giffgaff™ – Social Media Newsroom

Cutting edge mobile phone operator challenges eager job applicants to make it famous

Forget uncomfortable interviews or dusting off the suit, a new mobile phone company has launched a job hunt with a difference.

giffgaff, the UK’s first ever people-powered mobile phone operator, is tasking jobseekers  with making its brand world famous. If applicants can achieve this in just four weeks, they have the chance to secure a top marketing role within the company.

Each applicant has two weeks to come up with a jaw dropping social marketing idea. The ideas could be anything from attracting celebrity supporters to sparking a YouTube explosion to getting giffgaff on the front page of a newspaper. They will submit their plan of action to the giffgaff team who will then shortlist those with the best ideas. The selected people will then be asked to make their idea a reality in the remaining two weeks. giffgaff is already well known for creative marketing from its community members and expects to celebrate creativity and social media expertise in Britain with this job application.

The challenge is open to any member of the public who has a desire to work in the exciting world of marketing or telecommunications, and continues giffgaff’s commitment to doing mobile differently. Interested applicants can learn more about how the challenge will work here: http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Blog/Could-this-be-your-opportunity-to-come-work-with-us-at-giffgaff/ba-p/11205

Following modern phenomena like Wikipedia and Facebook, giffgaff is people-powered: the network is affordable to all as a rapidly growing community of customers takes matters into its own hands by managing everything from marketing to customer service.

Whether you’re simply looking for great value, or want to go a step further and earn rewards for your involvement, giffgaff offers something for everyone. giffgaff rewards its users with points for every contribution they make to support the brand: this might include producing a giffgaff branded video, event, social network or simply spreading word of mouth.  The points are then exchanged for cash or for free calls, texts and mobile browsing.

Research commissioned by giffgaff reveals that many jobseekers across the UK would currently do anything to land themselves a permanent role within a company. The findings uncovered that 60% of British jobseekers believe finding a job has become even more difficult, despite being told the recession is beginning to subside.

Two fifths (44%) worry they won’t get the type of job they want, while a further 18% fears they won’t get any type of job at all.

The research also reveals the lengths that some would go to in order to secure work including sleeping with someone in a position of power, working for free for over a year or lying about their qualifications. The top 10 desperate measures taken by job hunters are:

1.  Take a job that’s very loosely linked to the job you want or take a pay cut
2.  Go back to school/retrain for the role
3.  Befriend somebody in the company
4.  Bombard the employer with calls and e-mails
5. Turn up at a reception to collar the employer
6.  Advertise your services on Facebook etc
7.  Work for free for over a year
8.  Lie about your qualifications
9.  Sleep with somebody in a position of power
10.  Make a spectacle of yourself so the employer will notice you e.g. don a sandwich-board with your qualifications on it

Mike Fairman, the gaffer, said: “Despite what we’re being told about the country coming out of recession, finding a job doesn’t seem to be getting easier and this research shows that some people are prepared to go to extreme lengths to give themselves a chance.  There are many alternative ways to make it to the top, and although we don’t expect any romantic encounters to result, we are offering up the opportunity for anyone to make us sit up and take notice of their own unique way.

Fairman continued: “We’ll watch and measure everyone’s efforts. As long as we can see something tangible such as a newspaper article, video, online blog or Facebook page, we promise we’ll take a look. We’ll also interview as many people as we can, so the bigger the fuss they can create, the better chance they’ll have of bagging a great job with a salary to match.”