, this issue is not restricted to Thailand, and is common to the industry worldwide. Ms Shelly Lazarus, CEO of O&M Worldwide, recently told the US4As that "there is more opportunity in our business than we have the people or resources to handle".

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