Archives 2006

Advice from employers

Just because the job market is a good one doesn’t mean you can or should get cocky about getting the job you want. If you want some control over your opportunities, consider this next section your homework¡ªit’s advice employers¡ªthe people who are recruiting and hiring¡ªoffer. Most of the following sounds like common sense, but you might be surprised by the number of job candidates who blow off these details (and employers can tell which students/new graduates have taken their advice seriously).

Research
Take 60 minutes, go online, and learn everything you can about any company you might want to work for. Your goal is to be able to articulate how you will be a good fit within the company. If you have trouble putting your research into words, ask a career services counselor for help.

Experience
Do you know what you want to do? An internship or co-op experience (or several of these positions) on your resume will tell an interested employer that you’ve tested your career up close and you’ve learned some of the basics of the workplace. Almost three-quarters of employers say they prefer to hire students who have relevant work experience, and a little less than a fifth of employers said they are willing to consider any type of real-workplace experience.

If you’re an underclassman, line up your experience as early in your college career as possible (go to your career center for leads on internships and co-op positions). Some employers recommend getting that first internship during your freshman year so that you get to know a company well and have your “foot in the door” at graduation!

Prepare
Employers rate the influence of attributes when choosing between two equally qualified candidates Attributes Rating
Has held leadership position 4.0
Major 4.0
High GPA (3.0 or above) 3.7
Has been involved in extracurricular activities (clubs, sports, student government, etc.) 3.7
Has done volunteer work 3.2
School attended 3.0
(5-point scale, where 1=no influence at all, 2=not much influence, 3=somewhat of an influence, 4=very much influence, and 5=extreme influence)
You’d think getting organized and ready to apply for jobs would come naturally, but it doesn’t. Just because you learned to write a nice thank-you note in sixth grade or put together a rudimentary resume in “career class” in high school doesn’t mean you have the skills to crank out the appropriate cover letters or build resumes that attract employers. Among the skills you need to learn in college include:

how to write a cover letter that markets you to employers.
how to compose a well-written, error-free resume that articulates your skills and course work as a match for the company and position.
how to interview and explain the value you can bring to a potential employer.
Take advantage of the resources on your campus provided by the career center. Trained, professional staff are available to guide you through the process and teach you how to take the various steps in the process with success. Plus, these career counselors know the employers¡ªthey work with them on a regular basis¡ªand can put you in touch with the organizations where you’d like to work.

Don’t be fooled. A career counselor won’t find you a job or “place” you in a position. They’re on campus to teach you something more important: the tools and contacts to successfully find a job today¡ªand in the future when you’re looking for your second, third, or 10th position!

Research, experience, and preparation: If you have these, you won’t need “good luck” to be successful in your job search.

Striking tire workers lose cool and present case to customers

STRIKING union members battling Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co took their picket lines to about 150 tire retailers in the United States and Canada on Saturday.

They decided to take their case over health care and retirement benefits directly to consumers.

In Lincoln, Nebraska, 50 United Steelworkers’ members protested at two Goodyear retailers, decrying the company’s use of replacement workers during the two-month strike.

“We know what it takes to build tires, and unskilled workers just can’t do it,” said Gary Schaefer, 54, vice president of the United Steelworkers’ Local 286 in Lincoln. “We do not want the general public riding their lives on temporary workers.”

Goodyear spokesman Ed Markey said the protests do not affect plans to return to the bargaining table in Pittsburgh today for the first time since talks broke down on November 17.

“Our goal in the negotiations remains the same, and that is to reach a fair agreement that enables us to be competitive and win with our customers,” he said.

The company’s temporary workers are qualified and received the same training as all new employees, Markey said. “Goodyear will never compromise quality.”

About 15,000 workers are on strike at 12 US and four Canadian plants.

Goodyear workers went on strike on October 5 after talks broke down on a new contract.

Since the strike began, Goodyear has been making tires at some of its North American plants with non-union and temporary workers, as well as some managers, and relying on production at its international plants to help supply home customers.

