Recruiting in China

Hiring Manager: And that sums up what you're looking for.
Staffing Account Manager: I think we can find what you're looking for. Let me ask you, what salary range are you looking at and do you already have an approved budget for this position?
HM: We're looking for someone in the $60-70,000 range, preferrably the 60 - that's what we start people out at in this department, and they'll need about five years of experience.
SAM: $60,000-$70,000 is a bit low for this position - especially if it's as important as you say. Do you have any flexibility?
HM: My best developer is making $70,000 right now and he has 12 years of experience. If I bring someone else in higher, my whole team will be at my door hollering for a raise.
SAM: What about someone with good potential but maybe not the degree of experience you just detailed. Entry level programmers are making $50,000, and that's just with an IS Degree.
HM: I don't need entry level - I have to have someone with real experience who is going to stick around and finish this project. Send me what you have.

**Back at the Staffing Office an hour later**
Staffing Account Manager: And that's what we need - in the $60-70,000 range.
Recruiter: Does this one have to walk on water or would the trick with the fishes and loaves do it?
SAM: Let's just send him what we have.

That little scenario is fictitious, but it plays out at staffing firms across the country every day. Salaries and job skill lists are written for positions and sent out to third party firms with the hope that a firm will turn up the diamond in the rough who has perfect skills and doesn't know their own worth. Recruiters out of desperation send what they have, and hiring managers, desperate themselves, often hire whatever they can get.

It's a bit like a woman asking you if she looks fat in her pants. If you're a contingency recruiter (dating), you'll be booted out the door. If you're in house (married), you can't be honest without taking the blame for the nice dinners and never going with her to the gym.

Honesty. Is that what we really want in business and life, or do we just want everything to magically work out?

So I created a Facebook account soon after they opened membership to select companies.I was hoping to offer some insight here on how the social network site might be applicable to recruiters. So far my experience has been interesting.

To poke or not to poke.

Soon after setting up an account, I logged in to find out that Mike Deluca, VP of Sales at Yahoo! HotJobs, once referred to as, ¡®the largest source of fear in my universe,¡¯ had, ¡®poked¡¯ me.

Facebook defines a, ¡®Poke¡¯ as¡­

"We have about as much of an idea as you do. We thought it would be fun to make a feature that had no real purpose and to see what happens from there. So mess around with it, because you're not getting an explanation from us."

The uncomfortable moment passed and I responded by poking Mike DeLuca¡­again and again and again and again. After a while I quit poking Mike Deluca. Regret set in. I began to think of career path and how with each passing poke that path may have become more and more limited. Then ADD set in. I quit concerning myself and got back on track to do some research.

I ran searches on company names.

Yahoo returned over 500 results
Google returned 498
Monster.com, 152
Jobster, 44

The site is clean and easy to use. If you are looking to source names from distinct companies or colleges then it might be worth checking out.

Back to career path¡­

You think I can get myself out of this poking mess by posting a highlight clip of Mike D¡¯s son in action at his football game?

Proposed revisions to China's labor laws, presented for discussion at this December's 19th Conference of the 10th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, are stirring controversy among labor and business groups in the US.

The AFL-CIO described as "duplicitous" a campaign led by US corporations to convince the Chinese government to block the labor reform measures. The labor federation argued that the reforms are needed to protect workers' rights, and submitted a supporting petition to the Office of the US Trade Representative, a Bush-administration-appointed agency.

Meanwhile, a report published by the think tank Global Labor Strategies points out that US-based corporations and their lobbying arms are opposing the law and even threatening to pull their investments out of China.

The corporations involved include Wal-Mart, which incidentally conceded just recently to Chinese trade union organizing efforts, Nike, Microsoft, AT&T, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, the US-China Business Council, and others. European-based business associations have lodged similar complaints as well.

Because the reforms would force foreign employers in China to recognize the legal rights of their employees, these corporate interests have viewed the proposals negatively and even actively engaged in China's national dialog on the matter.

What's in the New Labor Law?

The proposed reforms would provide a means to regulate and standardize industrial relations across different sectors in the Chinese economy. While China adopted a contract labor law in 1994 to protect workers, tens of millions continue to be employed without such protections.

During a recent visit to Washington, China's Social Security Minister, Tian Chengping, said the reforms are needed "to improve the dispute-resolution system and supervision mechanism for labor relations."

The reforms would codify the rights and obligations of employers and workers, and are generally seen as having the potential to strengthen the rights of workers and protect their interests.

The proposed reforms were presented to the Chinese public earlier this year for discussion and response. According to Chinese media reports, almost 200,000 workers and other interested parties provided their opinions on the proposals. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), China's central labor federation, has participated in the process by exchanging recommendations with the government body that authored the proposals. Many ACFTU ideas were included in this draft of the reforms.

