How a Classified Ad launched a CEO's career

A single P7 copy of the Manila Bulletin in 1993 became an investment that yielded a 30-year return for Robinsons Land Corp. (RLC).

- By CHINO S. LEYCO

For Mybelle V. Aragon-GoBio, now the president and chief executive officer of the Gokongwei-led real estate giant, the ritual of scanning the classifieds was more than a postgraduate chore. It was the catalyst for her climb to the C-suite.

The story begins with a common frustration for fresh graduates, the bureaucratic lag of a "dream job." Having recently graduated from Ateneo de Manila University, Aragon-GoBio was slated to join San Miguel Corp., one of the country's most storied conglomerates. However, the onboarding process was taking longer than expected.

"As a young graduate eager to begin working and learning, I felt I couldn't afford to just wait," Aragon-GoBio recalls. "I decided to actively look for other opportunities."

In 1993, "actively looking" meant navigating a landscape without the internet. There were no online job portals to refresh and no LinkedIn "Easy Apply" buttons. Instead, there was the "Bible" of the Filipino workforce: the Manila Bulletin classifieds.

On a Sunday morning that would eventually rewrite her trajectory, Aragon-GoBio engaged in the analog version of scrolling.

"Buying a copy was almost automatic if you were looking for work," she says. "I remember deliberately getting the paper and going straight to the classified ads. I had a highlighter ready to mark out the ads that looked interesting to pursue."