This is China...

I had a chance to sit down with my old manager in the US last week and enjoyed getting his perspective on a lot of the issues I face in China.  To date, I have been a recruiter in Japan, The Southern Cone of South America, the USA, and China.  By far the most challenging and rewarding market has been China.  It was good to have someone to lend an ear and give me the sagest of advice on recruiting:  make more phone calls, get more clients, introduce more candidates to those clients, and work with candidates and clients you can control.  I am pretty sure that is the same advice that managers have been giving their recruiters forever.  I know it is the same advice I give my recruiters on a daily basis and it doesn't change too much in China.

We use the same metrics that I used in the US to measure our activity in order to keep our recruiters here on track; the only difference is that we have adjusted them to match the market here.  We use the same matching skills and try to achieve the same close ratios.  We even use a lot of the same techniques and rebuttals that we used in the US (Japan, and South America for that matter.)

But this is China...

So what are they paying me for?  The biggest difference that I face day to day in China that I haven't faced in any other market is the "rising tide" syndrome we face with many assignments.  One of my clients was explaining to me a couple weeks ago that they have to work very hard to realize an increase in profits of 0.5% in Europe where as in China if they do nothing at all they will grow by 10%.  I understood immediately why his sense of urgency in filling a couple of positions we worked on for him would, well, ebb from time to time and why he was able to "re-think" the positions endlessly. 

In order to overcome this phenomenon we have been constantly focusing on companies that are truly engaged in the China market.  This list is slowly growing and the strategy has worked for us this year, the companies we choose to work with are those that put a premium on talent in the China market and are able to attract this talent.  Usually this includes money but is not limited to the companies with the deepest pockets.  It is often the companies that offer the best career path to their employees and a chance to work at the global level.

As China heats up and more and more companies enter this market there will be less growth built into the market from year to year and the companies investing in their talent structure will be easy to recognize.