3 minute read
Shopee (Employer Showcase
GIVING YOUNG TALENTS THE OPPORTUNITY TO REACH THEIR POTENTIALS
With trust in fresh graduates and quality professional training, Shopee embraces talent development in their young employees as an integral part of the company’s recipe for success.
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urrently one of the leading e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, Shopee’s growth has been very prominent in the last couple of years amidst the pandemic. The platform was a familiar face on social media through its advertisements and catchy jingle. Put together with its never-ending effort in catering to the needs of the local businesses and consumers as the Movement Control Order (MCO) was taking place, it was only natural for the amount of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) that joined the platform in 2021 more than doubled. In addition, the company also witnessed its rank soaring to the 5th overall rank in the 2021 Malaysia’s 100 Leading Graduate Employers ranking, as well as becoming a champion for the e-commerce sector category for the year.
Potential over experience
However, performance alone isn’t enough to attract young fresh graduates to be interested in working with the company. Kenneth Tan, Head of Centre of Excellence at Shopee Malaysia believes that the trust that the company has in the younger workforce nowadays is one of the reasons why these young people voted for Shopee.
“Age has never been a problem for us; we are more than happy to be able to train people for the right jobs,” he said. “The most important thing is for them to have the right potential and the right attitude in wanting to grow that potential.”
According to Tan, Shopee has always been very clear that they don’t have any particular experience or skill sets needed – if the candidate seems to be capable of doing the job, and has the potential to be trained for the job, then they are most likely to be hired.
Picking the best out of the best
By loosening the condition of having the necessary work experience from the candidate’s qualification, Shopee is able to fully focus on choosing the best graduates from the thousands of applications they receive each year.
“Granted, we are very selective in choosing our candidates,” Tan said. “But in return, we also give them meaningful, value-added projects to work on that provide exposure which helps in developing their career.” Shopee offers two flagship programmes for fresh graduates. The first is their Global Leader Program (GLP), a 2-year graduate program consisting of four 6-month local and overseas rotations, designed for highly enthusiastic and ambitious young talents.
The second is their Shopee Apprentice Program (SAP), which is an internship programme launched in eight of their offices - Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing.
Both these programmes are specially designed to equip passionate and driven students with strong professional skills and develop them into young leaders, according to Tan. “These programmes are not only beneficial for these young talents but also act as the ‘feeder’ into our full-time employment,” he said.
“This is especially for the GLP which is actually a fast-track programme that helps us in identifying future leaders who will then be integrated back into the organisation to work on high-impact projects and roles.”
Know what you want
For the fresh graduates who are still unable to secure a job, especially in this challenging time, Tan has a few pieces of advice for them to consider. “Try to figure out what you want in terms of your career or job, even vaguely. What are the values that are important to you, and find out which companies have the same values as yours,” he said,
“That being said, the next step is to do your homework. Research the career field that interests you, and don’t forget to update your LinkedIn profile to make sure you’re seen by your potential employers. Having an open mind and always looking forward to trying new things - doing a lot of things during your internship, joining volunteer work or club activities - will also help in making you a more interesting person to the employer.”
