Take the popular TV show ‘The Apprentice’ as the perfect example of controlled situations revealing a person’s potential future skills. Reality show bigwig Mark Burnham convinced American business tycoon Donald Trump that bringing in young professionals for a 16-week job interview wherein they would be pitted against each other was a new and inventive way of finding the next perfect employee for Trump’s massive organization. And in both aspects (quality of new Trump employees and TV ratings) the show has proven to be a hit.
Something quite similar to ‘The Apprentice,’ though it has been around far longer, is the Shell Gourami Business Challenge wherein leading oil company Shell International, Ltd. invites top students from universities all over the world to come together for one week and build a realistic five-year business plan for a fictitious country called Gourami. At the end of the week, the students present their business plan to a panel of "stakeholders" in the hopes of securing an investment of at least $1.5 billion.
Being used as a recruitment tool by Shell, the Gourami Business Challenge finally came to students from the Asia Pacific region last September and was held in Langkawi, Malaysia from Sept. 21-28, bringing 47 talented students together from the Philippines, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Egypt, and Australia to work together in various project teams to propose how they would achieve business success for the imaginary country of Gourami, after which successful students would be offered the chance to work with Shell.
"Although Gourami was initially written for a European audience, we’ve re-written it to suit the global community as well. It has actually been through many changes. It was originally drafted as a technical case study, though over time it has evolved and more and more modules have been added until it included all commercial aspects of Shell as well. It’s a total case study and a wonderful recruitment tool," says Sarah Webb, Global Product and Research Manager for Shell.
The Shell Gourami challenge was a resounding success here in Asia. Three out of four participants at the first Asia Pacific Gourami challenge were found to have met Shell’s recruitment criteria. Indeed, the Asia Pacific Gourami has been the most successful fully-assessed Gourami Business Challenge todate–by the way the students immersed themselves into the program as well as by way of successfully meeting Shell’s recruitment criteria. With 47 students attending the Gourami Business Challenge, this was also the biggest such challenge organized, proving once again that students who are given the opportunity to rise to the occasion can do so quite admirably.
"It was a great opportunity to be invited here to work with people from all over the globe," Belle de Guzman, from Ateneo, shares. "Though it was challenging at first as we were all so culturally different, in the end it made the work even better."
"This was far better than your average resume’ submission and job interview," Michael Son, also of Ateneo, adds. "It’s far more exciting and you get to learn more about yourself and what you may be looking for in your future career. I mean, admittedly the entire Gourami is smoke and mirrors and its bottom line is recruitment, but you can see that Shell truly cares for the individual."
As a matter of fact, that’s how Shell categorizes the Gourami recruitment avenue. "The Shell Gourami Challenge is a very candidate-centric approach," says Navjot Singh, Global Marketing Manager for Shell. "We really take the time out to be vigilant in our recruitment procedures, being sure to care for the potential candidate as much as the company. After all, we believe that people and talent are the bedrock of our operation and the key to our success."
Ragu Sabramaniam, head of Attraction and Recruitment for Asia and Pacific, adds "Asia Pacific encompasses a growing percentage of Shell’s business in the coming years. Our growth and continued success will depend on our ability to continually attract and leverage the best talent in this heterogeneous region. Gourami brought together students from multiple races and nationalities and provided them a truly global working experience."
And the Gourami Business Challenge in Asia achieved all that during its intense six-day working period. Students from different countries managed to put themselves together into a well-oiled working machine under the watchful eyes of their coaches and Gourami "director" Vimi Venugopal, Shell Attraction and Recruitment, Malaysia at the Langkawi Sheraton resort where Shell not only housed all the participants but also rented out an entire block of rooms to serve as the Gourami "offices" for the duration of the challenge. The goal was to make Gourami as real to the students as any other country and this they achieved with a comprehensive Gourami background and a plethora of characters (played by obliging coaches) from the Sultan of Gourami to his conniving cousin all the way down to the go-to girl of the country Helen Back.
"It was a great opportunity for the students, both to show Shell what they’ve got and to see a bit of what it’s like working in the global community," Voltaire Cruz, of Shell Philippines Refinery and one of the Gourami coaches shares. "All in all, I think the Filipinos did really well in the challenge. Initially they were a bit shy entering into it, but in the end the Filipino traits of hard work and the drive to do good, I believe, really helped make a difference."
Maureen Valencia of the University of the Philippines adds, "Gourami has really helped me learn more about what it is like working for a leading company in the global community. It has become instrumental in my own personal development and working with so many different people from all sorts of cultural backgrounds has really opened my eyes to how much diversity can help in terms of business."
To be sure everyone added his or her own flavor to the mix that eventually ended up impressing the Shell executives. Mohammed Arafa from Egypt relates, "I think one of the reasons our presentation turned out as well as it did is because there were so many cultural influences that brought about the end result. We all used each other’s strengths to make the very best business proposal we could for Gourami and that really made the difference."
As the week came to a close, it really was all about achieving more together, both for the students and for Shell as well. Australian Darren Pace couldn’t have put it better in his closing remarks at the presentation, "This is a team of winners. Does Shell like to invest in winners? I think we’ve shown what Gourami can do for Shell now what can Shell do for Gourami?"
So in the end, as the students left their imaginary country and returned to the real world, they found out more about themselves, the working global community, and ultimately about Shell. There are very few companies that will invest as much time, money, energy, and manpower to recruit quality future employees as Shell did in the Gourami Business Challenge. In the end, Shell not only spotted possible future employees, but helped cultivate the talents and skills of a group of promising young individuals. If the young are our future, then with this crop of upcoming graduates the future looks bright indeed.