GroupM launches apprenticeship programme in Singapore to find and develop young talent emerging in one of Asia’s most competitive media markets.
Through a partnership with the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University, the media buyer has taken on 27 students from a pool of 550 applications.
The students are to spend between one and six months on the apprenticeship with GroupM agencies, which include Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom and Maxus.
Gareth Ling, who heads of GroupM’s talent team in Singapore, said that some apprentices would be working on specific projects while others were shadowing the agency’s senior staff.
“It was very important to us that these students were not just getting coffee or working the photocopier – we really wanted them to understand and learn about the media business,” he said.
Lorraine Tan, talent acquisition lead for GroupM Singapore, said that in a competitive market like Singapore it was important to “nurture and groom our own local talent.”
“Having this at the GroupM level finds us to identify and track future media and digital talent who shows potential in this labour tight industry,” she said.
Finding talented graduates in Singapore came into focus in May, when DDB Singapore boss David Tang said that universities were not producing the right calibre of students needed by agencies.
The industry was “lucking out” with whatever talent the current curriculum was producing, he said.
“Frankly, the guys running the curriculum are out of touch with practitioners in this industry,” Tang said.
“If the government thinks that it can understand the changes the industry is going through by sending in a squad to talk with us for one or two days, they’re kidding themselves,” he said.
