China Finance Hiring – 6 Key Thoughts To Do Better.
China Finance hiring is competitive and has talented people. The good news is they are generally more honest than GM positions in China. The bad news is 65% have lied to get the job in their resume and interview process.
How do you feel about the fact that most Finance managers working for MNC’s in China lied to get their job? How do you think they will act when under pressure from their relatives while working for you?
I personally know a small US factory start up where the accountant they hired brought in a woman to outsource the benefits. Later it was discovered that the woman was his wife, and they had pocketed all the benefits!
I know a US company where the Chinese finance manager was their first hire and she had sweet English. She gained their trust and everyone including the Chinese GM, production manager and quality manager had to answer to her. The US owner had no idea that she was the actual GM and was the cause of the atrocious quality and turnover in the facility. She could always lay blame on others as she had built unreasonable trust with the owner and his family.
In China anything is possible. So what should be done? How should we think about this?
6 Ways to Succeed in China Finance Hiring
1. Only ask for fluent oral English if you must have it. It costs a lot to add that one item.
2. Chinese GAAP and US GAAP are quite similar but game playing is common in private Chinese companies.
3. Western Experienced Finance Managers are experts at manipulating Western Management. You must have a means to combat it in the interview and down the road.
4. You always need others you trust as much as your finance people. (Others lie 70% of the time)
5. Beware how they save you money. They are not above breaking the law in many cases which could get you legal trouble to include jail in the US or China.
6. You must get a company like ours that is committed to finding the dark problems in finance candidates and willing to be transparent despite it tripling our work load.