In suburban Pittsburgh, more than 80 people handed out fliers and urged holiday shoppers driving past a Goodyear service center to honk in support of employees.

Leo Gerard, USW international president, said the protests were intended to inform consumers about treatment by Goodyear, including plans to slash health care and retirement benefits.

Wall St chief wins US$40m bonus

MORGAN Stanley has given Chief Executive Officer John Mack the biggest bonus for the head of a Wall Street firm, awarding him US$40 million as the company headed for the best profit in its 71-year history.

Mack, 62, was granted shares valued at US$36.2 million, and about US$4 million in options to buy Morgan Stanley shares, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.

Seven other top executives in the company were given bonuses of more than US$57 million.

The payout for Mack, 44 percent more than Morgan Stanley awarded him last year, eclipses the US$38.3 million given in 2005 to Henry Paulson, CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Shares in Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest United States securities firm by market value, are recording their best year for investors since 2003 after Mack put the firm on course for record earnings.

“You expect performance to be reflected in the compensation,” said Laura Thatcher, an Atlanta-based partner in charge of the executive-compensation practice at law firm Alston & Bird.

“You’re talking about staggeringly big companies with huge market caps and huge performance.”

Shares of Morgan Stanley have gained 40 percent this year and closed yesterday at US$79.60, giving the company a market value of US$84.2 billion.

The firm may report next week that full-year profit rose 41 percent to US$6.98 billion, the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 10 analysts.

Mack, who’s also chairman, received his entire bonus in stock and options, Morgan Stanley said. Last year, he declined a US$28 million bonus because he had worked at Morgan Stanley for only five months.

He accepted a pro-rata payout of US$11.5 million in stock and also received a US$337,534 salary.

Lehman Brothers, the fourth-biggest US securities firm, earlier this week said Chief Executive Richard Fuld received US$10.9 million in stock for 2006, down from US$14.9 million last year.

Mack, who left Morgan Stanley in 2001 when he was president, returned in June 2005 as the board’s choice to revive a firm bruised by a battle with dissident shareholders.

Some of Morgan Stanley’s top executives, including President Stephan Newhouse and Vikram Pandit, abandoned then-CEO Philip Purcell during the dispute and dozens of other bankers and traders quit.

Since Mack joined, Morgan Stanley has fired more than 1,000 underperforming brokers, made acquisitions to bolster the firm’s energy, fixed-income and hedge fund businesses and created new incentives to keep top employees.

International Recruiting: Applicant Screening in Developing Markets

Screening techniques honed in developing markets provide valuable lessons for talent management everywhere. Originally, the push for screening in the developing markets was driven by the multinationals, but now local employers are increasingly recognizing the need for background screening.
By Fay Hansen
——————————————————————————–
The White House sent Steve Casteel to Iraq for two years to recruit 200 people to rebuild the Interior Ministry under the Coalition Provisional Authority. In Iraq and in his previous position as chief of intelligence for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Casteel learned how to screen candidates in Latin America and the Middle East.

“Recruiting in Iraq is not that different from recruiting in Jordan or Egypt, or China, for that matter,” Casteel says. “You can use any databases that are available–military and police data, for example–but in the end you have to rely on local contacts to research an applicant¡¯s reputation and history in the community. You can¡¯t just use a Western approach.”

Casteel is now senior vice president for international business development at Vance International Inc., an investigation and security consulting firm based in Oakton, Virginia, with 3,200 employees worldwide. His approach to screening and background checks will become increasingly relevant as globalization accelerates in 2007 and corporations pursue a broader mix of geographies and less familiar locations.

Business reports indicate that companies will continue the trend toward staffing new facilities with local nationals instead of expatriates.

“Multinationals have found that they can reduce costs and eliminate many problems by hiring locals,” Casteel notes. “Shell, for example, has moved to local hiring in Nigeria.”

As Shell has discovered in Nigeria, however, recruiting in the developing nations requires extreme due diligence.

