A Growing Trend in Tech: Hiring Media Personalities
Successful hiring practices go a long way in shaping an organization, both in the short and long runs. Hiring poses varied challenges to the human resources and recruiting teams, from filling leading positions such as CxOs to even the more junior entry-level positions, and newer challenges continue to flow in as the tech industry evolves.
However, successful hires are a great investment to organizations. One such recent example is Satya Nadella, who rose up the ranks to CEO at Microsoft and how his trajectory has been traced back to the days of the person who hired him at the company more than twenty years ago.
Given the importance of successful hiring practices, organizations continue to leverage creative hiring strategies. One such new trend is for technology companies to hire top people from the media world. Celebrities have served as brand ambassadors for the past several decades, but the new move is for these celebrities to extend into roles such as creative directors at organizations they endorse.
One factor spurring this new recruiting practice is the convergence of technology and media. The media industry is a core element in the end-to-end service offerings organizations are hoping to deliver to users in order to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.
Katie Couric, a journalist and TV personality with ABC, made headlines recently after she was hired at Yahoo. Now, there is the news of CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien joining Google. (On a lighter note, comedian Conan O’Brien released what his strategy would have been if he had been hired as CEO of Microsoft.)
Additional hires at Microsoft to boost their PC gaming business have also shown a similar trend of absorbing people from media positions. The relationship between IT giants and the media world is no longer a subtle one. It has become more obvious with the growth in content and associated technologies, and this is only going to continue to expand.
All of these recent hires are testaments on two fronts. First, with the right background and relevance, media personalitites can have roles in the technology world. And second, with the right hiring practices, technology giants can attract these people from the glitz of the media world into their fold.
