Recruiting in China

In America, much of Google’s success is attributed to its brilliant employees. In China, there’s no reason that the situation would be any different, but as a bonus, the company could gain a competitive edge by hiring locals.

Google’s poor understanding of Chinese culture has been pinpointed as a reason for its failures in that country; an old Baidu commercial even portrayed Google as a Westerner with embarrassingly poor Chinese-language skills. Hiring Chinese citizens might be an ideal way to overcome this image.

Furthermore, the practice could be beneficial to Google in many other areas. “[T]he nation has such a huge talent potential,” Kai-Fu Lee, the president of Google China, told the AP. “I think there will undoubtedly be innovation in China.”

Innovation is exactly what Google needs - the company’s search market share is approximately one-third of Baidu’s, and has shown little improvement over the past six months. Also, Google’s a bit weak in the mobile department, and cell phones and texting are absolutely taking off in China.

Of course, nothing’s guaranteed to work - it’s not like Google hasn’t tried to reverse its fall in China before. Eric Schmidt has given the division a pretty long leash, however, so no heads are likely to roll in the near future.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday it would hire 1,000 engineers in the current fiscal year, joining the current 5,000 staff in China.

"We will add 1,000 engineers," Zhang Yaqin, the company's chairman in the mainland, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference. "There will be researchers, but most will be involved with product," he said, without elaborating.

The comments come after Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said earlier this month that the Chinese market was important to Microsoft but Beijing needed to do more to protect intellectual property rights.

Microsoft has said more than a fifth of its software running globally was pirated.

By Isabelle Chan, ZDNet Asia

commentary Market reports show that employers are using financial incentives to retain their staff. That's almost welcome news.
Who doesn't want their salary to increase? But I hope employers are not offering better pay only as a counter-offer when an employee resigns.

Understandably, businesses have salary bands, and they need to keep their hiring costs in check. But there are companies which avoid paying salaries that commensurate with a candidate's experience and the job responsibilities, and for these employers, they should know that it works in their favor to pay a fair and competitive salary at the onset. Why wait until an employee announces his or her intent to leave to offer a raise?

But it often isn't about the money, as one ZDNet Asia reader pointed out in response to last week's commentary. It is the total package that counts, by that I mean salary, plus challenging work, a competent and understanding supervisor, great coworkers, and opportunities to keep learning and to move up the ranks.

Recruiters say finding good talent and keeping them is a challenge. I will not argue with that, but I believe more can always be done, and earlier rather than later. In fact, I believe employers can take proactive steps to preempt resignations and to give their staff a reason to stay, way before their staff even start to entertain thoughts and offers of employment elsewhere.

In most cases, bosses should generally have an idea--even if it is vague--of what his or her employee is seeking. And they don't need to wait until the annual year-end appraisal to find out. Supervisors can conduct midyear or quarterly reviews, or simply chat with their staff over coffee. It doesn't have to be a formal setting. Supervisors can find out a lot more about a particular staff, and if he or she has personal or work issues, if he or she didn't see it as a formal review session.

Of course, there are other factors like work culture and environment that come into play, too. Hell, even how good the restroom smells could help sway some people into staying or leaving. A friend once told me how quickly she made up her mind about a potential job, even before stepping into the interview. She decided, almost immediately, that she couldn't possibly work in a place that had filthy restrooms.

Okay, not everyone will give up a perfectly good job opportunity just because the toilet smells of pee, but that's a non-financially motivated reason for employers to think about.

With younger and more tech-savvy men and women joining the workforce, one area that HR departments might want to start thinking about is their policy on Internet use, if there is one.

According to a recent survey conducted by Sophos, one in seven respondents "bring their Facebook addiction to work". Slightly over 37 percent of the respondents only visited the site once or twice a day, 8 percent admitted using it up to 10 times a day, and 14.8 percent, or one in seven, confessed to being logged onto Facebook almost permanently during their work day.

The Sophos report goes on to warn businesses of the potential productivity implications for businesses that allow their employees to access Facebook during office hours.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: "The results show that more than one-fifth of these Facebook users are actually Facebook abuses. They're seriously struggling to tear themselves away from the Web site when they should be concentrating on their job--disturbing news for all organizations that are still allowing employees uncontrolled access."

With such statistics suggesting that more employees are loafing at the workplace, what should employers do? On the one hand, businesses are told to build a tech-savvy workplace and look toward new media for ideas, as that's where new market opportunities lie. On the other hand, there is now this potential issue of employee loafing.

