Archives January 2008

German businesses upbeat in China despite barriers

The German business community is optimistic about operations in China, despite the obstacles, according to a recent survey.

The survey was conducted by German Industry and Commerce (GIC) China and Euro Asia Consulting Part, which focuses on China and other Asian growth markets.

It questioned 273 businesses, including wholly owned German companies, Sino-German joint ventures and German firms with representative offices in China.

Topics included the characteristics of German operations, investment motives, operational models, market potential and barriers.

About 200 new German-backed operations are set up in China every year. The survey found most German companies are optimistic about the Chinese economy.

The vast majority, or 80 percent, of respondents said they had achieved or exceeded targets. Production, trade and service firms tend to break even within an average of four years, according to the survey.

There’s few complaints about sales momentum in China, with 86 percent of the German companies surveyed saying they were satisfied or very satisfied with sales. Many said their businesses were focused locally rather than export-oriented.

Low operating costs and sourcing are still favorable to foreign-backed firms, according to the survey, despite price rises in some areas.

The manufacturing industry still dominates German operations based in China, but trade and service are developing very quickly.

German small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly seeing China as a good option, the survey said.

Of the German operations with more than 10 years of market presence in China, 12 percent are backed by SME parent companies. But 57 percent of German firms in China for four years or less are backed by SMEs. Most German SMEs follow their key customers to China, the survey said.

The expansion of the tertiary industry and the boom of SMEs is expected to add diversity and vitality to the market.

German firms prefer to set up wholly owned operations in China rather than joint ventures because of their strategic advantages – such as direct control over Chinese subsidiaries, the survey said.

Of the wholly owned German companies in the survey, 86 percent said they wouldn’t change their approach to the Chinese market. But only 24 percent of the joint ventures said they would repeat their business strategy, while 44 percent would maybe choose a joint venture again.

Representative offices are no longer as useful to German firms operating in China, with only 27 percent of respondents wanting to open them, due to their limited functions. In 2002, that figure was 50 percent.

“As China has eliminated market entry barriers and upgraded its economic structure, the German business community has become an integrated and indispensable part of the Chinese economy,” said Richard Hausmann, chairman of the German Chamber of Commerce in China.

He said GIC applauds efforts to liberalize legal restrictions to allow foreign companies more freedom to choose the most suitable operating model.

Recruiting and retaining qualified employees is also a difficulty for German firms in China, with 27 percent of respondents saying it was a major obstacle and 47 percent considering it a problem.

Non-tariff trade barriers have improved, the survey said. But 41 percent of respondents said they still have problems in this area, especially in terms of time and capital needed for licenses in China.

“German operations in general are cautiously optimistic for all areas of existing barriers to doing business in China,” said Hausmann.

Most survey respondents are positive about market potential in China, and nearly all plan to expand business activities here.

The survey also acknowledged the contribution of German companies to China’s economic and technological progress since the late 1970s.

The report urged policymakers to improve the investment environment, reform the legal system and strengthen IPR protection. It also called for better education and vocational training.

Sales and the Future of Recruiting

The business of recruiting is not just about sourcing your candidate and interviewing them. As economic concerns creep, unemployment rises, and competition in the field of recruiting increases, recruiting is more about selling then recruiting. It’s more than selling the candidate the position and selling the candidate to your hiring manager. It’s about building relationships and loyalty.

As the market continues to tighten, those who sell and understand what both the candidate and the hiring manager want are going to be the clear winners on the staffing battlefield. Understanding your customers (both the candidate and hiring manager) buying motives is an important first step. You wouldn’t buy a car without viewing consumer reports, right? So why wouldn’t you google your candidate, research the industry and market, and survey recent hires on what motivates them to buy.

What differentiates good salespeople from great salespeople is not the product they’re peddling, is the way you relate and engage the candidate. By doing so, you’ll be able to make a job offer that is truely customized to the candidate.

As recruiters, it’s our job to build those relationships and treat every candidate like a celebrity. I’m not saying roll out the red carpet and ask for an autograph. Small gestures are what differentiates a great sales person from the rest. I am a firm believer in returning each and every candidate’s phone calls regardless of if they were selected or not. I send a handwritten note to each and every network contact I meet at a seminar or event. It’s the little things that make a lasting impression.

