Q: What is the talent market like in China, in particular for foreign companies?
A: On the one hand, China’s universities churn out millions of graduates every year; on the other hand, there is an ever-intensifying imbalance between the inadequate supply of middle and senior-level managers and technical talents and strong demand for them in foreign and domestic companies alike.

Though China government boasts large quantity of degree-holders, the majority of them doesn’t match the foreign companies requirements. They are the products of rote learning, and they often lack necessary foreign language skills. There is a shortage of foreign-trained Chinese managers and professionals and they have high salary requirements, which makes recruiting such candidates difficult. Above that, due to the fierce competition for them, their turnover rate is much higher than in western countries. So it’s not only difficult to attract high-calibres in China, but also difficult to retain them.

Q: Are there any differences between recruiting for mainland China and recruiting for Western countries?
A: There is not much difference. Whether East or West, our clients’ demands are the same, and all the candidates want satisfying salaries and career opportunities, while all the clients want employees who can bring certain value to the company. If I have to name certain disparities, there are two not very important points worth reminded to our readers.

Point one, for certain sectors, because international practices or standards are never heard of or only introduced to China for a short period, or the industry itself is new to Chinese, we lack suitable talents in these industries. You then have to relocate people from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore or Malaysia. They often speak Mandarin and English and understand the western practice.

For the second point, the Chinese state-owned companies are very different from private companies in many aspects like corporate value, ways of doing business and decision-making. So for joint-ventures, the recruitment and eligibility for a JV with state-owned companies may be different from that for a JV with privately-owned companies.

Q: You just mentioned the recruitment of talents from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, what is the advantage and disadvantage of recruiting these people and recruiting mainlanders?
A: The good thing is they speak better English, are accustomed to western ways of management and sometimes are better equipped technically. They are often chosen to take charge of middle-or-senior management posts or for liaison function.

The bad thing is they ask for high salaries and a large amount of hardship compensation. They are expensive for start-up foreign companies, sometimes even for large western companies. Also, some of them are arrogant towards their mainland siblings, which is not very beneficial to the company morale and often leads to many grievances and in certain cases high turnover rates.

But every coin has two sides, if you use them well, they are very good hires.

Q: For hardship compensation, what is the situation now in mainland China?
A: Ten years ago, when we talked about hardship compensation, it singly related to relocation from western countries to China tier-one cities, because at that time China lagged far behind western counterparts in many fields, like modern facilities, transportation, infrastructure and especially international-standard education for children. While nowadays, cities like Beijing and Shanghai could stand at the same level with developed countries in many aspects, and they have many first-level international schools for children and teenagers. Besides that, China is where energy and hope is. Everyone now turns their eyes toward the Middle Kingdom, and they compete for the chance to land in China. So the expatriate compensation is trimmed a great deal, and in many cases it does not exist.

But China’s great hinterlands still lack a lot in many respects. It is often the case in recruitment that you have to relocate a metropolitan Chinese to second-or-third cities. In such cases you have to pay a certain amount of hardship compensation. Even if so, due to the west and middle China’s bad education level, a large amount of Chinese cosmopolitans will only stay for a short period there. So you’d better hire single and adventurous Chinese for such posts.