The key elements of the reforms focus on contract labor and include, among others, the following regulations. One measure would impose a limitation on the probationary period for contract workers and would prevent employers from hiring workers for only short periods, and releasing them before the terms of their contract had been fully met. It is a regulation that would reduce abuse and ensure greater job security.

A second proposal would require employers to provide severance pay after the termination of a contract. This reform would protect workers by ensuring economic stability between jobs and also would encourage employers to provide longer-term contracts.

In the event of a large-scale termination of more than 50 contracts, the employer would have to meet with the trade union, explain its reasons for terminating the contracts, and negotiate over compensation and other conditions.

Where contracts with employees do not exist, the proposal would create legal provisions that would actively encourage employers to provide them and thus extend rights and benefits to workers. Indeed, if employers do not do so, the law would recognize the employer-employee relationship as a de facto long-term contract.

The reforms also give the ACFTU and workers' representatives the authority to participate in the creation of new work conditions put forward by employers. Additionally, the unions would be authorized to collectively bargain and sign contracts for larger groups of contract workers.

For example, in some sections of China's construction industry, large numbers of workers are employed in the contract labor system. Contract labor forces them to deal with the employer on a one-on-one basis and increases the likelihood of their being exploited. This reform proposal would make contracts fairer and increase workers' bargaining power to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions.

The reforms would also restrict the common practice of turning a company's own contracted labor over to third party employers. Currently, an employer can force a contracted employee to work for another employer. The new law would limit this practice to certain sectors, limit the time frame, or require that a new contract be drawn up between the new employer and the employee.

The proposed reforms also provide a more even playing field for workers when they disagree on the meaning of the terms of a contract. In fact, in most cases, the law would require arbitrators to side with workers in these disputes, encouraging an employer to make the terms of the contract as clear as possible and preventing an employer from arbitrarily changing the terms.

The net result of the proposed labor law reforms is that millions of new workers would be added to the rolls of Chinese workers who have collective bargaining rights, job security, legally mandated benefits such as severance pay, access to grievance procedures, paid training programs, and freedom to change jobs.

US corporate interests oppose the laws because they prefer unregulated labor markets in which they can arbitrarily hire and fire workers and change the conditions of work in order to maximize profits. Many corporations look to the millions of people in China's workforce who aren't currently protected as a source of super profits.

Labor movement critics of corporate interests see such practices as a means to drive wages down and propel workers on a "race to the bottom" all over the world.

Room for Solidarity

Meanwhile, the labor movement in the US is also campaigning diligently for passage of reforms here. Labor wants the new Democratic Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would guarantee the basic right of workers to organize and join unions. Business interests are greeting this reform measure with hostility similar to what they are showing in China.

The proposed new laws in China and the US, along with the current alignment of attitudes regarding them, suggest that the labor movement in the US and China have a strategic interest forging new alliances.

Setting aside differences for the sake of achieving the basic goal of workers' rights would be a significant step toward real solidarity. Global solidarity, this case shows, is the only avenue for stopping the "race to the bottom" and protecting the rights of all workers, in China, the US and the rest of the world.

SHANGHAI, Nov.23 - China will invest 1.5 trillion (US$190 billion) to increase the nation's rail network to over 90,000 kilometres by 2010.

"We will invest 300 billion yuan (US$38 billion) in railway construction next year," Li Guoyong, transportation director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said Wednesday at the China Railway Financing Forum.

The investment, described by Li as "the biggest in China's history," would increase the size of China's rail network by almost 20 per cent.

The 1.5 trillion yuan (US$190 billion) investment includes 250 billion yuan (US$31.6 billion) for vehicle purchasing, over 600 billion yuan (US$76 billion) for railway lines and over 625 billion yuan (US$79 billion) for civil engineering.

China's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10) states that solving hardware problems, such as the network and machinery, are the core issues for the development of the nation's railways.

"The transportation turnover rate for railways will double with the completion of main trunk lines in 2010," said Long Hua, an analyst from Industrial Securities Co.

"The railway industry's boom is expected to last over 10 years."

Slow and relatively poor-quality services and busy trunk lines remain the major problems confronting China's rail industry.

A lack of services will remain a problem in 2010, but the Ministry of Railways expects this to be solved by 2015.

"We plan to set up an inter-city passenger transportation express, which will reach a speed of at least 200 kilometres per hour," said Li.

If you're a senior executive looking to add a key member to your marketing staff, but you've never hired marketing people before: buyer beware! Why do I say this? While there are a lot of talented marketing executives out there with an excellent repertoire of skills and experience, there also are marketing people who lack the substance, the training, the skill sets, and the understanding of marketing dynamics in order to really have a positive impact on your business.

What is the profile of an empty marketing suit? Well, typically it's somebody who dresses well, is very polished, speaks nicely, and uses all the latest fancy buzzwords, but who has little/no track record of actual execution or success. This person is great at "wowing" a CEO through the interviewing process, but that's about all they're good at.

What you should be looking for is a marketing executive who's got true substance and capabilities.