No matter how you look at it sales is an important part of what makes a recruiter successful. Sales techniques can be used in most every part of your everyday life outside of work. Adding these sales tools to your recruiting tool box can only make you a more respected, successful, and confident recruiter.

7 Things Great Interviewers Do Without Knowing

Techniques recruiters sometimes use subconsciously
Tuesday, January 29, 2008 | by Reut Schwartz-Hebron
After years of interviewing and hundreds, if not thousands, of opportunities to practice, you are an expert when it comes to sensing who is sitting right in front of you. You are so good at it that sometimes you surprise yourself with how quickly you pick up on things about candidates inside and outside of an interview session.

That’s intuition and, if it’s built on a feedback loop, it’s one of the best tools at your disposal when you need to identify traits and uncover delicate and important factors such as authenticity and flexibility.

The difficult part is that you can’t share this type of knowledge with new recruiters. Intuition and other automatic and subconscious thinking patterns (yes, intuition is a thinking pattern) often seem out of reach, and we assume the only way for people to learn them is to go through a learning process similar to the one we had to go through ourselves.

There are certain things we can’t trace and, hence, we can’t teach. We can’t trace the values we assign certain behaviors. When you notice a certain behavior during an interview and you instantly have a value assigned to that behavior (say you notice the candidate drumming his or her fingers on the table and you instantly know it is a sign of resistance to authority) the value-assigning part is out of our reach. You don’t know why you interpret a certain behavior in a specific way; if someone asked you to explain most of these conclusions, you probably wouldn’t know what to tell him. But, what you are actually doing is a lot more than assigning value to a specific behavior. Your mind is noticing gesture, tone of voice, and combining those and other clues to produce a conclusion.

We can’t teach new recruiters which values to assign. Though there are many theories that try, the result is a long list of combinations which, even if we put validity aside, are too numerous to remember and apply. But we can teach recruiters where to look for signs and how to practice combining them. Though experience and feedback loops are indispensable, knowing where to look cuts the learning curve dramatically.

Here are seven techniques you are probably using without knowing:

Make the Most out of the Resume.
Expert interviewers prepare well. They read and re-read a candidates’ resumes, treating these documents like a detective would a crime scene: Anything can be a clue, but nothing is valid until it is supported by concrete evidence. They look at the resumes for anything that could be even slightly off, and they assign meaning to the length of the sentences, the richness of the language, the use of space on the page, repeated words or themes, and much more. Expert recruiters build the most unsympathetic theories as they read through a resume, but they stay clear of coming to any conclusions.
Use Introspection as a Mirroring Technique.
Introspection is often used by experts to identify areas that need attention. By assessing their own reaction to the candidate’s behavior, interviewers can pinpoint manipulations of different kinds. If, for instance, a candidate is triggering a protective response in the interviewer, the interviewer (alerted by his or her own emotional response) can track back the behavior or response that triggered the reaction and assign it meaning.
Peruse Emotional Triggers.
We are most authentic, exposing our basic assumptions and values, when we are emotional. Any reaction that is off balance, and that includes an excess of positive or negative response (you are just as emotionally vulnerable when your team wins as when your team loses), falls into this category. Experienced interviewers notice emotional responses and follow their paths with additional questions that intensify emotions to asses the candidate’s evasive values, attitudes, and basic assumptions.
Collect Contradictions.
Anything that might seem like a contradiction that comes up through context or content is a great place to dig. When candidates have seemingly contradicting areas of interest or have invested time in contradicting efforts, expert interviewers pick up on that and ask for interpretations. The same principle applies to content, when things that have been said earlier could be interpreted as being contradictory to things that are being said now. It’s not so much the explanation that interests experts, but the way in which the response is presented. The response is a great telling sign about abilities like handling criticism, working with authority, accepting ambiguity, and much more.
Collate Repetitions.
Certain behaviors mean very little by themselves, but put together with other behaviors, when a pattern is created, they are very indicative of a personal of professional trait. Let’s look back at the example of drumming on the table. That behavior, if interpreted by itself, could mean many things. It could, in fact, mean the exact opposite of a defiant candidate and indicate insecurity and shyness. How did you know it was one and not the other? You looked at one behavior and created a pattern.
Look for Core Reasons.
Direct answers are often just the beginning of a long discovery trail. An effective interview feels more like a conversation to the candidate because the interviewer is focusing and stretching the understanding of the candidate’s basic assumptions through a certain example. Most soft skills can be located in pretty much any discussion, and as the interviewer asks core questions like why, the answers become more revealing.
Detach Yourself of Your Own Emotional Limitations.
Like therapists or anthropologists, interviewers must know how to leave their own imbalances and limitations outside the interviewing room. To interview well means to have control of the emotional responses you are trying to elicit. I know recruiters and managers who build up tension and as soon as they feel they made the candidate uncomfortable, they back away and try to soften the blow. That, of course, requires your new interviewers to be aware of their own limitations, but they’ll master this knowledge a lot faster if they know what to look for.
All of these techniques are expert skills that can easily be taught to a novice. All you need to do is provide practice, coupled with a feedback loop. If you can do that, mastery will come about faster than you could ever imagine.

ZTE profit forecast looks rosy for 2008

ZTE Corp, China’s second-biggest telephone-equipment maker, said 2007 profit increased 50 percent to 70 percent, fueled by rising sales overseas.

The company posted a profit of 807 million yuan (US$112 million) in 2006, or 0.84 yuan a share, ZTE said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It didn’t give a figure for 2007 profit.

ZTE won contracts from carriers in Tunisia, India, and Portugal last year by selling equipment for as much as 30 percent less than rival Ericsson AB, Steven Liu, an analyst at DBS Vickers Ltd, told Bloomberg News. Sales from outside China would surpass its domestic revenue for the first time in 2007, the Shenzhen, south China-based company said in June.

The company’s Hong Kong-listed shares rose 5.4 percent to HK$37.20 (US$4.76) at the end of trading on Friday. The Shenzhen-listed shares fell 0.1 percent to 79.55 yuan.

ZTE is scheduled to announce its earnings for 2007 on March 20 in Shenzhen.

Employers in China face worst staffing turnover level

China’s employers have dual problems on the hiring front as they face the biggest salary increases in Asia needed to attract talent and the region’s highest turnover, according to a survey.

The findings appeared in the Friday edition of the China Youth Daily.

Nearly one-third, or 32 percent, of the employers surveyed planned to raise salaries by at least 20 percent to attract badly-need talent, said the survey by human resources company Hudson.

The survey covered employers’ first-quarter plans and expectations.

Year-end bonuses are expected to rise significantly, with 66 percent of the respondents planning to increase year-end bonuses at least 10 percent and almost one-fourth planning raises of more than 20 percent.

But despite significant increases in compensation, staffing turnover has been heavy.

Across all industries, 47 percent of companies surveyed had turnover rates of more than 10 percent in the past 12 months, and 13 percent said that the rate was more than 20 percent.

China’s staff turnover rate was highest in Asia, more than twice that of Japan, the Youth Daily report said. Unsatisfactory compensation and limited career progression were blamed for China’s high turnover level.

Among respondents, 22 percent agreed that limited career progression was a major cause of high turnover, while 18 percent believed it resulted from dissatisfaction over money.

The report predicted a persistent increase in salary levels in China because of limited talent resources.

Labor law strengthens Chinese union

By Han Dongfang

From a legal standpoint, the protection of workers’ rights in China is systematically improving, with the government adding another major component, the Labor Contract Law, to its already substantial canon of labor legislation at the start of the year.

Since the promulgation of the Trade Union Law in 1992 and Labor Law in 1994, the government has regularly introduced new legislation and regulations designed to protect the rights and interests of workers.

However, while the interests of workers are increasingly enshrined in law, their rights on the factory floor remain precarious and are

routinely ignored or violated by management. The cause of this apparent contradiction is not hard to find: put simply, workers in China still do not have the right to collective bargaining.

There is a labor union in China, the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which could potentially represent workers in collective bargaining with management. The ACFTU, however, is first and foremost a servant of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and therefore an instrument of the party-state – representing labor and protecting workers’ rights is secondary.

ACFTU chairman Wang Zhaoguo freely admitted in a speech in December 2006 that China’s unions “cannot blindly copy union models in Western countries”. The ACFTU sees itself as a “bridge” between labor and management, not merely as an advocate for labor. As such, it does not actively defend workers’ interests in negotiations with management but seeks to facilitate a compromise between the two sides.

