'Marketing, sales must take the lead'

Although for the past decade she has been fulfilling dreams for many of Thailand's job seekers, the managing director of JobsDB Recruitment (Thailand), Satinee Mokaves, was less than successful with her own first corporate job application.

"I applied for a position as a sales and marketing trainee, but the company said the post was not open. They only had one position open, as a secretary," she said.

She finally agreed to take the job, at American Express (Thailand), because the organisation's sales and marketing director, Michael Nash, who would become her boss, promised that after one year, if she proved she was capable, she could transfer to any position. Nash not only lived up to his promise, but he also delegated and entrusted Satinee to work on his behalf.

"I have become what I am today because of him," she said, speaking of her first corporate boss.

Amex became the "best school" for Satinee, thanks to its numerous training courses, especially in the field of direct sales and marketing, which was new to the Thai market and there were no universities offering courses on the subject at the time.

Satinee spent 13 years with Amex and her last position there was senior marketing and sales manager. She quit to help GMM Grammy start up its direct sales company in 1993. After that, Satinee became the first person who was not a member of the Chirathivat family to head up Suvimol, the local franchisee of Marks & Spencer, from 1994 to 1997. Then, in the midst of Thailand's financial crisis, she left her life as an employee to join Bhanu Inkawat and other friends to open Greyhound, a restaurant and fashion retailer.

Satinee finally began her JobsDB chapter in June 2000. She was recruited by Samuel Sung, the founder and chairman of the parent firm in Hong Kong.

"Nine years ago, a 41-year-old was too old to know about the Internet. They took a big risk in choosing me," she said.

"We talked and he asked: did I know anything about the Internet? I said I could learn anything if I wanted to, but I would like to learn only enough to assign the work."

Satinee said that JobsDB was the second job recruitment service opening in Thailand at the time, and the parent company realised that the business had to be led by a sales and marketing person, and not by a technician or information technology expert.

"IT can't lead business," she said. "Business must be led by marketing and sales."

The first two years of JobsDB was a painful period because human resources executives were still shunning online job recruitment and the economy was bleak. The company took the time to build up its resume database, which became a very important tool for its future business. When the economy recovered, companies began to compete for the best talent, the Internet had taken off, and JobsDB began flying high.

Satinee said JobsDB was managed neither like a family nor a professionally run company. The parent firm approves important issues within one day, and the subsidiaries are typically run by executives with a multinational-company background, but who also have some entrepreneurial experience.

Satinee owns shares in both the local subsidiary and the parent. She has also joined the wife of the JobsDB chairman to invest in the Hydro Health colonic centre at Erawan Bangkok.

She said the job market was poised to return to sluggishness, such as it suffered a decade ago, or even worse.

Nevertheless, JobsDB is expanding vertically into other businesses, following a move by its parent firm to acquire several online businesses involved with food, automobile trading, digital maps and flower delivery. It has also set up a classified website for service freelancers called 88DB.com.

Meanwhile, JobsBD is preparing to stage its annual jobs fair, Career Exhibition 2009, starting on March 13 at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre.