Talent Acquisition in China – Some Key Factors
China is a great place to do business as the Chinese people are diligent, have a good education and are eager to grow professionally. There is also very good market for Western goods that continues to grow. That is not news though. How about talent acquisition in China?
I often mention that 72% of the candidates are lying to get the job offer. This varies between 60% and 80% for various positions with GM’s and Salesmen being the biggest liars. This makes it hard for Western companies who then have a lot of bad hires and excessive politics. See the infographic at Recruitment Agency China.
Talent Acquisition in China Made Harder
Big name Western contingency recruiters here are making it harder. We have a customer who is now required to use other head hunters that HQ knows and likes in America. HQ frustrates him in this to the moon. He says one famous recruiter will tell him this guy is golden, and his resume is perfect, but they are mostly incapable and bad hires. They ask the bad hire, and the bad hire tells him that the recruiter told him how to lie.
My old customer had to fly one candidate across the country, but the famous recruiter told my old customer that this guy was great and no problem background checking him as needed. When the candidate came in, my old customer said they would background check, and the candidate got mad and said. “I told the ‘famous recruiter’ no one is allowed to touch any of my background!!”
Further, more and more we see that Chinese GM’s do not hire us as they have secrets and see us as a threat. What are the Chinese GM’s afraid of? Sometimes the home office will order the Chinese GM to use us, and the result is virtually always that the Chinese GM definitely has something to hide.
So that issue is also making your hiring in China harder. China GM’s want a recruiter who they can control and make sure they are far enough away. Quality is surely not the key thing, Also, it is super common that they want to secretly hire people who are no threat to replace them. Thus C players and politicians abound with some good people accidently mixed in.
Recruiting in China Needs Help
With all these factors working against Western companies trying to recruit in China, it is no wonder that results are capped and profits are minimal. Politics and low efficiency are way to common. You may also like Recruitment or Talent Acquisition.
This all is not a very rosy picture. We could also comment on the lack of direct labor, but you already saw that clearly.
The good news is that good workers do exist. It is a matter of finding them and filtering through to them consistently in this big a puzzle. That’s what we do. See also China is Ecomically Bigger Than the Next Biggest 3 Countries Combined.