The ACFTU’s approach may seem attractive on paper, but in reality it has categorically failed to protect workers’ rights and interests. Take the minimum wage for example. Because there is no freedom of association or genuine collective bargaining in China, employers can get away with paying the minimum wage to all employees regardless of the profits they make or the productivity of the workers.

Indeed, in the vast majority of enterprises across China today the minimum wage mandated by law has become the basic flat wage paid by employers by default. In other words, the minimum wage regulations designed to protect workers’ interests have become the legal foundation of management’s exploitation of labor.

China’s Trade Union Law mandates the ACFTU to represent workers’ interests in wage negotiations. Since, however, in the majority of enterprises, ACFTU branch union officials are appointed by or in some other way beholden to management, they would not dare raise an effective challenge to management on behalf of the employees. There is a mechanism – the “collective consultation and collective contracts system” – developed by the government and ACFTU over the past two decades, through which workers’ demands for higher wages can in theory be discussed.

Yet because there is no genuine collective bargaining between labor and management, most of the collective contracts that the ACFTU has announced do not represent the workers but are rather the results of a “collective contracts production line”. These mass-produced contracts are typically copied from the provisions of relevant labor laws and regulations and are of little or no help to workers on the factory floor.

There are also strict rules and regulations covering work hours and overtime. However, because of the excessively low wages paid by employers, workers very often cannot earn a living wage by working eight hours a day. Because they cannot bargain collectively, individual employees will certainly not dare to ask for a pay rise on their own. Their only option is to ask to work longer hours. In the majority of incidents where employees work long hours, it is because they requested it, and as such, the labor bureaus – who are supposed to monitor breaches of work hour regulations – are powerless to intervene.

The Labor Contract Law has numerous provisions designed to protect workers’ rights and enhance job security. One key provision is that workers who have been employed at the same enterprise for 10 years or more will be legally entitled to an “unlimited” labor contract, which should guarantee them adequate financial compensation should they be made redundant.

Many employers have panicked on learning of this provision and urged, bribed or coerced long-serving employees to take early retirement or voluntary redundancy. The most noted example of this tactic was the move by Huawei – the former state-owned enterprise and now privately owned telecommunications conglomerate based in Shenzhen – to persuade about 7,000 employees who had been with the company for more than eight years to resign. In return, the employees received a lump sum of one month’s salary for every year of employment, plus one additional month’s salary, and were allowed to rejoin the company on a short-term contract.

Huawei’s reaction to the new legislation was rational in a system where laws are largely theoretical and all the power inside enterprises resides with management. China’s numerous labor laws are like swords suspended above the heads of factory owners and managers. They can all see the swords but none of them can really be sure what will happen if one falls.

Huawei’s management could not be sure if the Labor Contract Law would hurt them or not, and so they did everything in their power to minimize the potential damage. Management had the power to persuade long-serving employees to give up their contracts, so it did. Yet again, a new law – intended to protect workers – instead led to the violation of workers’ rights.

The Huawei case begs the question: do the workers really want long-term contracts or is this just something that legislators and concerned academics think they want or should have? In the Huawei case, if the workers had the right to free collective bargaining, this situation would not have arisen. Even without a new law requiring employers to give employees unlimited contracts, workers and management could have sat down together as equal partners, raised their concerns, made their demands and ironed out their differences at the bargaining table.

If the employees wanted unlimited contracts, their representatives would be empowered to negotiate a deal with management on the issue. If workers did not consider unlimited contracts to be of great importance, they would not place it on the negotiating table.

With a collective bargaining system in place, workers would no longer walk into the “dead end” of rights protection that exists at present. Workers and employers would in addition both be able to improve their “fire prevention” work. An effective collective bargaining system would lessen the risk of labor disputes igniting into conflagration and allow both labor and management to focus on prevention, rather than trying to put the blaze out after it had already erupted and most likely caused irreparable damage.

China Labor Bulletin has closely monitored the workers’ movement in China over the past decade and has repeatedly noticed labor disputes that could have been prevented or resolved through a system of collective bargaining escalate into strikes, public protests and demonstrations simply because the workers had no other outlet.

Over the last few years, disputes over the non-payment of wages, low wages, forced overtime for little or no additional pay, unsafe working conditions and the lack of benefits, have all developed into mass protests. As a result, what should have been a simple matter between labor and management became a complex and very costly public matter.

Had an effective collective bargaining system been in place, the dispute would most likely have been resolved within the enterprise and the local government could have avoided expending its time and resources on trying to bring about a peaceful end to a dispute that had already gotten out of hand.

In terms of developing a collective bargaining system, the new Labor Contract Law comes at a good time and occupies a favorable position in China’s legislative landscape. It is a propitious time because both those in the central government in Beijing and ordinary workers across China now agree that – after three decades of accumulated tension between labor and management – something has to be done.

If the situation continues in which management routinely exploits labor and violates workers’ rights with impunity, workers, as in the past, will increasingly resort to protest and even violence in order to seek redress, and this will benefit no one.

The law occupies a good position because it effectively builds on China’s existing foundation of labor legislation and regulation. In particular, the Labor Contract Law stipulates that it is the employer’s responsibility to sign a collective labor contract with the employees’ representative. If the ACFTU and its branch unions can grasp the opportunity presented by the law, it is probable that after a couple of years of finding their way and gaining experience in negotiations with management, the creation of a genuine and effective collective bargaining system in China will no longer be a problem for the unions.

The big push for collective bargaining should come from grass-roots unions. Right now, the vast majority of the so-called “unions” at the enterprise level are controlled by management – they do not speak for the workers nor do they really listen to the higher-level unions that are supposed to supervise them. If the workers, however, can democratically elect their own union leaders, and those leaders can effectively represent the employees in negotiations with management, the union will not only gain credibility and the trust of the workers, it will be much more willing to listen to and benefit from the expertise and skills offered by the higher-level unions in terms of organizing and negotiating with management.

Thus, by developing collective bargaining at the grassroots level, the enterprise-level unions will both be transformed into a representative labor organization and once again become a functioning part of the ACFTU. In short, therefore, a collective bargaining system can, at the fundamental level, both protect workers’ rights and provide the ACFTU with an excellent opportunity to rebuild itself as a genuinely representative trade union.

Web now a hub for job hunters and recruiters

JOB seekers have a new way to find vacancies with the emergence of Zhi Ke (Job Key) on the Internet, allowing well-connected people to make money by finding positions.

Several Websites featuring Job Keys have appeared, mostly since July last year.

Operators get their cut from the online trading platform, and are tapping into a strong demand: hundreds of thousands of Chinese are now surfing the net in search for better paid positions.

Job Keys, many of whom are professionals at headhunting firms, can get 70 percent of the money once their reference lands the applicants their desired positions. The rest is kept by the Website as its commission.

While these Websites are not reaping huge profits, it will take time to see whether they can seriously compete with professional job Websites which offer free job information to individuals and rely fees from companies posting vacancies.

But it’s good news for job seekers as there have been many cases where people have found better positions.

“What we want to do is to complement the current channels that job seekers use, given that it’s becoming difficult for many of them to find the right place, especially university

graduates,” said Zhou Changqing, general manager of Facejob.cn, a Beijing-based Job Key site.

China began to expand university recruitment in 1999 to improve the overall level of citizens’ education background. But this led to the number of college graduates reaching record highs, creating a tough, competitive environment for those seeking employment.

Adding to their difficulty is many students are graduating from their chosen majors only to find the job market has changed since they picked the so-called “hot courses,” which were expected to land them good jobs.

Zhou said college graduates had not yet emerged as loyal customers, although some had made offers up to 50,000 yuan (US$6,849) for a good job in Beijing.

Total offers on Facejob now are worth 8.86 million yuan, from about 5,600 job seekers, mostly with three years’ working experience. Meanwhile, it has nearly 2,000 registered Job Keys, according to Zhou.

The most sought-after jobs on the site are entrance level ones, such as secretarial, administrative support and sales staff.

They are priced usually at about 2,000 yuan apiece, as the site fee is generally based on their expected one month’s salary.

While Zhou’s site doesn’t require job seekers to deposit their offered money in advance to encourage users to register, Zkeer.com, also Beijing-based, does.

