Recruiting in China

Dec.4 - China on Sunday issued a five-year program (2006-2010) on international cooperation of science and technology, promising to open wider to foreign partners.

The program said except those concerning national security or with special requests, China's key national scientific and technological projects and funds will be open to overseas partners.

Scientific institutions, universities and key national laboratories are required to expand cooperation and exchanges with foreign counterparts, according to the program.

China will also encourage and help enterprises and research institutions to set up overseas research and development agencies for further development by "using international scientific and technology resources", the program says.

Meanwhile, China will "actively" participate in key international scientific projects, join international scientific organizations and encourage Chinese scientists to work in international organizations, the program says.

It says the moves are aimed at increasing China's possession of or its reasonable share of intellectual property rights internationally and improving its status on the world science arena.

China also hopes to bolster its high-tech industry and boost export of its high-tech products through such cooperation.

The program listed a number of areas as priorities for cooperation, including clean energy development, environmental protection, HIV/AIDS treatment, responses to newly occurred infectious diseases and chronic diseases, nanoscience and aeronautic and astronautic technology.

Chinanews, Beijing, Dec. 2 - China Small and Medium Enterprise Index of Economic Development 2005(SMEI) was released on November 28, 2006, which indicates that small and medium enterprises have taken up 99.6% of China's enterprises in quantity (including small private businesses), and they have contributed to 70% of the country's export and import.

Small and medium enterprises have become important boosters to China's economic growth, and they have contributed to about 59% of China's GDP, and taken up about 60% of the domestic market, as well as 48.2% of the total tax revenue, not to mention that they have also provided 75% of job opportunities in towns and cities in China.

Edge believes it is time to confess to your sins and embrace these Twelve Steps that will lead you to the land of milk, honey, and better candidates...

We admitted we were powerless over our fear of the phone - that newspaper ads, job boards and Internet sourcing had become limited.

Came to believe that Ma Bell - a power greater than ourselves - could provide a steady stream of potential candidates that will invigorate our careers.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the use of the telephone as we embrace the telephone as a friend.

Made a searching and fearless metric-based inventory of sourcing channels and found these to be full of hot airs.

[You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. In what world could you possibly beat me? ~Chaucer]

Admitted to ourselves, to our bosses and to each other the exact nature of why we couldn't get past the use of newspaper ads, job boards, Internet sourcing¡­and Gatekeepers.

We humbly ask to have our fear of the phone eviscerated.

Humbly asked our bosses to pay someone to come in and help us learn the one true path to candidate sourcing.

[She can be reached at 513 899 9628. ASK for Maureen]

Made a list of all the jobs we short-shifted and resolved to use the names we found calling directly into companies to make amends to our past hiring managers or customers.

Made direct amends to hiring managers wherever possible, except when to do so would cause them to berate us for not telephone sourcing in the first place.

Continued to take a career inventory, becoming aware when our past sourcing habits tempted to lead us astray and back into the vaporous confines of newspaper ads, job boards and Internet sourcing - and guarding vigilantly against those temptations.

Sought through telephone and some internet research and reading Sourcers Unleashed (and ASK Maureen on ERE and the Edge) daily, to improve our physical contact with potential candidates and our spiritual contact with telephone sourcing Gurus, invoking our powers to continuously improve and continuing to seek out knowledge on the subject.

Having had this career-changing awakening as the result of all these steps, we try to carry this message to other print and web-bound sourcers who only use newspaper ads, job boards and Internet sourcing, and to practice these principles in all our recruiting decisions.

1. job postings should be free. the value is not and never will be in the posting. the value is in connecting with the right person to hire.

Don¡¯t agree.
a) Advertising costs. Should a TV commercial be free? Last time I checked, Super Bowl ads cost well over $1MM per minute, and they don¡¯t guarantee results either. Job boards are advertising with the added benefit of being direct response.
b) Connecting with the right person to hire can happen in many ways - direct application, research, sourcing, third party recruiters, referrals, etc. In today¡¯s competitive world, companies must use many sources to find great candidates.

2. employers are struggling with the quality vs. quantity gap in online recruiting. job boards provide quantity while hiring managers desire quality.

Depends on what online tools they are using and how they use them. People are still getting quality resumes and applicants from the big job boards, if they focus their efforts on quality. There are also many other online resources which can augment candidate flow with quality prospects.

3. the value of job boards (as we know them today) is beginning to erode for employers with well known brands as most active jobseekers are more than able to go directly to the career websites at companies like starbucks, microsoft, google, etc.

Don¡¯t really agree. The value of large job boards (for employers) comes from large candidate pools. The value of large job boards (for candidates) comes from the ability to find multiple jobs in their field from many employers. Something they can¡¯t do by visiting Microsoft¡¯s career center. This is what is driving the vertical job boards. Employers will always go where the candidates are and candidates will go where the jobs are. My personal feeling is that niche job boards are where the future lies. IT boards for IT companies and professionals, HealthCare boards for Healthcare companies and professionals, and yes, even Restaurant Job boards for restaurant professionals.

4. referrals have been and always will be a great source of quality hires. not the only source, but an important source.

Totally agree. I think this is why almost every big company has some sort of incentive program to reward employees for bringing in referrals who are hired and stay for a specified period of time. Companies (and employees) that use inventive ways of leveraging networking technologies will see increased effectiveness in referral hiring.

