The Asia Pacific Headhunter

Mind the (Generation) Gap: The Hunt for Talent in Asia - Pharmaceutical Executive

 

Mind the (Generation) Gap: The Hunt for Talent in Asia

The key points to take from this article and for any kind of executive search in Asia.

1. You can't ignore cultural realities - too often foreign firms, especially startups and tech firms want to hire for THEIR culture. When the reality is the culture of the country they're going into often dictates the kind of talent that will be successful there.
2. You can train your culture into employees, but it will take time and effort. Candidates in Asia realise they take a risk working for a firm who's only partially committed the country and/or region. They will hedge their bets if you hedge yours.
3. The more you invest in the region from an education, marketing and employment development aspect the more you will return.

 

 

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NZ Business School Sex Education

 

Okay this made me laugh this morning. The Times of India obviously love a great headline to grab attention. But at the same time check out the Google Ads just beneath the title. It's a ad for the University of Auckland. I guess for some people it might be attractive to get sex education while they study business.

It's important to note that this is NOT really Business School in the way it's used globally to mean post graduate MBA study. It's for undergraduate classes so really this doesn't amount to much more than an article about sex education on campus. Something that is fairly normal throughout the world. 

 

Working Women Discriminate On Appearance

U.S. working women see appearance as key: survey | Lifestyle | Reuters.

According to a survey conducted by PINK magazine women in senior leadership positions see appearance as key to their success at work. A more eye-opening result was that one in five female executives say they have withheld a promotion or a raise due to the way an employee dresses.

That kind of discrimination is hard to believe especially coming FROM women who face discrimination themselves when it comes to leaving work to raise families and in other areas. I think there is a fair number of woman who feel they have to show a tough persona to succeed at a high level in business, I wonder if surveys like these reflect the result of taking on that persona.

Bain & Company: "What do Asia's executives really think about the crisis?" < Publications

Bain & Company: "What do Asia's executives really think about the crisis?" < Publications.

A rather startling survey result from Bain and Company about what Asia executives think about the credit crisis. A lot of confidence in the region but some of that may be misplaced. There is a strong feeling that Asian companies will need to redevelop their models of business as the European and American consumer start an ongoing trend of buying less and saving more. Who's more capable of changing. The Asian company or the rich consumer? I'm betting on the Asian company. Consumerism is as ingrained in the American and European psyche now as breathing.

Ex-Goldman Trader, Deephaven Asia Head Bhatia Plans Hedge Fund - Bloomberg.com

Ex-Goldman Trader, Deephaven Asia Head Bhatia Plans Hedge Fund - Bloomberg.com.

As the credit crunch slowly comes to an end you'll see some really clever plays made  across the region. People like Bhatia will be at the forefront.

Asia Recruitment Set To Slow Down

I guess this is a massive statement of the obvious but the Finance industry in Asia is looking at lower hiring according to this article in Bloomberg. They also go into a lot of detail about how there will be less "expat" hiring in the region. This isn't a new trend. The number of expats in all industries, not just finance, has been trending down for years and years. While there are great positives in hiring expats there are also a great many pitfalls, and most multi-national organizations have slowly but surely cutting down the numbers of expats who they bring to places like Singapore and Hong Kong.

My favourite quote from this article has to be from a credit trader in London: "You're going to need less bankers worldwide than you need right now.'' Right there is another massive statement of the obvious. It's going to be interesting to see exactly how many less that may become.

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Checkout medical jobs at Health Jobs USA.

Top 15 Japanese Online Job Boards

First of all, a big thanks to reader and freelance sourcer Bernd Kestler in Tokyo for generously sharing this find with me!

If you're interested in the Japanese market either as a jobseeker or employer - which job boards would you go to? To help sort through the different online job boards Gomez.com, a provider of on-demand web application experience management solutions, ranked 15 Japanese job boards based on user nominations and for ease of use, volume of information and content, site security and feeling of trust, and comfort in interface and service.

Here's a list of the top 15 job boards in Japan (all sites are in Japanese only except for Daijob!):

1.  Mainichi Communications (http://tenshoku.mynavi.jp)
2. Intelligence, Ltd. (http://doda.jp)
3. Recruit Co. Ltd. (http://rikunabi-next.yahoo.co.jp)
4. PROSEEK, Ltd. (http://www.proseek.co.jp)
5. SoftBANK Human Capital Corp. (http://www.ecareer.ne.jp)
6. Career Design Center Co., Ltd. (@type) (http://type.jp)
7. en-japan inc. (http://employment.en-japan.com)
8. Career Nikkei (http://career.nikkei.co.jp)
9. Mixi, Inc. (http://find-job.net)
10. Create Co., Ltd. (http://www.d-dj.com)
11. I & G Partners Inc. (http://green-japan.com)
12. JS Corporation Inc. (http://shigoto.js88.com)
13. Aidem Inc. (http://www.e-aidem.com)
14. Daijob, Inc. (http://daijob.com) In English see here (http://www.daijob.com/en)
15. Antique, Inc.(http://www.q-jin.ne.jp)

To see the fully detailed report compile by Bernd, you can download here:

Download japanese_online_jobboard_ranking.pdf

Friday Links

Some great articles for you to take in over the weekend:

Evidence from Japan that companies that offshore operations are more successful at maintaining and growing their domestic workforce. This is worth a read for all the anti-offshoring types. Offshoring has been a big issue in Japan since the 80's thanks to all the manufacturing done there. And while the study can't say what type of employees are hired in the domestic operations, the results do show that perhaps not offshoring is a bigger risk to the growth of a company in their country of origin.