“It’s a common practice for Witkey Websites to receive the money before achieving the task,” said Gong Deping, founder of Zkeer.

The Job Key, indeed, is a specialized model of Witkey, or Wei Ke in Chinese, which allows users to sell their knowledge, information and ideas online, and enjoys greater

popularity than Job Key.

Yang Kexi, a spokesman for Taskcn.com which is China’s leading Witkey site, said job references account for only a small percentage of their business.

“We believe that the real advantage of the Witkey sites is to serve as an outsourcing platform for corporate users,” he said.

“There are more job-related tasks at the beginning of our operation but it seems such tasks are not well received, for the prize is usually very small,” Yang said.

The reason, probably, is there are tons of free vacancies on the professional human resource service Websites where competition is intense.

On ChinaHR.com, China’s largest HR service site by sales, there are two million vacancies every day on average, which are available to 15.6 million registered users

for free. It charges the corporate users for posting jobs and consulting.

Officials with ChinaHR declined to comment on the Job Key sites, or whether they have found any of their employees doing part time for such sites.

10 Things Recruiters Should Know About Every Candidate They Interview

Interviewing candidates and gauging their fit for a culture and position is one of the most indispensable tasks a recruiter performs. The more a recruiter knows about a candidate, the better equipped they are to add value to the hiring process. That’s why getting to know the candidate and understand what they are looking for, along with overall qualifications, is so critical.
But there is more about candidates you should uncover if you want to do the best possible job of providing information (read: value) to hiring managers. Below are ten points in key areas that all recruiters should investigate for each candidate they interview — before they present the candidate to the hiring manager.

Complete compensation details. Understand exactly how the candidate’s current compensation program is structured. This means more than the candidate’s base salary; the base salary is just part of the overall package. Be sure that you ask about bonuses; if, how and when they are paid out, stock options or grants that have been awarded. Compile a complete list of benefits and how they are structured (e.g. PPO vs. HMO; there is a difference) and know when the candidate is up for his or her next review, because this can alter cash compensation.

Type of commute. Commute is a quality-of-life issue and discussing it is important. A ten-minute commute against traffic is very different than taking the car to a train and having to walk five blocks to the new organization. If the commute to your organization is worse for the candidate than it is in his or her existing job, bring it up and see how the candidate responds. If the commute is better, use it as a selling point. By all means, be sure that you understand the candidate’s current commute and how they feel about the new one.

The “what they want vs. what they have” differential. Most candidates do not change jobs just for the sake of changing jobs. They change jobs because there are certain things missing in their current position that they believe can be satisfied by the position your organization is offering. This disparity is called the “position differential” and it is the fundamental reason a person changes jobs. Know what this position differential is and you will be able to know if you have what the candidate is looking for. If so, you will be able to develop an intelligent capture strategy when it comes time to close.

How they work best. Some candidates work best if left alone, while others work best as part of a team. It is your job to know enough about the organization’s philosophy and the way the hiring manager works to see if the candidate will either mesh or grind. Beware of recommending hiring a candidate who does not fit into the current scheme, because, at times, style can be just as important as substance.

Overall strengths and weaknesses. Be sure to get some understanding of the candidate’s strong points and the candidate’s limitations. All of us have strengths and weaknesses (even John Sullivan has weaknesses, but he won’t tell me what they are). Our role is to identify them and be able to present them to the hiring manager. Hint: Ask what functions the candidate does not enjoy performing. We are seldom good at things we don’t like.

What they want in a new position. Everyone wants something. Find out what the candidate wants in a new position. Be sure to do whatever is necessary to get this information. Feel free to pick away during the interviewing process with open-ended questions until you have all of your questions answered. It is difficult to determine whether a given hiring situation has a good chance of working out if you do not know what the candidate is looking for in a new position.

Is the candidate interviewing elsewhere? This is big; I don’t like surprises and neither do hiring managers. I always ask the candidate what else they have for activity. If the candidate has three other companies they are considering and two offers are arriving in the mail tomorrow, this is absolute need-to-know information. If the hiring manager wants to make an offer, it’s time to advise them as to what the competition looks like and move this deal onto the express lane, fast.

