PTT revises job recruitment

  Q: How many jobs that PTT Plc plans to recruit this year? And in what area?

A: PTT generally plans in advance for the recruitment. The plan is in line with the company and the group's business direction. With current economic slowdown, we've reviewed and revised our business plan. We earlier planned to recruit more than 100 new staffs this year. But we've reviewed the plan and would only recruit new staffs in critical areas. It's possible that the exact recruitment this year could be less than half of the previous plan. The overall economic situation is the worst since we've become a public company. The new recruitment would be for critical areas that generate incomes for the company including engineers. We might not recruit new staffs for the areas that are not so critical including administration, human resource, finance and accounting, and public relation. However, we also use some outsourcing to support operation.

Over the past two years, when we were expanding much faster, we recruited around 150 new staffs.

Q: What are the most preferable qualification of job applicants in overall?

A: Job applicants must share PTT Group core values so-called "SPIRIT" which comes from Synergy, Performance Excellence, Innovation, Responsibility, Integrity & Ethics, and Trust & Respect. When we test them, we would focus on particular issues. For example, for junior staff positions, we focus on innovation thinking, problem analysis, continuous learning, adaptability, and building trust.

However, to me, the last one or building trust is the most important. If you can't be trusted, we don't want you. We can compromise for other issues but trust. Those who can't be trusted, no matter which positions they are in, shouldn't be allowed to do anything.

For knowledge, we can look at their transcripts. It can tell at a certain level of how much knowledge they have. This is something that we're not worry about. What we're worry is whether they're able to be trusted.

Q: How would you evaluate whether job applicants' can be trusted or not?

A: This is hard to measure. But through interview, we can gradually trace by asking them about what they've done. How was that? How much they pay attention to it? How they treat their friends and how they commit their friends? For example, one of the applicants was asked by us how she knows PTT. She said she knows PTT very well and that PTT was very a great corporation. Then, we asked how she knows. She said she looked at our corporate results. But when we keep asking, we knew that she didn't really look at our earning results but just wanted to impress us. This made she lose scores. If she told us the truth, we would consider her honesty which would make her score higher. Another example is that one applicant whose knowledge is not as sharp as the other but he was honest to us, we scored him higher.

Q: What are other criteria that PTT would focus on?

A: We also have applicants tested the attitude test as well as IQ and EQ. But what we found as problem for students graduated bachelor degree is English proficiency. They're quite weak. We require applicants to have TOEIC test. For bachelor degree the minimum score is 550, while it is 600-700 for master degree. Compared to TOEFL, the TOEIC score is lower. We're considering to raise the minimum score for bachelor degree to 550 for TOEFL's paper-based or 80 internet-based. You don't need to be very fluent like a native speaker but you should be confident to speak up.

Due to PTT's business development to overseas connection, we contact with foreigners all the time. Most of the texts involved are in English. Contacting with foreigners, we have several negotiations. If you're not competent in English language, that's your weak point.

In addition, at PTT, we don't have any position that works alone. We're process-based organization. So, all positions are related. The success depends on how efficient we cooperate. When we saw newly graduate with very high scores, we then would like to know whether they've done some other activities in university? We want to know how can they cooperate and communicate. For example, we got an applicant whose resume looks very nice and he also won a business planning game which is an advantage. But from our interview, we found that he's very smart but we didn't recruit him. We believe he's too "elegant" and wouldn't "contribute" to the company. In the business game, he was the leader and contribution from other members was perceived by him as very small. He was the core of everything.

Q: What's your view on new generation characteristics?

A: Their knowledge is better than old generation but they have lack of patience. We need to talk to them till they understand. This is like raising kids nowadays, we couldn't force them. Just give them reason. They always learn by themselves. Their competency in skills including computer is good. They're 80-90 per cent ready to work. But some bosses might not be familiar with them. No one has ever ask the boss like they do. But we need to understand that the world has already changed.

Q: Compared to the past, what has changed in terms of both demand and supply of skill workers?

A: Profile of people is shaped by our organization direction. According to our plan of international business, we need more applicants with master degree. Now we have 44.7 per cent of staffs graduating master degree, higher than 31.4 per cent of those with bachelor degree. There's 1.1 per cent with doctorate degree.

Q: How is the wage situation?

A: PTT expands less which is in line with the economy. But we still raise wages considering inflation and merit. Last year, overall wage raise was 6.5 per cent. For this year and next year, the wage situation won't change much from last year.