5. as has occurred in other markets like travel, and as is increasingly transpiring in real estate, over time we will see new marketplaces evolve which eliminate the need for the specialist (recruiter) and enable the purchaser (hiring manager) to transact efficiently with the seller (candidate).

Totally disagree. In order for Jason¡¯s prediciton to come true, one would have to assume that the only value of a recruiter in recruiting candidates would be the initial introductions or that all the other value propositions offered by recruiting specialists could be replaced through online technologies. I don¡¯t know if Jason has ever actually done any recruiting, but to assume that the value proposition of recruiters can be replaced by Jobster or some other Internet thingamajig is naive. There are still plenty of Realtors, and there are still plenty of travel agents. The industries may have been shaken up by how people use the internet, but they are still thriving industries¡­ as is recruiting 10 years after Monster.com and as recruiting will continue to be far into the future. Just as there are some percentage of home sales that are done in the FSBO style there is still great value in specialization and many customers who are willing to pay for specialized help so the largest percentage of sales in the housing market are done by professional realtors.

In conclusion, let me just say that my prediction is that recruiters won¡¯t become extinct and neither will Internet based job boards. Now, I may be a little biased because I am after all a recruiter and have a very small job board myself - it¡¯s just that I don¡¯t plan on being extinct any time soon.

CHINA has cut the maximum allowed margin of wage rises in state-owned companies for this year to keep pay growth, especially in monopolistic sectors.

State enterprises which paid employees twice as much as the average level of local urban wages in 2005 can increase total pay not more than 0.6 percent for each percentage of profit growth this year, according to a circular on the Website of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security late on Wednesday. The original cap was 0.75 percent.

The ministry said the government will stringently inspect the linkage between corporate profits and wage payments in state-owned companies where wages are too high and increasing too fast.

"Such a link-up mechanism is of great importance to help create a healthy relationship between growth in wages and profits," the circular said.

The adjustment came amid a backdrop of intense public calls, starting in the second half of this year, for a wage reform in state firms where employees are considered outrageously overpaid than the average worker, widening the gap between the rich and poor segments of society.

"The latest move is a step forward to increase state control in reining in wage growth," said Hou Ning, a columnist for several business newspapers. "But I think there is still a long way to go."

Workers in state companies, typically in highly regulated industries such as telecommunications, energy and tobacco, usually earn much more than they deserve based on the profit they produce.

The monopolistic nature generates complacency resulting in these state firms operating at lower efficiency than global counterparts, thanks to competition. State firms are accused of contributing lower profit while holding a huge amount of state assets and reserves.

Several reports and surveys have indicated average wage for employees in monopolistic industries is up to three times the national average. The gap could be widened to as much as 10 fold if non-wage income like bonuses and pensions are included.

THE next generation of trains for Sydney's rail system will be built by a Chinese company with little experience delivering passenger trains to a developed country, a move that will cost hundreds of jobs in the Hunter region.

The Premier, Morris Iemma, made no mention of the Changchun Railway Vehicle Company a fortnight ago when he awarded a $3.6 billion order for 626 rail cars to a consortium headed by the maker of CityRail's Millennium Trains, Downer EDI Rail.

The Reliance Rail consortium said at the time the experience of EDI in building and maintaining the Millennium Train was a "key plank" in securing Australia's largest-ever train order.

But EDI will only be responsible for the design and the final fit-out of the double-decker carriages, to be imported from China. Their electronics will be provided by the Japanese company Hitachi.

Changchun boasts on its website the "great progress" it has made in the international rail market, referring to Iran, Pakistan and Zimbabwe as its notable export success stories. Its carriages also operate in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

The 626 carriages in the contract are due to enter the Sydney rail network between 2010 and 2013. They will also replace 498 carriages in the existing fleet.

The Minister for Transport and Deputy Premier, John Watkins, said the Reliance bid provided a superior train at better value for money, "making it a clear winner".

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union campaigned for the contract to go to two local bidders, EDI or United Goninan. The union's state secretary, Paul Bastian, welcomed the contract going to EDI, but blamed the State Government for requiring only 20 per cent local content. EDI and United, against foreign bidders, had no choice but to look at sourcing some trains from overseas to mount a competitive bid, he said.

EDI says 290 jobs will be created at its Cardiff plant in the Hunter from the contract. However, there is expected to be a net loss of rail-related jobs in the Hunter. United may have to lay off some of the 550 workers at its Newcastle plant.

The NSW director of Australian Industry Group, Mark Goodsell, said the contract required less local content than comparable contracts let by other states.

"There is a risk - a risk to local capacity to build trains and our ability to service them in the future," he said. He warned of flow-on effects to other manufacturing with the loss of skills.

Mr Watkins defended Changchun's quality and reliability. "CRC has significant experience building trains in joint-venture arrangements with major international rolling stock manufacturers, including Alstom, Hitachi, Bombardier and Siemens. It also has significant expertise in stainless steel car body construction and is building 540 stainless steel cars with Bombardier for the Beijing Airport line for the 2008 Olympics."

It was one of few companies that could produce more than 2000 carriages a year.

The Opposition said the project was running late and had blown out from $1.5 billion to $3.6 billion.