What it will take to close the deal. This is a first cousin of #6 above but it is more specific and flavored with a “closing the deal” mentality. #6 relates to what the candidate wants in a new position, but this one quantifies that want. For example, if the candidate wants more money, this is where you will assess how much it will take to close the deal. As another example, while #6 will let you know that the candidate wants to work on different types of projects, this one will tell you exactly what types of projects those are.

Can the candidate do the job? Even though, as the recruiter, you might not be able to determine if this is the perfect candidate, you should exit the interview with an opinion as to whether or not the candidate can perform the functions of the position. Furthermore, that opinion must be based upon information that was unveiled during the interviewing process and not just a gut feeling. It has to be based upon what the candidate has successfully accomplished and how that aligns with the needs of the current position. If you can’t offer a solid opinion on this one, you need to dig deeper until you have a solid case for why the candidate can or cannot do the job.

Will the candidate fit into the culture? Predicting the future is tricky business, but someone has to take a shot at evaluating a candidate’s chance for success. Not everyone that is capable of doing the job will have a successful run at the company, because culture does play a role in candidate success. For example, the culture of a buttoned-down insurance company in Boston is very different than the garage culture of a software startup in the valley. If you have a reason to believe that the person is the wrong DNA for an organization, it is imperative that you raise the issue.
There are few things hiring managers value more than solid candidate feedback based upon a well-executed interview. Convey this information to the hiring manager and take one more step towards becoming a world-class recruiter.

China Yahoo said to be cutting staff

CHINA Yahoo, a subsidiary under the nation’s largest e-commerce firm Alibaba.com Corp, is trimming its workforce and sending staff back to the parent company, sources close to the company said.

“Dozens of people,” including mid level managers and directors, are returning to Alibaba while others are asked to leave with compensation for their service, they said, asking for anonymity.

Tao Ran, a spokesman for Hangzhou-based Alibaba, refused to comment yesterday.

Alibaba took over Yahoo China – which was later changed to China Yahoo – in 2005 and was paid an additional US$1 billion from Yahoo Inc, which in return gained a 35-percent stake in Alibaba.

Since the deal, a revamp of the acquired business has been going on as Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, is trying to integrate it into their e-commerce platform, with ideas like launching shopping search functions. The business was renamed China Yahoo last year.

China Yahoo had about 800 staff as of September 2006. It was still recruiting sales and marketing staff in October and November. The latest figure on its employee number was not known.

Bosses offer more bonuses to entice workers to stay on

EMPLOYEES at two-thirds of multinational companies on the Chinese mainland can expect year-end bonuses to rise at least 10 percent this year, a human resources report released yesterday revealed.

The figures were released amid revelations that many employees were dissatisfied with wages and bonuses, with 10 percent quitting their jobs.

Hudson Recruitment, a Nasdaq-listed international headhunting firm, surveyed 737 multinational companies on the mainland, mostly based in Shanghai, about their hiring intentions, year-end bonuses, salary and turnover in the first quarter.

Across all sectors, 66 percent of employers surveyed said they were planning to pay a year-end bonus of 10 percent more than that of last year.

The consumer sector turned out to lead the year-end bonus list with 78 percent of respondents saying they would pay more than 10 percent.

But the report didn’t provide an average year-end bonus figure.

It did, however, say that 32 percent of the surveyed firms would raise employees’ salaries at least 20 percent this year, compared with 25 percent for the same period last year.

In media and public relations firms, 21 percent of surveyed employers promised a salary rise of more than 20 percent, the lowest among all sectors.

The mainland finished first in both year-end bonus and salary increase categories in the quarterly report that covered the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.

Angie Eagan, general manager of Hudson’s Shanghai office, said the high bonus increase and high pay rise reflected the country’s headcount shortage.

“It’s interesting to find employers here using bonuses and higher pays to retain talents as a way to stop people leaving,” Eagan said.

The survey reported that 61 percent of employers were looking forward to hiring new staff in the first quarter of this year.

“But this strategy does not seem to be working, as they are also facing the highest staff turnover rates,” she added.
In the past 12 months, turnover in the Chinese mainland was high. Forty-seven percent of firms said more than 10 percent of their employees quit their jobs.

The turnover rate is almost twice the figure of Japan, the report said. The most frequently cited reason for resignation was limited career progression and “dissatisfaction with salaries or bonuses.”