“By far, the biggest risk in recruiting in less-developed markets is corruption, most likely in the form of political corruption but also, in some locations, organized crime,” Casteel reports.

In 2005 alone, Shell Nigeria investigated 74 cases of employee fraud and ethics violations, ending in the dismissal of 24 career and contractor staff, warning letters to 49 employees and delisting for six contractors. In addition to the recruiting difficulties that arise from corruption among candidates and employees, Shell is also plagued by local scam artists who make bogus offers of employment at Shell Nigeria and then shake down job seekers for money or personal financial information.

Digging deeper
“The biggest weakness among companies that are recruiting in the developing countries is their lack of knowledge about the local market and their willingness to rely entirely on cheap background checks,” says Bob Sikellis, managing director and associate general counsel at Vance. “In the U.S., the quality of standard pre-employment screening is good enough for entry-level positions. But outside the U.S., the quality is abysmal. The databases are simply not available.”

Instead, companies must develop the capacity for deeper pre-employment investigations, often working with local partners. Even then, the company must know which local security companies do quality work.

“In Iraq, there are 52 security companies, and you need one that has local operations in the city where you need to recruit,” Casteel notes.

“Companies need to be very cautious and do full due diligence on the security companies they choose to work with,” Casteel says. “Just because a local vendor seems to take a Western approach and shows up in a business suit does not mean you will get high-quality work. This is true anywhere.”

The client company should ask the security firm exactly what information they will provide.

“And, as the Hewlett Packard case demonstrates, the security firm should also explain exactly how they will get that information,” Sikellis says.

The fact that negligent hiring lawsuits are uncommon abroad does not reduce the need to screen applicants carefully.

“To focus on the potential for negligent hiring lawsuits or other legal actions is a dangerously narrow approach,” Sikellis says. “Outside of the U.S., the ability to remove employees is so limited that you want to be extremely careful about who you hire. In many countries, a company that removes an employee faces long unemployment payments and other significant costs.”

Local demand
Originally, the push for screening in the developing markets was driven by the multinationals, but now local employers are increasingly recognizing the need for background screening, according to Chuck Papageorgiou, executive vice president of international services for First Advantage, a risk mitigation and business solutions provider. The company, based in St. Petersburg, Florida, employs 4,500 people, with 1,200 outside the U.S. devoted to employee screening.

Papageorgiou reports that screening by local employers in the developing markets has accelerated during the past three years, driven by different factors in each country. In India, for example, the rise of diploma mills has generated a new focus on education credentialing.

In other developing countries, concerns about cyber-crime, corruption and terrorism have spurred local employers to institute screening policies along with the multinationals that operate there.

In addition, developing-market BPO providers that work for financial institutions must screen applicants to meet their contractual obligations.

“Some of the contracts are very explicit,” Papageorgiou says. “This is spreading to other industries, especially design firms and manufacturers with high-value intellectual property. Also, more companies are screening all management applicants because they see credentialing managers as very important.”

India¡¯s outsourcing industry has been rocked by cases of data theft and fraud. KPMG¡¯s 2006 survey on fraud in India reports high levels of deception in CVs, fueled by unethical practices at placement agencies. In March 2006, Wipro cleaned house after discovering major screening shortcomings in the placement agencies it used.

The National Association of Software and Service Companies, the trade group representing the Indian IT software and services industry, launched a national skills registry in early 2006 that provides information on employees¡¯ backgrounds. Job candidates authorize release of the information to employers.

Papageorgiou does believe that other nations will soon follow with the same level of self-policing.

“But we are seeing professional associations in some countries building membership rosters, and we can work with this information to verify certifications,” he says.

According to Papageorgiou, companies in India are also plagued by scammers posing as recruiters who demand money and personal financial information from job seekers.

In both India and China, candidates and employers can no longer rely entirely on familiar village contacts to make recommendations. Dramatic increases in worker mobility in recent years leave candidates and employers more vulnerable fraudulent practices

Living with limitations
In some countries, full accurate screening is simply not possible.

