I Saw the Sign
by sadams2
You can’t be serious. Advertising jobs… on a billboard… in Kampala? Do you know the kind of bizarro landslide you’re in for? It’s impractical; it’s never been done; it’s crazy.
Those are just a few of the reactions my field office director got for his new recruitment idea. But when our office expands in 2012, we’ll need something a little outside the box to get the best and brightest for IJM. Lucky me, I got to put it into practice.
In my continuing endeavor into graphic design – an aspect of my job I didn’t expect, but definitely love – I helped realize the boss’s vision for his very visible experiment. After lots of drafts and a gracious photo shoot with our office administrator Ida (who’s also a part-time model), I ended up on this billboard:
With that approved, I met with half a dozen advertising companies about putting it up, then was inundated with billboard sizes, locations, and price quotes. Lots of budget calculations, official quotes, and negotiating later, we landed on a prime spot on a busy road near Kampala’s Mulago Hospital and two smaller signs that will rotate for each of three months. The whole process was strangely stressful and incredibly frustrating for me (the finance forms alone could have caused an aneurism), so I was just glad to get it done and hung.
But then I started getting texts from friends and comments from coworkers who had seen the billboard. And they liked it! The whole project had felt very theoretical – but there it was: 36+ square meters of my work made public. Removed from the production process, I was able to sit back and say, “Yea, that is kinda cool. And I did that.” Obviously it’s about IJM, but it’s a pretty sweet feeling of validation.
So there’s another little snippet of my job here in Uganda. The verdict on this experiment won’t be final until the signs come down January 1, but we’ve already seen some good applications rolling in, so hopefully it works. Maybe it is a little crazy, but right now it feels crazy awesome.
*To see IJM’s job openings, including those for the Uganda office, click here.
Fantastic! Thanks for sharing that, I think the design is brilliant and the idea is spot on.
Blessings,
Scott
And, of course, even those not seeking employment will now be saying, “What is IJM all about?” That is awesome.
[...] this week was AWESOME. After years of planning, months of prayer, and one stunning billboard recruitment campaign, we had seven brand new team members join IJM Uganda! We went from 21 staff members to 29 [...]