PepsiCo, the global food and beverage company, has launched a new 'Change The Game Challenge’, aimed at boosting the career prospects of millennials and giving them the opportunity to land a job at the company.

The competition, covering the India and Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, is open to Egyptian, Saudi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Emirati and Indian students and graduates aged between 17 and 30 with up to three years’ work experience.

It is a once-in-lifetime opportunity for the so-called ‘millennials’ - usually defined as people reaching young adulthood around the year 2000 - to build their workforce skills, especially against a backdrop of sharply rising youth unemployment in the region.

This the first time PepsiCo has launched a competition simultaneously in the India and the Mena region, said a top official.

“The ‘Change The Game Challenge’ is an opportunity for young, talented and promising young people to boost their employability and improve job readiness,” remarked Omar Farid, the president (Mena) at PepsiCo.

“As well as that, it is a chance for young people to get exceptional first-hand experience of PepsiCo, one of the world’s biggest brands and a major employer in the region,” he said.

The competition, which runs till November 30, challenges young people to solve a business case for the introduction of a product or service, in line with nutrition expectations, that PepsiCo can implement by 2020.

The contest will be in three rounds - unique selfie, business challenge and interview. The interview for the top 10 finalist teams from Mena will be broadcasted live, with questions asked through Twitter.

Two winner prizes are on offer, depending on the profile of the team. If the winning team is made up of final-year students with less than a year to graduation or new graduates or working professionals, they will be offered a job in PepsiCo in their home country with one-year international experience in the Asia, Middle East and North Africa (Amena) region.

If the winning team is made up of students who have more than a year left until they graduate, they will be offered a two-month international internship in PepsiCo in Amena.

The winning team will travel to PepsiCo headquarters in New York to present the business case to the chairman and CEO, Indra Nooyi, and her leadership team.

The first runner-up team will get a job offer or a two-month internship in PepsiCo in their home country. The second runner-up team will have the opportunity to shadow PepsiCo leaders for a day.

“We wanted to come up with a creative way to spot talent and harness the potential of young people in the region,” stated Farid.  

“The Mena region has the highest rate of youth unemployment in the world, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). PepsiCo, as a major employer in the region, wants to be part of the solution, helping young people to discover a pathway to employment and entrepreneurship by giving them the tools to help themselves,” he added.-TradeArabia News Service