“We deem screening in these countries as ¡®nonreliable¡¯ for background information,” Papageorgiou says. “The limits on the amount of information available about candidates may enter into site location discussions, and some companies may decide that they cannot expand into these areas.”

“There are many ways to get information in many countries if you are willing to break the law, which we are not,” Papageorgiou says. “We advise clients of these restrictions and then use research teams to gather as much information as possible on criminality, for example. The key is to make sure that the client is well aware of the limitations.”

In India, the crime rate is relatively low and some information is available about most job applicants.

“If all the education and employment checks are clean, it is highly likely that the candidate is clean,” Papageorgiou says. “In other locations, a clean check may not mean the same thing.”

In China, educational and professional qualifications, employment history and employment performance history can be secured, but criminal record checks are more difficult.

First Advantage is developing statistical models that provide some indication of the probability of criminal records and other negative factors for specific groups of applicants. These models are in place in some locations and in development for others.

First Advantage abandoned the idea of screening candidates abroad from offices in the U.S., and now has offices staffed with its own employees in the Philippines, Singapore, China, Japan, India, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. It will open an office in South Korea by the end of 2006 and new offices in Europe, Africa and the Middle East in 2007.

The international portion of First Advantage¡¯s screening services now represents 25 percent to 30 percent of its total screening revenues. The company expects 20 percent growth in the international portion in 2007.

“In this industry, it is extremely expensive to have a physical presence on a worldwide basis, but there is a competitive advantage in expanding our international presence,” Papageorgiou says. “In addition, the market for screening is relatively saturated in the U.S.; the real growth in screening is abroad.”

For clients, the biggest advantage in using screening firms that have a physical presence overseas is speed and more control over compliance. Also, firms with offices abroad may be more effective in managing costs because they utilize their own staff and operations.

In any developing market, screening must be tailored for the specific risk level, legal environment and infrastructure, and executives should be aware of any limitations.

“When a company moves into a new location, it must develop a market-entry strategy,” Sikellis says.

“Recruiting should be part of the discussion and HR should have a seat at the table.” Sikellis says. “HR executives need to analyze the personnel risks and maintain a close relationship with legal counsel while they do this.”

About the Job Outlook 2007 Survey

The Job Outlook survey is a forecast of hiring intentions of employers as they relate to new college graduates. Each year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) surveys its employer members about their hiring plans and other employment-related issues.

From mid-August through October 4, 2006, NACE collected data for the Job Outlook 2007 survey. The survey was provided to 1,137 members; there were a total of 267 usable surveys, a 23.5 percent response rate. This report focuses largely on the results of that survey.

Of those responding, 52.4 percent were service sector employers, 37.8 percent were manufacturers, and 9.7 percent were government/nonprofit employers. In addition, 38.6 percent of respondents were from the South, 25.5 percent were from the Midwest, 21.7 percent were from the Northeast, and the remaining 14.2 percent were from the West.

Job Outlook 2007 Spring Update (data collected late March through early April) will offer a final update on hiring for 2006-07 graduates. Results will be available in mid-April.

Bullish stock market hits historic high

BEIJING, Dec. 15 – For years, China’s stock market was an anomaly: the economy was going one way up and it was going in the opposite direction.

This year, it seems it can’t wait to catch up gaining a staggering 94 per cent and becoming one of the best performing markets in the world in 2006 mainly because of successful security reforms.

Yesterday, the market hit a historic high: the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.15 per cent to close at 2249 points, passing the previous intra-day high of 2245 on June 14, 2001.

Turnover of Shanghai A shares was a heavy 36.88 billion yuan (4.67 billion U.S.dollars).

The Shenzhen Composite Index yesterday closed at 6044.28 points, up 71.80 points from the previous day. It has more than doubled since the beginning of this year.

“Factors like the steadily growing economy, a series of reforms in the capital market, and massive capital inflows into the mainland will see the stock market embracing a ‘golden decade’,” said a report in Shanghai-based Orient Securities. “The index is expected to break 3000 points in 2007,” it added.

