Recruiting in China

What a long, strange trip it¡¯s been. OK, maybe not that strange, but over the last several weeks we have broken down the Job Candidate Bill of Rights created by Accolo¡¯s John Younger. We¡¯ve covered everything from confidentiality to communication, and now we have arrived at the end. Number 10 on John¡¯s list is ¡°information,¡± something that candidates feel they¡¯re just not getting enough of:

Information

All applicants will be provided with the necessary information about the company, hiring manager, compensation, performance expectations, etc. in order to make an informed career decision.

Information, or the lack thereof, is such an important topic to job candidates that The Wall Street Journal actually included it twice in their bill of rights:

¡°5. I want to know the details. Companies that provide details about their benefit plans get my attention. They can easily explain the basics on their website with a PDF, instead of a brief, meaningless overview that does me no good.

¡°6. I want to learn about you. ¡°Day in the life¡± profiles help me see myself in an organization.¡±

For some job boards, a lack of information isn¡¯t the real problem. Instead, it¡¯s the lack of usable information. These boards are filled with countless details, but none of them really give the candidate a better understanding of the job, the company, the work environment, or anything else:

¡°For the job seeker, the problem is the same: when they look on giant job boards they see a bunch of undifferentiated jobs, often posted by clueless headhunters that provide all kinds of information you don¡¯t need (¡±A leading provider of whatever¡±) and none of the information you do need (what¡¯s the name of the company? Do they make nuclear bombs? Will they give me a private office and a big monitor? Free M&Ms? Are they sloppy hacks or quality hackers? Can I use Ruby on Rails?)¡± (From Joel on Software)

The last ten weeks have given us the chance to see what¡¯s on the minds of most of the job candidates out there. As we see it, there just isn¡¯t a source right now for candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers to effectively connect and communicate. As we¡¯ve said before, change is coming, but it won¡¯t just be for candidates. After all, there are things that recruiters and hiring authorities need, and we hope to explore those topics in the future with a comprehensive Bill of Rights for each group.

Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources, CareerBuilder.com

There's marketing yourself on your r¨¦sum¨¦, and then there's flat-out lying. Many job seekers are crossing the line.

Although just 5 percent of workers actually admit to fibbing on their r¨¦sum¨¦s, 57 percent of hiring managers say they have caught a lie on a candidate's application, according to a CareerBuilder.com survey. Of the hiring managers who caught a lie, 93 percent didn't hire the candidate.

When r¨¦sum¨¦ inconsistencies do surface during background checks, they raise concerns about the candidates' overall ethics. Forty-three percent of hiring managers say they would automatically dismiss a candidate who fibbed on their r¨¦sum¨¦. The rest say it depends on the candidate and situation.

Stretched dates to cover up employment gaps is the most commonly-caught r¨¦sum¨¦ lie, with nearly one-in-five hiring managers saying they have noticed this on a candidate's application. Other top r¨¦sum¨¦ lies include:

Past employers (18 percent)

Academic degrees and institutions (16 percent)

Technical skills and certifications (15 percent)

Accomplishments (8 percent)

Reasons for lying range from the innocuous (not being sure of the exact employment dates) to the more sinister (intentionally being deceitful to get the job). To ensure your r¨¦sum¨¦ is accurate but still portrays you in the best light, heed these tips:

If you don't have much formal experience... Highlight any activities or coursework that could be relevant to the position. Volunteer activities, part-time jobs and class projects can all provide transferable skills and training.

If you didn't quite finish your degree... Do not indicate on your r¨¦sum¨¦ that you graduated. Instead, name the university and list the years in which you attended.

If you were out of work... Don't stretch the employment dates to cover the gap. Instead, keep the dates accurate and address the gap in your cover letter. Be sure to mention any classes you took or volunteer work you performed during this time to keep your skills up-to-date.

If your company uses unfamiliar titles... This is one of the only circumstances in which it's acceptable to change your title to something more recognizable. For example if your title was "primary contact," and you performed the duties of an administrative assistant, you can clarify your title by writing "Primary Contact/Administrative Assistant." Giving yourself a promotion to "office manager," however, crosses the ethical line.

Rosemary Haefner is the Vice President of Human Resources for CareerBuilder.com. She is an expert in recruitment trends and tactics, job seeker behavior, workplace issues, employee attitudes and HR initiatives.

-- Need a little extra spending money for the holidays? Twenty-three percent of hiring managers say they are recruiting for holiday positions, according to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey. Nearly one-in-four expect to pay their seasonal hires more than last year, with 37 percent offering $10 or more per hour. The CareerBuilder.com survey, "Holiday Jobs," was completed in September and included 1,150 hiring managers nationwide.
Comparing this year to last, 13 percent of hiring managers plan to add the same amount of seasonal employees while 5 percent plan to hire more.Another 5 percent will add employees, but on a smaller scale than 2005. Of those hiring, 86 percent are likely to treat holiday employment as an extended job interview and offer permanent positions to some seasonal employees.