Immigrants Fuel Workforce Growth in Canada - Canada's foreign-born population has reached it's highest point in 75 years with 20% of the population born overseas. They have given a much needed boost to an ageing workforce.

South Asian Blood Sweat and Tears in the Middle East - A damning article on the treatment of nearly 600,000 Sri Lankan domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, and the UAE. The Sri Lankan government reports that 50 domestic workers return to Sri Lanka "in distress" every day! More needs to be said about this, it's disgusting that this type of abuse of workers continues.

Indonesian Economy on The Rise But Jobs Scarce - Quick article on economy growth in Indonesia but also how that growth has been confined to certain parts of the country. In some cases people can make more money offering themselves as passengers to commuters so they can use the car pool lane, than they can from working near their homes.

Dow Chemical cuts 1000 jobs - Includes leaving the automotive sealers business in Asia. Hardly even causes a blip on the share price which always seems to be the case when there are layoffs.

UK Investment Bankers Predict Doom in 2008 - But they still think they'll personally get bigger bonuses!  You've gotta love their optimism. Not that those bonuses weren't bad last year either.

Indians and Filipinos Happiest People in Asia - Who would of thunk it? Filipinos in particular are happy about their career prospects and families but are most of all happy about their health. Unfortunately they came last in "preparedness for retirement". Still at least they aren't unhappy about it.

Crazy Job Trends in Japan

The way jobs work in Japan has always been different, with "Lifetime Employment" and Freeter probably the most widely known work and career styles that continue to be quite uniquely Japanese. But I just read an article from Joi Ito's blog (which is a great read for a variety of reasons) talking about a new company who are really bringing another very innovative work style to Japan. The company is called, "Otetsudai Networks" ("otestudai" is the noun form of the verb "testudau　手伝う" - which means to help or assist someone with a task) and they take advantage of the proliferation of cellphones with GPS technology and also the preference of many young Japanese to work in ways that give them a lot of freedom.

Joi explains it best:

With Otetsudai Networks, if you are willing to work, you sign up for the service with your skills and focus, take a GPS reading on your phone and then just hang out. If you are looking for someone for say... 3 hours to man a cash register or help wash dishes, you just send the request to Otetsudai Networks and within minutes, you have a list of people available. The list shows what each person is qualified for, how others have rated their work and exactly how far away they are. Typically you will receive a list of half a dozen or more people within a few minutes.

The businesses are rated too on a per-manager basis so when you're hanging out with your friends and you get a request to go help at the corner convenience shop, you know how your peers have rated that particular guy who's asking you to come and help. You can also counter the request and say you'd go if they paid you 2000 yen / hour instead of 1500.

As more and more people start using this system, it's liable to start filling a very important gap in the workforce. It's also a perfect example of a location based, peer-to-peer reputation based, mobile behavior oriented product for an aging society.

This is a REALLY interesting idea. For employers (or anyone for that matter) who want 2 or 3 hours of work done for them it creates a great opportunity to get help quickly. For people who have flexible time situations it brings opportunities to them where they are right now. I can imagine this kind of scenario. You have an area you want cleaned and it's too big a job for one person but you only have a couple of spare hours. You look for 3 available people in your area and you could have help within minutes that serves their needs and yours.

The fact that this is all run through cell phones also means you have a way of tracing all those involved to help eliminate any possible fraud. There will be issues with quality of work for some people, but the risk is low since you can start with short periods of time and since the system becomes reputation based over time. The other barriers I can think of are possibly legal in regards to some workplaces having legal requirements for safety training for employees. None of the issues are insurmountable though. I for one will be really interested to see how this grows.

Where Do The Highest Paid Executives Live?

We really live in a mobile world nowadays. In particular many people will consider working not only different careers but also in many different countries during their career. There is no doubt that Asia is seen as an excellent area to move to and work for many people, at the same time many people in Asia are very interested in working in other parts of the world. The spirit of adventure drives many but if you are also interested in the power of money you might want to check out the Hay Group's 2007 World Pay Report available here (beware the link goes to a PDF download).

I like this report because it doesn't just show salary levels, it takes into account the cost of living and tax in each country to reveal disposable income levels - the true purchasing power of executive salaries for 46 countries in North America, South America, Africa, Europe and Asia Pacific. The results might really surprise a lot of people. The USA is 24th while countries like Russia, Turkey and Thailand are all in the top 10. From within Asia Hong Kong is 3rd while Thailand is 8th, Singapore 9th and China 14th. If you've been thinking hard about taking your executive skills off the beaten track then this might make you even more interested. While you might take a pay cut to go to many places your purchasing power may make up for that cut.

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Experience.com provides information on internships and entry level jobs.