The Asia Pacific Headhunter

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.

How To Find a Career in Asia

I'm often asked by people who want to move into the Asia Pacific region, especially those with training in Asian languages, "How do I get a job there?". There are also a lot of people who find themselves in Asia, gain good local language skills and knowledge who also want to leverage that into a corporate position. Now as a Headhunter I can rarely help these people directly. But I have seen a lot of people in the past use the following method to get their footstep in the door in the Asia Pacific and not just get a job, but build a career.

Firstly, remember this: you are in a very lucky position! It's unlikely that at many other times in your career will you have such a clean slate to work with on where, and what you want to do. Next, try the following steps to thoroughly to really give yourself some choice.

1. Establish the skills and experiences that make you valuable for companies. By this I mean analyzing your experience and finding great stories of how you can help others from your recent experience. Make sure you are convinced of the validity of these stories of your experience and that you can back them up with both referees and if necessary hard numbers.

2. Choose a group of 10 companies through online research where YOU think these stories will really resonate.

3. Find someone in these companies to try your story out on. Anyone will do but ideally someone who has been with the company or in the industry for more than 5 years. When you approach them ask them if you can do a quick, "information interview" on their company. Ask them what is valuable to them in an employee etc. Finally tell them one of your stories and ask them, "honestly do you think my experience is useful for your kind of company".

4. Go back to your original list of 10, from what you've learned from the people you spoke to, is your experience still valuable to them or should you look at another industry or position? If the group is right then congratulate yourself. You now have a real world understanding of where you can add value quickly. That is what companies care about, knowing this point is CRITICAL to selling yourself.

5. Now that you know the industries that will benefit from you start researching which companies you want to work for in the region. Once you have that list it's time to approach them and actually see if they have a need for you now. Often the people you spoke to in your first calls will recommend someone as long your original value and personality has resonated with them.

This may sound a little difficult but it should give you more choice that YOU want. The fact is there are many jobs for good people, if you are a good person you won't have a problem finding a job. But finding a career you love is a different story and I think the process above can help with achieving that.

Checkout Austin jobs at itzbig.com.

Interview with Doron Vermaat of NewChinaCareer.com

At Asia Pacific Headhunter, we try to be a source of useful information for those wanting to work, network or research career opportunities and the recruiting/executive search market in Asia Pacific.  I'm working on putting together a series of interviews with some key people in the recruiting industry giving insight into the uniqueness of the Asia Pacific market.

As we know, the recruitment market, especially the online job boards in China has been heating up over the past couple years with the increasing demand and shortage of talent - read Workforce.com's article on Recruiting on Asian Job Boards.

So to get behind the scenes, first up is Doron Vermaat, Managing Director of English-only China-based online job board NewChinaCareer.com which started up early this year. He talks about the online job board market in Asia, the importance of English as the medium, and gives some advice for both employers and candidates.

1. Doron, can you tell me a bit about yourself and NewChinaCareer.com?

I’m a Dutch national and have been working in the field of online recruitment for quite a while. I was part of internet startup NationaleVacaturebank.nl, a leading Dutch job board that was acquired by VNU Business Publications in late 2005. When I left after the buy-out I joined an international recruitment company where I was responsible for all online and offline marketing and branding strategies. When they wanted to expand their business to the APAC region, I found out that there wasn’t a serious English language online recruitment platform for the Greater China region. The idea for NewChinaCareer.com was born.

NewChinaCareer.com went live in January 2007 and is currently listing over 15,000 (mostly executive) jobs from over 400 companies.

2. Why come to Asia to start a job board?

We’ve been seeing the growth of online recruitment in Europe for some time now. On this side of the world, I also expect the trend to continue.  (The number of Internet users in Asia is approaching 400 million, up 241 percent from 2000, according to Internet World.)

There’s more and more demand for native English speakers by foreign companies but also by local Chinese operations who are increasingly looking to do list in Europe and the US. We are also seeing that there are a large number of Chinese students who have studied overseas and are looking for jobs back in China. NewChinaCareer.com hopes to capitalise on the fact that English will be their medium of application preference.

 3. With the boom of career sites and online job boards coming out of China, how does NewChinaCareer.com set itself apart from the other big players in Asia, such as ChinaHr.com, 51job, JobsDB etc, etc?

 Although we are new on the scene, there’s no doubt that we are already a serious player in the market. By using English as a platform medium, I am positive that NewChinaCareer.com will appeal to a particular type of sought-after professional in Greater China. For both jobseekers and recruiters, as far as I’m concerned, there is now no other alternative.

There are a variety of job boards out there, but normally the English they use is just for the site’s menus. When you get down to the details of the listing, it can often be very disappointing for users who don’t read Chinese. We offer an easy, one-stop shop for China’s top jobs and China’s top professionals.

We did a lot of research in China and it seems that the top-end multinationals are all desperate for highly-educated people. One of the things that helps us, is that because we are an English-language site, we have a built-in selection filter. You can’t post or apply on the site if you can’t read or write English.

For years, more and more expatriates, highly-educated locals and returning students have been seeking top positions in Chinese companies. By using English, the site is in the exclusive position of being able to narrow down a particular type of candidate and vacancy.

4. How do you find the online recruiting market in Greater China different from other markets, such as the US or Europe? Or is it not different at all?

The volume is extreme. The major players are job boards such as ChinaHR.com, which posts nearly 1 million jobs each day and offers 10 million registered job seekers. Another thing that surprised me at first was the usability and the look and feel of most China based job boards: Looking at them is like walking through a Hong Kong night market, with every neon advertisement hoarding trying to capture your attention.

5. What do you think are the biggest issues facing employers hiring in Greater China from an online recruiting perspective?

