VHA develops talent to grow with the business
David Forrai describes himself as “one of those annoying people excited to be heading into work on the Monday morning train.”
During his five-and-a-half years with Vodafone Hutchison Australia [VHA], Forrai, 26, has moved from selling phones on the shop floor to handling one of the company’s largest brands.
David Wang, 25, has a similar success story to tell. He got a job as a casual in a Hutchinson 3G store right out of school. When Vodafone and Hutchison merged in 2009, Mr Wang landed his current role as the product manager for Vodafone and 3 Mobile social networks.
Both Forrai and Wang received a huge career boost through VHA’s internal career development program known as Get Set & Grow.
Kirsten Lohr, who heads up recruitment at VHA, says Get Set & Grow was created in 2006 to provide frontline retail staff across Australia with opportunities to advance their careers by moving into head office based roles.
“We accept applications for the program on an ongoing basis throughout the year and any hiring manager can elect to create a Get Set & Grow role, as long as they have the approved headcount,” explains Ms Lohr. “Applicants need to have experience and/or a degree – or partial degree – relevant to the department the person is applying to work in.”
Successful candidates also need:
• To have been employed with VHA for a minimum of 6 months.
• A proven track record of success within VHA.
• Strong knowledge and passion for the VHA brand.
• A great attitude that exemplifies the VHA values.
• A keen interest to grow their career with VHA.
• A strong interest in their business group.
Forrai started his VHA career as a casual in a 3 Mobile store in Sydney’s CBD, which fitted in with his studies as a media and communications student at the University of NSW.
“I’m a self confessed gadget lover so I really enjoyed learning about the new mobile products and selling them to customers plus the job fitted in with my degree,” he says. “It wasn’t until 2007 that I saw a [Get Set & Grow] mobile broadband product specialist role that interested me.” The position complemented his experience as an in-store regional trainer for Hutchinson’s new mobile broadband products.
After completing the online application he was called to a first-round interview with an HR team member at VHA head office.
“The second interview took place with my potential manager and the general manager of products and services,” Forrai recalls. “They were keen to find out where I could add value in the team and [my] understanding of where the product was going strategically and what customers wanted from the product.”
He landed the role and “went straight from working in a store to developing marketing strategies for the product.”
“I was shown the ropes in product marketing for two years before being let loose on BlackBerry as the BlackBerry product manager. Eight months later I was promoted into my current role as the go-to-market manager for Vodafone reporting to the general manager for marketing operations,” he says. He describes his role as a cross between marketing campaign management and project management.
“I do stuff like launching the iPhone, marketing and launching new [mobile phone] caps, cool apps [mobile phone web applications] as well as the latest and greatest mobile devices,” he explains.
Wang almost didn’t apply for a product specialist role within the Get Set & Grow program in 2006 because he loved his in store role so much.
“I’m a techie. I grew up with social networking products. I know all about phones and megabytes and terabytes so working in a mobile phone store always appealed to me,” he says.
“I had decided not to apply when a saying on the Tony Robbins website caught my eye. It went something like, ‘think about being the person you want to be tomorrow, today’.”
Inspired, Wang applied and progressed through the interview rounds before being offered the product specialist role, which he took on for three years. When Vodafone and Hutchison merged in 2009 Wang then landed his current role as the product manager for Vodafone and 3 Mobile social networks.
“I drive 3G [social network] usage on mobile, for example, Facebook and Twitter, which means working with the provider of these services to get the best user experience,” he explains.
Looking back on his career Wang says VHA’s Get Set & Grow program gave him the opportunity to break into the corporate world.
“Without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today. It changed my perspective on what I could achieve and where my goals lie,” he says.