In May last year, the central government embarked on an ambitious reform to convert non-tradable shares worth as much as US$250 billion to tradable ones.

“Now for the first time, the stock market is able to reflect China’s booming economy. It proves the ongoing securities reform has fundamentally changed the stock market from a gambling house to a normally functioning market based on true value”, said Li Yongsen, a professor at Renmin University of China.

With the bulls clearly on the ascendant, analysts point out that massive inflows of new money into the market make it hard to foresee when the rally will stop.

“With such excessive liquidity, the index is likely to continue to climb, and there is no clear sign it will end in the short term,” said Zhang Qi, an analyst with Haitong Securities.

The rise of A shares yuan-denominated mainland stocks has tempted many blue chips originally listed overseas to come back to the home market.

China Life Insurance, the nation’s biggest life insurer, has applied to issue A shares worth as much as 25.5 billion yuan (3.23 billion dollars) in Shanghai. The offer will likely make the company the second largest public offering in the A-share market after Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country’s biggest lender.

The bullish market has allowed many ordinary Chinese to share the profits from the economic boom for the first time.

“The rise is just crazy. Many of my friends have doubled their money by investing in stocks or mutual funds this year. I also want to put some money in the market,” said Li Yan who works for a law firm.

How to Stand Out In a Job Interview ¡ª Tips on Getting the Job You Want

by: (ContentDesk) ¡ª With the busy hiring season just ahead, now is the time to think about preparing for the interviewthat can land you the job you want in 2006. To get that coveted offer, the interview must be considered one of the most important steps in the hiring process to create a relationship with a potential employer. With the right preparation, qualified candidates can take the driver¡¯s seat and position themselves as the top pick for the position.

Jill Donnelly, president of CareerWomen.com advises, Practice, practice, practice. Many questions, such as those inquiring about your experience and qualifications, should be expected. By creating the right storyline to anticipated questions, your delivery will sound natural and confident. Remember, if you are qualified, the interview is where you can win or lose the game. To get the job you want, CareerWomen.com¡¯s top five tips to impress interviewers are:

1. Be the qualified candidate

Know why you are qualified for the position by matching your experience to the specific requirements of the job ahead of the interview. By offering examples that match your qualifications to the exact position, the interview will be a breeze for you.

2. Prepare by doing your homework

Do your homework on the company as well as the position. Get up to date on the company¡¯s current business issues so you can address any questions about direction and opportunity. Develop a list of questions prior to the interview to demonstrate your interest and curiosity about the company.

3. Speak with confidence

This is not the time to by shy and timid. Be confident about your professional accomplishments and talk about your results. Talk about yourself through your previous employer¡¯s words to give your claims needed validation. If you have some work samples you are proud of that are related to the position, why not show them off?

4. Act like a professional

This may seem like common sense, but you¡¯ll be surprised how many people forget this completely. Common courtesies will take you a long way at setting the right professional impression. For example, dress appropriately for the position, be sure to turn off the cell phone and most importantly, be on time!

5. Be a good communicator

Listen and be appropriately enthusiastic. Listen to the questions before you answer. If you interrupt, it could send a warning flag that you are not interested. Lean forward, listen carefully and be sure to make direct eye contact.

Additional resources to enhance professional development and advance women¡¯s careers can be found at http://www.CareerWomen.comincluding career development tools, career and employment news, professional associations and employment opportunities across the US with some of the best women-friendly companies.

Speaking about recruiting in China in 2007…

What is the actual shape of the recruitment market in China?
What you have to understand first is that twenty years ago there was no recruiting market in China. The government allocated all jobs. Then, when China began to embrace free enterprise, the local recruitment market started to develop. But at that time, employers still mainly used referrals and job fairs as sourcing channels: they were the traditional government channels.
Suddenly, after 1990, there was a rapid rise in the number of job seekers, and at that time, new sourcing channels appeared. Today, job seekers can choose between many different channel types as Online recruiting, executive search agency, news papers, job fairs ect.
Not only foreign ventures, but also local HR service companies face a booming market. To use a popular Chinese expression to describe a market with such a great potential, I would say that the recruiting market in China is quite a “big cake.” I believe the size of China¡¯s recruiting market will reach to over $1 billion in 2006.