I believe it goes back to the issue of placing trust in employees to do their job. Focus on the key performance indicators, and if they meet their deadlines, exceed their targets, and continuously offer new ideas, it's a win-win for both employee and employer. Reward those who exceed expectations, show a can-do, will-do attitude, and are willing to learn.

According to Hudson's fourth-quarter report of employment trends in Asia, low employee tenure is a problem for employers in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, with one-third of employees leaving within two years.

Google was voted No. 1 on Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list, and it is its unique culture that catapulted the Internet giant into this top position, not so much the perks and benefits alone. Google achieved another milestone this week. Its shares crossed the US$700 mark for the first time, ahead of analyst expectations.

So, tell me, is money the answer to Asia's recruitment and business challenge?

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China Investment Corp (CIC), the 200 bln usd fund set up to invest the country's foreign exchange reserves, has kicked off a global recruitment drive for senior staff, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The report said CIC's requirements for Beijing-based positions include overseas education and market experience, and specified openings for portfolio managers for North American, European and Japanese equities and fixed-income products including derivatives.

It said CIC may allocate a third of its assets for investments in global financial markets.

andrew.pasek@xinhuafinance.com

SHANGHAI: Randstad Group, a human resource solution provider based in the Netherlands, is seeking to expand its foothold in China through its new headhunting channel.

The company, which acquired a controlling stake in Shanghai Talent Co last May, also has a Beijing office with more than 20 consultants tackling the North China market.

"We are seriously considering opening an office in Hong Kong and expanding into second-tier cities in the foreseeable future," Randstad's Managing Director Paul van de Kerkhof said.

Unlike conventional recruitment companies and headhunters, which usually find candidates through job fairs or telephone interviews on a random basis, Randstad offers a sector-based recruiting mechanism to meet clients' specific needs. The company assigns two of its consultants to form a unit focusing on a specific market segment - engineering, automotive, finance, sales and marketing - and to work for clients with vacancies in these sectors. Each unit would manage an active database for both clients and candidates.

"When a client comes to us with a vacancy, we can screen in our databases to find out whether there are such candidates matching their requirements," van de Kerkhof said. "Such upfront databases and working units will greatly shorten the time cycle of recruiting, which usually costs three to four weeks."

Van de Kerkhof, an HR specialist with more than 20 years' experience, explained that jobseekers in China often consider higher pay their first priority, and some ignore factors such as career development and employer competency.

To address this dilemma, Randstad uses its own unique criteria, namely "5C" - CV, character, company click, competence and career plan - in selecting potential candidates from its database.

Randstad holds that soft skills, such as character and competencies, are as important as hard skills. "We often explain to our clients that they should be open to candidates with different backgrounds. If the criteria are only based on hard skills, the potential development will be limited," van de Kerkhof said.

Headquartered in the Netherlands, the Randstad Group entered the Chinese market three years ago, becoming the only foreign recruitment firm to hold both staffing and recruitment licenses in Shanghai.

Upon buying into Shanghai Talent Co last May, the company obtained Shanghai Temporary Staffing Services, which focuses on HR outsourcing and payroll systems within and outside of Shanghai.

Van de Kerkhof agreed that working with local companies is of vital importance for foreign HR firms in China.

"Teaming up with Shanghai Talent first of all provided us with a broad knowledge of the local market," he added.

Source:China Daily

As part of an agreement with Southwest University of Finance and Economics, Kaplan, Inc., together with its affiliate Kaplan ACE, will establish a financial training center that will provide internationally-recognized financial qualifications and on-the-job training to students in western China.

Kaplan is one of the world's leading providers of financial services education, with centers in the U.K., U.S., Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Located on the campus of Southwest University of Finance and Economics, the new center will offer training programs for qualifications such as the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Chartered Financial Analyst, Certified Financial Planner, and Financial Risk Manager. It will also host forums that will cover current economic trends.

Professor Xiao Ma, vice principal of SWUFE said, "In order to achieve steady and rapid economic development, it is critical that China's accounting and financial professionals meet international standards. This training center will help ensure that China's most talented accounting and financial professionals are qualified in the global marketplace; it will also promote financial development in western China."

In 2006, Kaplan provided approximately 600,000 licensing and continuing education courses to corporate clients and professionals around the world. Mark Coggins, president of Kaplan Asia Pacific, said, "We're excited to be a part of Chengdu's emergence as an important financial center in western China."

Kaplan is a leading provider of educational services to individuals, schools and businesses, serving over one million students annually with operations in more than 30 countries around the world. Its international programs include higher education, test preparation, language instruction and professional training.