Personal factor

Nowadays it often comes to my mind what certain experts say: university students have to acquire skills for jobs that don’t even exist yet.

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2024/12-2025/01

This year I once again had the privilege to teach at the Trade and Shopper Marketing Course of BGE, and my audience consisted of 85 graduating master’s students; I invited several FMCG professionals to my classes and I am really proud of the whole thing. I told the students many times to try to apply their knowledge in as many different field as possible, and not to expect that they will necessarily have a position with the same name as that of the course indicated on their digital business card.

On the other hand, when my daughter – who will be graduating from secondary school in two years – asks me “but mom, which faculty should I choose, what do you think makes sense?” I hesitate. I think of the statement in the first sentence of this article, which I have heard so many times before, and what I really want to say to her is that it doesn’t matter where you go, just study – but “it doesn’t matter” isn’t an answer and I obviously don’t want to undermine her choice. My problem is twofold, firstly, I have no idea whatsoever and secondly, I want to support her in everything.

In the meantime there is a series of employer branding events, which stand between HR and marketing, and many of which our magazine is media partner of. There is no point in denying the importance of employer branding, it just exists and that is all. Just like employee branding exists and that is all. However, employers are complaining about an unprecedented shortage of skilled workforce, which not only hinders working but also makes certain work processes impossible – and then AI will come and solve the problem. Meanwhile, in the labour market those who are free tend to be really picky. My view is that somehow they can’t find what they are looking for.

There are a lot of changes in the FMCG market, there hasn’t been this much movement for a couple of years. All year we could have filled the magazine’s pages with new portraits, informing our readers about who went where from where, who replaced who – and the list goes on. Fantastic names are going from one chair to another, and some of them will soon create a big opportunity for their company when they put a new cap on their head or vice versa, the company will be the next big step in their career path.

Everything is changing, both us and the environment – it is more a question of how much more flexible, adaptable and resilient we can be.

A study estimates that there will be 85 million job vacancies in the world by 2030. I can’t believe that anyone who wants to work won’t find a good opportunity, but one thing is for sure: if we want to find a job that we can do with enthusiasm, ambition, motivation and success for a very long time, we need to show ourselves as prospective employees to the market. Companies, as future employers, need to focus more not only on the customer experience, but also on the employee experience, thinking in terms of individuals and hyper-personalisation. They need to concentrate on the individual, even as they are just integrating AI support into a growing number of workflows, marching under the banner of efficiency.

Best regards,

Zsuzsanna Hermann, Editor in Chief