Hiring is through the roof in Asia, particularly in China and India.

China’s major cities generated 12 million new jobs in 2006, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China. This volume of hiring is possible only when sourcing is fully automated through employment sites.

Multinationals recruiting for professional positions on local job boards like ChinaHR.com and Zhaopin receive an extraordinarily large volume of responses and need to be prepared to target individuals.

6. What about employees? What do you think is the most important thing they should know about using the internet to find a new job in Asia?

 Be careful with using social networks to jump start your career. They attract millions of visitors every month providing lots of opportunity for individual interaction and relationship building. While this activity is indeed networking, however, the most important aspect of its description is the adjective that defines it: "social."  They should be aware that it can harm their reputation or even jeopardize their employment if their profile is full of pictures from late night party adventures or other “social” activities.

7. There is a lot of argument in the recruiting industry at least about the effectiveness of job boards. Certainly they provide a cost benefit over print advertising but they have proven to not necessarily be great source of talent. Still the huge advantage I personally see for job boards is the ability to tweak a product over time and improve. Where do you see the greatest changes and improvements coming from for Job Boards and online recruitment within Asia in the near future?

 I personally think you can only deliver a large percentage of qualified candidates if you are a niche player with a certain focus.  The problem with the large general job boards will always be the extremely large amount of unqualified candidates that apply to their clients' job postings. The biggest challenges for these job boards is to help their clients to filter this large amount of applicants. 

8. There seems to be a lot of ways that job boards are trying to change online over the last few years, with advertising on social networking sites, vertical search, paid referral systems, and social networking sites that are also job boards (phew, that was a mouthful). Despite all this change and creativity many of the larger players strictly advertising based services still continue to produce excellent revenue results. What's your opinion on all the new models that are appearing? How much is hype and how much is here to stay, or ahead of it's time?

So far the most successful job boards in terms of revenue are still the traditional web1.0 job boards like Monster.com, Careerbuilder and for Greater China ChinaHR and Zhaopin.com.

From a user's perspective I do believe in vertical job search engines like indeed.com or social networking sites like LinkedIN, but as an entrepreneur I prefer to make some money. Something that still seems to be a huge problem for web2.0 startups that are based on the Freemium business model.

9. Doron, do you think Headhunters like me (and Harry Joiner) are eventually doomed to be replaced by the internet or online savvy guys like you and Joel Cheesman?

Definitely not. I think that especially recruitment agencies and headhunters like you benefit from recruitment tools like job boards and social business networks. Besides this there will always be positions that can not be filled by companies themselves, simply because they don’t have the expertise. I think guys like me and Joel are serving both the HR community and the recruiters / headhunters but I am convinced that the last will benefit most. Simply because it’s their core business.

10. I really appreciate you talking with me Doron, is there anything else you'd like to add about NewChinaCareer.com?

 Thanks for having me Steven.

And thanks to Doron for taking the time to answer my questions.

 

More Tech Companies set up HQ in Shanghai

Link: Tech Flocks To Shanghai - Forbes.com.

There are 144 foreign tech companies that have their Asia Pacific headquarters based in Shanghai, up from 96 last year.  Still behind the more popular HQ bases of Singapore and Hong Kong, more are planting themselves in China. Why are they shifting to Shanghai? According to a report from Russell Reynolds Associates in Shanghai:

Beyond the tax breaks, low manufacturing costs and the desire to have executives on the ground in what many believe will soon be one of the most lucrative markets in the world, the report said one of the top reasons companies set up regional HQs in Shanghai is to make a political statement to the Chinese government.

We just keep seeing more of this happen, and seeing the recruitment problems that come out of the increasing number of foreign companies going into first-tier cities in China - they put a further strain on the scarcity of executives that have the highly sought after mixture of business, local culture and language skills, further adding to the high turnover/low retention rates. Personally I am starting to think that it will not be long before salary levels in Shanghai at middle management levels start to match those of Hong Kong and Singapore. While this might sound normal to those in the West it represents a truly incredible level of salary inflation.

The keys to your job search are at JobCentral.

This Year's Hottest Job in China

Forbes magazine has announced that the hottest job in China right now is... (drum-roll please) HR! (see Forbes - Get Me Personnel! By Russell Flannery). That's right, often wrongly maligned and considered a cushy job. Human Resource management in China is both critical and insanely difficult. One VP of HR listed some of their problems including employees selling company technology, sales staff working for rivals, and nepotism.

My own contacts say it has never been so difficult. That being said, the challenge of the position is being reflected in the growth in salaries. In 2004 and 2005 wage growth for HR executives was 20%, with typical salary for a top HR executive in a multinational in China now US$97,000. Not too shabby at all.

One major issue that companies are facing is how difficult it is to conduct background checks on candidates and new employees. Often references are also forged or referees are loathe to provide negative references for fear of repercussions. This is one factor that drives the Recruitment and Headhunting industries in the region. It is often safer and easier to headhunt from a competitor than it is to consider candidates who aren't currently working within a multinational competitor. The fact that they are sourced from one of your competitors gives a (albeit sometimes false) sense of security.

Is China the way to Boost your Career?

Apparently, more and more Executives see China as place to boost their career.  There definitely is value in gaining overseas experience, especially of being in a new and uncertain environment where you're outside your comfort zone and are constantly being stretched. In a growing market and/or new foreign branch, more often than not you're given more responsibilities and face a whole different set of challenges.  If you're good, you become more nimble, adaptable, and innovative - simply because you can't rely on things that you'd expect from your home culture. And good candidates are always nimble, adaptable and innovative.

It's no wonder that top performers in top US corporate boardrooms (see previous post Who are America's Top Corporate Stars?) most likely have global work experience - especially in Asia.

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