How did the first recruitment agencies appear?
Once the Chinese door have been opened on the outside world, the big cities and business centers as Beijing or Shanghai have quickly attracted foreign companies — giant corporations as well as small start-ups. All those companies need to recruit, and so need professional HR agencies to help them source their ideal personnel and build their Chinese HR structure. This is how we first met these clients.
That was specially the case for small “start-up companies”, for which competition increased quickly. In the same time, skills and abilities were hard to find. They needed professional recruiting experts to help them improving management team¡¯s quality.

What are the key success factors for non-Chinese multinationals when they start recruiting in China?
First of all, multinational should know that attitude is the vital thing when they start recruiting in China.
Then, they should be prepare to face real shortage of candidates in certain circumstances. Sometimes the war for talent is as fierce as in many parts of the Western countries, although China has a population of 1.3 billion people. Most foreign companies entering into China, have been surprised to find that managers were particularly hard to find.
I think there are four points playing a key role in the success of non-Chinese multinationals when they start recruiting in China:

Get professional recruiting staff in their HR department. That¡¯s very important for a foreign company in China.
Get an effective vendor management system.
Deploy perfect Recruiting tools.
Implement an Internal staffing inspiriting process system.
Is the using of a recruiting technology a good option when recruiting in China?
Yes. Certainly it is.
As skilled managers are in particularly short supply on the Chinese market, attracting good ones can present a special challenge. The truth is that recruiting for any position in China can require a whole new outlook. Usually, recruiters in HR department always aim to decrease costs and increase recruiting quality. For that, an excellent recruiting technology is the vital thing for making the difference and recruits the right staff.
That is why we promote Talent Management Solutions to companies in China.

What is your assessment of the added value brought by recruitment technologies on the Chinese market?
Using Recruitment Technologies, especially when associated with Process Outsourcing, can help recruiters decrease costs and increase working efficiency. For example, in a traditional model, a recruiter has to take a lot of time to filtering resumes from the Internet, mails, job fairs ect. The follow up of candidates¡¯ interviews with line managers is also very time demanding. Recruitment technologies can help recruiters save more time and more money.

What is your vision of the future of recruitment in China?
It is a difficult question: the major fact about our market is its capcaity to change and evolve in a fast fast way. Tomorow can be a totally different thing. Still, I think that in the future, the evolution of the recruitment market in China will be driven by three important sectors:

The quality of candidates
The ability to build efficient recruiting processes,
The ability to integrate technology.

Recruiting in China

An “adventure” is what Dave McCann calls the quest to recruit and retain good workers in the rapidly changing economy and market in China.

“The opportunities are great, but they create HR challenges,” says McCann, who is based in Beijing and has responsibility for HR activities for PricewaterhouseCoopers throughout China. The country may have a population of 1.3 billion people, but there’s a war for talent as fierce as in many parts of the Western world, he explains.

Carrie Conlon, director of human resources for Nanjing Interbrew Breweries in Nanjing, says China is undergoing significant changes and wants a market economy. “But they don’t have the talent,” she explains. “They haven’t recognized the need to train people to go into that type of economy.

And managers are particularly hard to find. “The challenge is finding managerial talent,” she says. “You can’t find a marketing director to save your soul.”

The reason: While many Chinese professionals have good technical educations, few have managerial training because in the past managers were promoted based on their political party allegiance. “There never had been any selection criteria; it was not attached to skills,” she says.

While managers are in particularly short supply and attracting good ones can present a special challenge, the truth is that recruiting for any position in China can require a whole new outlook. In some cases you may need to rethink what you know about finding and hiring talented workers because, when it comes to recruiting, China has its own particular rules of the road.

