1. Payment

Late payment has been such a perennial issue that it crops up every time government project is mentioned. While the agreement may clearly indicate the payment cycle to be 30 days, you will probably be surprised to see that no payment is made even after 1 year.

In business, cash is king and if you don’t have any, disaster is just around the corner. Stacks of invoices cannot pay your staff salary; cash can. If the pay is late and you are desperate for cash, what are you going to do? Sue them?

2. Not sustainable

Just like you cannot live forever by exchanging cash for oxygen, you can’t survive solely by contracts from the government. Unfortunately, banking on special status and privilege, many go all out to win the government’s heart, thinking that the green leaves will always stay green.

They thought a 2-year contract can always be renewed and lasts them 10 or 20 years. To them, there is money in the promised land so so why would they work hard and expand their business to the private sector?

3. Drown in complacency

Business solely built with the purpose to serve the government will be up for a harsh reality check. It is probably stupid to think that there are people who set up business just to get business from the government, but apparently they do.

Once a 3-year supply contract worth millions dollar is signed, some go for spending spree and buy their first million dollar home, a Porsche and a yacht, even before receiving payment. When the contract is over, only then they realize they are in deep hole. For some reason, such as political factor, economy downturn and recession, a 5-year long term business can be cut into 1-year, or even less. Is it shocking? No.

4. Not indication of real competency

It has come to realization for those long in the business that the government contracts are not always won by the most competent company which offers the best price and quality. Rather, they are won by those who bend the rules. In a perfect world, the government departments are supposedly manned by transparent, honest and squeaky clean officers and personnel. In reality, many are run like real suckers and end up corrupted worse than the Gotham and Harare cities combined.

5. You be the scapegoat

Government and those with power enjoys playing the goddess and it comes as a little surprise for them not to admit the mistakes on their part when things go wrong. There have been cases where goods, parts and buildings were delivered and built below the standard when they know that the contractors are incapable to deliver the job in the first place.

As a result, you take the blame. After all, they are paying you with the people’s tax money and hence they are answerable to the public. For all you know, you reputation goes up with the smoke, and you probably ended up sued or even thrown into jail.

Malaysia Airlines (MAS), the national airline carrier has come up with a flexible work scheme that allows their employees to take up part time jobs.

Additionally, there is also option for its staff to take voluntary long leave.

Both options are voluntary and not obligatory.

Currently, there are 19,000 direct employees working with MAS, with about half of them set to enjoy the scheme.

This is part of the cost cutting strategy and sustaining of business operation to ensure the company achieves its financial bottom line target. While many other commercial airlines opted for cost cutting measures, MAS is taking a moderate, win-win situation approach.

Through the part time work scheme, the work schedule of the employees will be halved, and so will the basic salary. The employee then can choose to work in the morning, evening, or alternate weeks, as per their needs and convenience. However, those who are on shift duty are not allowed to apply for the program.

Under the voluntary leave, employee can go for a break or holiday up to 6 or 12 months period. During this tenure, each of them is entitled for one annual privileged and concessionary travel, while medical benefits are fully covered. The voluntary leave program is only extended to permanent staff based in Malaysia, with the exception of pilots and cabin crew.

20 common and popular job interview questions for advertising industry:

1. What makes you opt advertising as your field? Is it by choice, or by accident?

2. From your own opinion, what is the most effective advertising medium for businesses at the moment? Why?

3. How do you describe the advertising field today? And how would you compare the industry to 10 years ago?

4. Is newspaper advertising becoming obsolete today? Why? Do you think advertising through the local newspaper is costly?

5. What are the hot media of advertising today? What makes you think so?

6. If you are tasked to create advertisement board next to our close competitor, how would you go about making sure our advertisement stands out from the competitor and the rest?

7. Some people claim that the advertising industry does not offer a clear cut career path. How would you react to this statement?

8. Since your company and ours focus on rather different media for advertising, how would you think your coming aboard can mutually benefit both parties?

9. How would you describe the criteria needed for someone to be a huge success in this field. Do you think you own all these criteria?

10. What are the effective ways to measure the effectiveness of the advertising initiatives? For those elements that cannot be quantified, how do you justify that the financial commitment is worth the investment?

11. How do you go about devising a short term advertising and promotion strategy? For example, if next week we plan to hold a last-minute product launch, what will be your actions?

12. Some advertising media are pretty tough to work with. What would be your courses of actions to make sure that relationship is smooth and no communication breakdown occurs at all time?

13. Network is an important aspect in advertising. How do you assess and evaluate yourself in this element?

14. Kebab Advertising, one of the city’s largest advertising networks, is our close partner and vendor. As part of our mutual agreement, no employees from both sides are to be offered job by another. Will you be agreeable to this arrangement? Are you sure?

15. What is your approach to generate interest from prospective clients in our services? How has this approach been performing?

16. If one day you realize that advertising field has become a neglected and forgotten area, what would be your next ideal field to jump to?

17. Advertising is closely associated with many elements of job specialties. For example – design, copy writing, editing, sales, marketing, customer support, technical support and so on. From your own view, can you list down these elements according to priority, i.e. which comes first?

18. Good advertising comes with good price. How would you argue with the statement? Are you agreeable to this?

19. Some business owners are very skeptical when it comes to advertising, especially when it involves them spending a lot of money without certainty in results and outcome? How do you fix this misconception?

20. Some say internet advertising will become the biggest advertising medium in 5 yeas time, replacing TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and billboards. What say you?

Motorola Penang will be holding a walk-in interview this Saturday, 9 August 2008, held in Sunway Hotel, Seberang Jaya, Penang.

Click here for the venue’s location map.

Interested applicants, especially those in the engineering and manufacturing field, are welcome to attend. Latest resume, original documents and photocopy of certificates and transcripts are required to bring along.

Failure to comply may result the candidate being turned down for the next screening process.

The interview starts at 9am and finish 4.30pm.

Engineering positions available include Electrical, Mechanical, NPI (New Product Introduction), Quality, Test, PCB (Printed Circuit Board), SMT (Surface Mount Technology), EOL (End of Line) and Compliance. Managerial position covers Engineering Section Managers, Principal Staff, Program Manager and Hardware Quality Assurance Manager.

Motorola Malaysia is presently undergoing expansion after committing to more than RM300 million of investment for their Penang facilities. The Penang factory currently employs approximately 4,000 employees, with a few thousand more working with the contracted vendors.