Doing Business in China For Dummies®

Finding (and Keeping) Good People

China has far more workers than jobs. However, in the segment of office workers qualified to work in foreign-invested enterprises, the market is extremely tight. You’ll have a much easier time hiring factory workers, which we discuss in Chapter 13.

In this section, we alert you to common problems you encounter among Chinese job seekers, show you how to find and screen applicants, provide strategies for making an offer, and finally give you some tips for keeping as many good people as you can in China’s competitive job market.

Employer beware: Avoiding common problems among job seekers

China is still in the middle of a tremendous transition from a centrally-planned, SOE-based communist economy to a more market-based one. Not everybody has adjusted to this change yet. That said, fantastic people are in the market in China — finding them may just take some perseverance and strategy.

Here are the three most common problems among job seekers in China:

✓	Lack of motivation: Some candidates aren’t very motivated. Because of the one-child policy, many only children have been doted on by their families since birth, and most qualified job seekers have known only a booming economy. The fact that a lot of young people still live with their parents makes the problem worse. Because their basic living expenses are covered, they don’t really need the job.
✓	Serial job hopping: Because China’s job markets have been white hot for people with bankable skills, you see ...