Do’s and Don’ts

As in other countries, companies operating in China can use campus recruitment, job fairs, newspaper advertisements, search firms, internal referrals and the Internet to search for the right talent. But, “in terms of hiring, there are more than a hundred ‘do’s and don’ts,'” says P.O. Mak, president of the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management.

“First of all, you have to know where you are and what kind of people you wish to hire. And then, a thorough knowledge of applicable law is important,” says Mak.

Given the complexity of the market, Annella Heytens of Watson Wyatt urges U.S. companies to develop a well-thought-out recruitment strategy that spells out screening and interviewing methodology.

“Do not look for the perfect candidate–he or she does not exist,” Heytens says. Other mistakes: being inflexible with the benefits package and taking too long to interview or make an offer, in which case, “You may lose a good candidate,” she warns.

In addition, she warns not to market the company too optimistically or negatively. “Be realistic when describing the working conditions,” she says, because new workers “may not stay too long if you misrepresent the company.”

When interviewing, don’t be fooled by “a perfect accent and Oxford English,” Mak warns. “You still need to probe into values and experience. In the older days, many firms hired people primarily because of language proficiency. Don’t do this anymore. I put values first because unfortunately–due to education systems, culture and norms–we tend to see a big gap between ‘our’ values and ‘their’ values, and this can make or break a working relationship.”

Conlon warns that Chinese interviewees “may not be polished. Be cautious not to make a judgment on that.”

Unlike Heytens, Conlon advises conducting several interviews because people in the Chinese culture tend to be less direct than in Western cultures, and they “take a long time to say what they want to say. Bring them back, so they feel comfortable and you get the information you need. Tap into their true potential. The system is not geared to helping people know their own potential.”

Michael Colozzi–general manager for Portola Packaging Inc. in Shanghai–agrees. “Everyone I hired on my immediate staff I interviewed five times,” he says. “In two cases, I gave people minor assignments to prepare presentations. I tested them. I let everybody know I was extremely serious.”

Camille Elliott, who returned from Beijing last year to work as a recruitment manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers in the San Francisco area, also made use of multiple interviews in China. In fact, Elliott would regularly ask a Chinese native and someone from the West to interview and assess a candidate’s ability to balance Western and Chinese styles of management. The Chinese management style tends to be very directed, she says, and Chinese managers “tend not to have the coaching skills that you as a Westerner would like to see.”

This lack of managerial skills can be overcome, says Colozzi. Chinese managers “don’t like to make decisions without having 100 percent of the facts,” he explains. “In the United States we’re not reluctant. If we make a mistake, we clean up the mess and start again,” he says. But he has found that Chinese managers can learn to make direct decisions “and you’ll be amazed at how creative they are at solving problems.”

Conlon adds that references are easy to obtain in China. “You can call up a previous manager and ask for a reference. People have been pretty open.”

Director/Sr.Manager of Administration

Company introduction:
Our client is a comprehensive investment holding company formed by local capital as well as both domestic and overseas enterprises and international investment banking. The Company is committed to shaping itself into a high-performing thinking enterprise. The client is excellent in market research, standardized investment procedures, advanced risk control tools and strong capability in attracting and retaining outstanding investment professionals. They consistently provide the customers with strong results and best-in-quality service based on our nationwide social relationship network and resources, entering into a long-term partnership with our customers.

Responsibilities:
1.Provide daily office administrative management
2.Purchase and maintain office equipment, IT hardware & software, supplies, etc.
3.Set up and implement administrative policies & regulations
4.Source vendors and negotiate admin contracts, e.g. hotel, air ticket, car rental, etc.
5.Prepare admin budget, conduct cost analysis and recommend ideas to reduce cost.

Requirement:
1.University graduates, female;
2.Minimum 5 years work experience of admin support;
3.Strong PC skills: MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook;
4.Excellent command of English, good oral English is a must;
5.Desired personality: energetic and proactive attitude, good team player, strong communication skills.

* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_hr077sh@dacare.com’