What I want to outline here are some of the key hiring criteria when you're looking for a good marketing executive:

• They should have outstanding quantitative training with a strong background in mathematics, which translates into being able to do budgeting, forecasting and tracking.

• They should have proven analytical skills that are used to survey and analyze complex sets of data, do market segmentations, sizing, competitive analysis, etc.

• They should have strong strategic thinking skills and a strong grasp of marketing strategy, as evidenced by previous challenges they have faced and dealt with in their career.

• They should have formal training in strategic marketing planning, product planning, new product development, etc.

• They should understand the modern methods for marketing communications for both awareness building as well as lead generation. In particular, a marketing executive of today needs to have a very strong grasp of Internet marketing since that¡¯s how so much of today¡¯s successful marketing gets done.

• A marketing executive needs to be able to lead. That means they have to have very strong collaborative and influencing skills, that can be brought to bear on setting a direction for an executive team. They also need to know how to instill good marketing discipline.

Today's "best in class" companies are both market and customer driven. The marketing leader needs to be the voice of the customer and the marketplace as it relates to setting strategy on target markets, new product development, gross margins, sales channels, messaging, etc. ¨C the list goes on. Given this level of complexity in skills and experience, making a good hire can be a real challenge for the untrained eye. This is why bringing in a recruiter or executive search firm which specializes in marketing is so important for many firms who lack this expertise in-house.

If you are in the process of looking for a member of your marketing team, make sure that you follow a rigorous process to clearly understand what's under the hood with the people who you are interviewing. If you don't, and you end up with an empty marketing suit, it'll cost you tremendous amounts of money, lost market share, and lost opportunity.

Congratulations, you've done it! You made it through college, have your degree in hand and are finally ready to make your mark. You are now in the real world and it's time to get your professional life started. If you are in the middle of this crossroad, it can be scary, exciting, confusing, overwhelming or all of the above. Following are some steps to make a successful college-to-real world transition.

Step 1: Pinpoint Your Direction.
After four (or five, or six) years of college, you are completely certain about what you want to do, right? If not, now is the time to determine what your strengths are and identify what kind of careers suit you. Are you someone who loves to be around people? Or are you happier crunching numbers or creating computer programs? Consider all of your strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes and interests when thinking about your career plan. Read about fields that interest you and talk to others who are doing jobs that you find interesting. Focus your direction on positions and fields that match your interests and talents.

Step 2: Do Your Research.
It is vital to learn as much as you can about the companies that interest you and to consider all of your options, says Pam Webster, a recruiting manager for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. She should know: Enterprise is the nation's largest recruiter of college graduates. "You should be open-minded about opportunities in companies and industries you might not have thought of before," she says. Once you have identified companies that you want to target, Webster suggests looking at their Web sites, reading news articles and talking to current employees to learn as much as you can. "You also need to look at a company's stability," she says. "Is the company going to be there for the long term?"

Step 3: Assemble Your Toolkit.
It is important to have the right tools for any task. The tools needed for a job search are a r¨¦sum¨¦, cover letter and a portfolio of your work. Take the time to develop a r¨¦sum¨¦ and cover letter that clearly convey your strengths and experience. Here are a few tips to remember:

Think about the type of r¨¦sum¨¦ you need. A functional r¨¦sum¨¦, which highlights your abilities rather than your work history, is a good choice for first-time job seekers.

Focus on accomplishments and results you have achieved, rather than simple descriptions of experiences.

Use action words in your r¨¦sum¨¦ and cover letter to describe your experiences, such as "initiated," "produced" and "managed."

If you are low on practical work experience, look to your part-time work, school activities or volunteer positions. "Evaluate all of your experience and translate how it applies to any job you might apply to," Webster says.

Step 4: Network.
One of the most important tasks in any job search is networking. Take advantage of any resources you have, including your school's career placement office, friends who graduated before you and are already working, friends of your parents, former professors, and neighbors. Send e-mails to ask if your contacts know someone who can help you. Pass your r¨¦sum¨¦ around and ask others to do the same. Call your contacts to see if they know someone who works for a firm you are interested in joining.

Step 5: Play the Part.
If you want to join the professional world, you need to act -- and look -- the part. Buy a business suit and wear it to all of your interviews. "Make sure your e-mail address and voice mail greeting are appropriate," Webster says. That means if your e-mail user name is "crazygirl2005," you might want to get a new account. Webster says you should also remember to be professional at home. "Be prepared for a phone call or a phone interview at any time," she says. The more you play the part of a well-trained professional, the more people will see you as a professional.

Step 6: Don't Give Up.
The real world can be a real challenge. Set realistic expectations and recognize that you will probably have to start at the bottom and work your way up. You will likely face rejection as you start looking for your first full-time job, but everyone goes through it. Just remember to be proactive, be persistent and remain confident that there is a great job out there for you!

A reader's toolbox:

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