Recruiting in China

Li Yufang didn't follow the typical path to a government job — in fact, she didn't even know it was an option until she received a call from a headhunter.

"I was very surprised," said the 35-year-old, whose resume listed work at a wholesale market, a property agency and an investment firm, all in Guangdong province.

"They told me I'd been selected for an interview for a senior position at a city government, which normally don't recruit through agencies."

Li got the job, and in October, when more than 1 million young people were preparing to take the annual civil service exam, she was settling in as deputy director of the service industry development bureau in Shengze, a town under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

Promoting staff members to fill senior positions remains the norm among most Chinese government agencies.

The Suzhou government said it broke the mold five years ago when it began using Suzhou Industrial Park Human Resources Development Corp to identify and lure quality candidates from the private sector.

Since then, the State-owned headhunter, based in Suzhou Industrial Park, has found about 100 candidates for various government departments and filled 20 positions.

Li was one of eight recruits from the private sector to start working for the city in October.

"We cater to a diverse range of industries across the country, working to detailed requirements and limited time," said Kang Yue, general manager of Suzhou Industrial Park Human Resources Development. "Different departments in Suzhou have specific requirements and preferences for the positions, detailing the age, gender, work experience, and the length of leadership in the related industry."

Most positions that authorities list are in auditing, finance, urban planning, and science and technology, which all require professional knowledge and practical experience, he said.

"This new method brought me from Guangzhou to Suzhou to apply my skills to government tasks," said Li, who, like others recruited this way, must wait three years before they can be offered a lifetime contract.

Kang said that so far, all of his recruits have been kept on.

"We contacted the headhunting company to help with the recruitment of certain senior officials because we were unable to find people who would qualify for the positions in 2008, and because we noticed we didn't have the many resources that headhunters do," said the director of public information for the Suzhou government, who gave his name as Weng.

He added that the city would like to try the new method again soon because it was unexpectedly efficient and found excellent candidates within a short time.

According to the Suzhou information department, the city had problems finding enough applicants when it advertised open positions via traditional media.

"We don't rely completely on the headhunter — it merely helps us early in the process to locate candidates from a wider range," Weng said.

According to expert opinion, Suzhou is on the right track.

"The Suzhou government has taken an innovative step by involving the private sector in its recruiting," said Ren Yuan, a professor at Fudan University's School of Social Development and Public Policy.

More city governments should be encouraged to adopt similar modern methods to hire more experienced people in specific professional industries from society, he said.