Twenty-four percent of hiring managers plan to raise hourly wages for seasonal hires compared to last year, while 70 percent expect no change in pay scales. Six percent say the seasonal pay will be lower than last year. One- in-ten hiring managers expect to shell out $16 or more per hour, while 33 percent expect to pay $8 to $9 per hour and 31 expect to pay $7 or less per hour.
So, where can you find a seasonal gig? CareerBuilder.com identified the following hot spots for holiday jobs:

-- Retail -- stores are in need of extra sales clerks and stockers to
handle peak shopping periods
-- Hospitality -- hotels and resorts are looking for ski instructors,
restaurant servers and hotel clerks to help out in the busy travel
season
-- Customer Service -- companies augment their customer service staff to
handle increased gift orders and returns
-- Delivery -- package delivery companies hire more drivers and support
staff to handle heavier holiday shipments
-- Office Support -- businesses need temps to help out with end of the
year wrap-ups and fill in for vacationing workers
"Workers interested in seasonal positions should act fast," said Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources at CareerBuilder.com."The vast majority of hiring managers are already recruiting for seasonal positions and nearly half are filling their open positions in two weeks or less."
Haefner offers the following tips for landing seasonal work:
1) Be flexible -- 28 percent of hiring managers surveyed say the biggest
turnoff when considering a seasonal job candidate is his/her refusal to
work certain hours
2) Be enthusiastic -- a lack of holiday spirit can impair your chances of
getting hired, according to 26 percent of those surveyed
3) Be serious -- 19 percent of hiring managers are turned off by
individuals who don't treat the position as a real job and don't take the
responsibilities seriously
4) Be smart -- a failure to be knowledgeable about the company or product
line is a major pet peeve for 8 percent of hiring managers looking to
fill seasonal positions.

Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of
CareerBuilder.com among 1,150 hiring managers, ages 18 and over, within the
United States between August 31 and September 5, 2006. The 'Employer'
segment was weighted by number of employees to bring them in line with
their actual proportions in the population. The segment was weighted using
propriety algorithms in order to align the online population to be more
representative demographically and behaviorally of the total population of
online and offline employers.
With a pure probability sample of 1,150, one could say with a 95
percent probability, that the overall results have a sampling error of +/-
4 percentage points. Sampling error for data from subsamples would be
higher and would vary. However, that does not take other sources of error
into account. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and
therefore no theoretical sampling error can be calculated.
About CareerBuilder.com
CareerBuilder.com is the nation's largest online job site with more
than 23 million unique visitors and over 1.5 million jobs. Owned by Gannett
Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), Tribune Company (NYSE: TRB), and The McClatchy
Company (NYSE: MNI), the company offers a vast online and print network to
help job seekers connect with employers. CareerBuilder.com powers the
career centers for more than 1,100 partners that reach national, local,
industry and niche audiences. These include more than 185 newspapers and
leading portals such as America Online and MSN. More than 250,000 employers
take advantage of CareerBuilder.com's easy job postings, 18 million-plus
resumes, Diversity Channel and more. Millions of job seekers visit the site
every month to search for opportunities by industry, location, company and
job type, sign up for automatic email job alerts, and get advice on job
hunting and career management.

According to iResearch 2005 China Online Recruiting Research Report, the comparison between 2004 survey results and 2005 survey results indicated that the most frequently used percentage of each super recruiting website has increased a lot. This shows that online job seekers tend to concentrate when the stickiness of super recruiting websites to online job seekers is increasing gradually.

The latest craze in hiring is the oldest craze in hiring--find employees that come highly recommended by their friends and colleagues. Social networking has always been used in a non-technological sense to find the perfect candidate or to find the perfect job. Now technology meets the job search.

Sites like Jobster, H3, and O'Reilly Connections have sprung up to bring potential employees together with potential employers--particularly those "passive" job applicants who are already employed and may not be actively searching for a new one. From Wired:

The recruiting sites are all about connections. Most share the goal of helping employers reach the coveted "passive" job applicant, which is recruiter lingo for the qualified person who is already gainfully employed and thus not maniacally reading job boards. Such people are often the best new hires, but are hard to reach through conventional advertising.
Many personnel recruiters find that an e-mail campaign yields better candidates than a traditional "Help Wanted" ad.

Shares of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) have posted modest gains two weeks after investors scrambled to get in on the world's largest ever initial public offering.

The dual listing of the bank's shares in Hong Kong and Shanghai, the first of its kind for China, sparked frenzy as top rank foreign and domestic investors sought to get a piece of the Chinese growth miracle.

The demand was so intense that the lender, China's largest, decided to exercised its over-allotment option this week, increasing the number of shares on offer to raise a world record-breaking 21.1 billion dollars.

While the state-owned ICBC staged a strong debut in Hong Kong last month with Shanghai lagging behind, two weeks on, its shares have only managed to score modest gains, analysts said.

They have risen 19 percent from their offer price in Hong Kong and 12 percent higher than the issue price in Shanghai with many individual investors having taken profit, they said.

Although fresh fund inflows are flooding the Chinese and Hong Kong stock markets, pushing them to record highs as investors bet on a further strengthening of the Chinese yuan, the money has also gone to other China-related stocks.

"I am a little disappointed with its performance," said Francis Lun, general manager of Fulbright Securities. "It's a big bank. I expected it would perform better."

In Shanghai however, Gu Junlei, banking analyst with Orient Securities, said ICBC's performance matches its expectations: "It offered a lower initial public offering price, which paved the way for further steady increase."

Kitty Chan, director of Hong Kong-based Celestial Asia Securities Holdings, said its performance was "acceptable" and remained within her expectations given the many problems that have dogged the sector.

International investors have jumped at the chance to buy into a piece of the Chinese financial sector despite mountains of bad debt, poor management and a lack of transparency.

But Chan said: "Investors will continue to be attracted by a country that has good economic growth and that will go for its banks."

ICBC is the third of China's big four banks to go offshore after Bank of China and China Construction Bank as part of government-driven sector reform.

(Source: AFP)