December 15th, 2006
Safaricom and shady recruiting methods?
Posted by
Ory Okolloh in
Kenya
A couple of months ago, I received a Safaricom recruiting email targeting “KTs” and promptly put it up on the blog. I never thought much about it after that.
Then today, I read Steve Ntwiga’s interesting post. It seems like Safaricom left a bad taste in at least one potential recruit’s mouth, and like Steve I’m curious to know whether this was an exception, or whether Safaricom’s M.O. is no different from the average Kenyan organization (let’s start with no response to emails).
Did any of you respond to the email? Know anyone who did? Please leave a comment on Steve’s blog and circulate the post to as many people as you can…might be a strong case for a viral campaign on how not to do recruiting 101.
on December 15th, 2006 at 9:01
Thanks for this highlight.
I will definately blog about it to spread the word around.
Have a nice weekend KP!
on December 15th, 2006 at 9:56
Hi saw this on ntwiga’s blog and I will be sharing it since I know we have very different readership so the wider the message gets, the better!
on December 16th, 2006 at 3:35
Hi, Kenyan Pundit,
I have put a link to your blog in my blogs:
i) drifting-words.blogspot.com (On Drifting, Wavy Words)
ii) ritch-african.blogspot.com (African Affairs)
Please put links to my blogs in your blog.
Cheers!
on December 17th, 2006 at 0:38
Sort of comfirms what I had thought. Saw the advertisements, but it was rather weak in what they were lookin for. It did not mention what the engineers would be, doing and the characteristics they wanted in an engineer. Basically they came across as jokers. Since growth of the network is dependent on technical manpower, maybe a comparision of hiring rates, and quality is positively correlated with actual profitablility. Maybe someone should come up with a “geek” index, an index that would determine the scalability of a mobile phone’s profitability.
on December 17th, 2006 at 17:47
[...] ent or politicians to a septic tank it kept popping up in my inbox. And then I read that Ory and Steve Ntwiga have had similar reservations about this little email, that looks like a colossal ga [...]
on December 17th, 2006 at 18:59
I remember being tasked to put up this advert for http://www.mwalimu.com (see here -www.mwalimu.com/adverts/safaricomMgrEng_07_07_2006.html
)
I even communicated via email with the Njeri Kinyanjui and checked the safaricom website then to make sure the poster i was given was valid. I did also notice that during the same timeframe, the said advert appeared for several days on nationmedia website.Everything seemed all valid.
Probably the idea had merits
{Why USA/UK? I suppose:
-more kenyan engineers in USA/UK than any other country
on December 17th, 2006 at 19:02
Oops. Last part of the posts to read:
{Why USA/UK? I suppose:
-more kenyan engineers in USA/UK than any other country
-USA/UK to put safaricom on the bleeding edge of technology
-etc
}
but from what i hear, it was probably not executed correctly or ….whatever
on December 19th, 2006 at 11:56
Ory, some weirdo/spam comment has posted on your blog, better delete it fast!
Good looking out, that’s the third time he’s tried to put something up this week…not sure how he’s getting through my usually reliable spam killer.
on December 19th, 2006 at 12:29
Girl….you have a spam commentor on your blog.:sad:
on January 3rd, 2007 at 14:57
I had the same experience of responding to a posting that they had and they (Safaricom) did not follow through. Apparently, based on my research while preparing for the so-called “interview”, I found out that Safaricom operates on a 114billion Kenya Shillings loan which raised question marks given the tech bubble burst. Secondly, last year 2006, they posted a12billion shilling profit which still leaves them in a hole worth 102billion Shillings. This justifies the statement posted earlier that they have to post profits otherwise the banks will move in.
Anyway, having visited Kenya from the US, I also discovered that Celtel now offers better rates and that Safaricom keeps on playing the catchup game with Celtel. Celtel still leads the Kenyan Tech market with Technology. This is just a little of what I can think offhead, but I have been doing a lot of research and more is yet to com…..