Recruiting in China

BY ALEX ORTOLANI

WHEN Liu Hao quit his job to take over a failing Internet start-up, his friends thought he was crazy.

At the time, the company was shedding US$70,000 a month and had only US$250,000 in the bank. Liu¡¯s new salary would be less than the taxes he paid on his previous job as a private equity investor.

Four years later, sitting in the Beijing headquarters of that same company, Liu says of his friends¡¯ opinions: ¡°They were wrong.¡±

Liu Hao
The Internet start-up Liu helped save was Zhaopin.com, China¡¯s third largest online recruitment website. These days, the company has about 9.8% of China¡¯s 11.3 million online job hunters, according to iResearch, a Shanghai-based research agency specialising in China¡¯s Internet market.

A few weeks ago, Seek Limited, Australia and New Zealand¡¯s biggest Internet job site, agreed to buy a 25% stake in Zhaopin for about US$20mil, giving the company a cash infusion to grow its business in second-tier cities. Seek will not take part in management, according to Zhaopin.

Meanwhile, Zhaopin has launched a search engine that gives more targeted search results, as well as insider reports on companies for users to evaluate prospective employers. Liu says his company is the first to introduce such innovations.

Despite these moves, it¡¯s possible Liu¡¯s friends could still get the last word.

Zhaopin lags behind 51job.com and ChinaHR.com in a market Liu himself says is going to be dominated by ¡°two or three players.¡±

In 2005, 51job.com had 37.3% of all users and ChinaHR.com had 13.5%, according to iResearch. In the end, however, it¡¯s not about users, which can post resumes for free, but the number of recruiters who pay to post job listings.

Liu says Zhaopin¡¯s origins as a head hunter ¨C a business it still runs under the name Alliance Consulting Ltd ¨C means it has a good relationship with some of the biggest blue-chip companies such as Microsoft Corp and BMW AG.

¡°We have the better jobs,¡± Liu says. ¡°They¡¯re relatively higher paying positions and they¡¯re the kind of employment people in China are aspiring to.¡±

Zhaopin charges recruiters anywhere from 500 yuan (US$63) to 80,000 yuan (US$10,000) to post on their site.

China¡¯s online recruiting sector could grow by leaps and bounds if the economy keeps steady. In 2005, the market was worth 800 million yuan (US$101mil), and is expected to quadruple to 4.6 billion yuan (US$575mil) by 2010, says iResearch. It estimates online recruiters will jump from 1.1 million in 2005 to 4.81 million by 2010.