SARS: A GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR THE RECRUITER
By
Ms. Sandy Deng ,Associate Consultant,
Onpress Beijing
Ms. Deng was an English teacher before she joined
Onpress Beijing as a recruiter. She has
just completed her master degree in Psychology in Beijing. She possesses many talents in the people
field.
A big surprise even to the recruiters, during the SARS period, the upper-end talents moved jobs more frequently than usual; moreover, it’s been known that relatively big increases in pay have been offered to some job-hoppers.
Why did this happen, i.e., the upper-end talents market is growing very fast instead of decreasing? Here we have to take note of some facts: during the 1st quarter of this year, compared with the same period of 2002, the investments of foreign enterprises have increased substantially, and also there have more vitality and economic activities in the Chinese market. Coincidentally, the Chinese Government has relaxed the restrictions on the set up of company headquarters in the cities of China for foreign companies. Therefore, many world enterprises have set up their headquarters in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou. Undoubtedly, each headquarters that have been set up will require many management and highly trained talents. Under these circumstances, the use of recruitment services will no doubt increase. During the SARS period, Onpress International had maintained the level of contacts between the recruiter, the candidate and the client. The recruiter would use more of the telephone interviewing techniques of assessment, which are normally conducted through face-to-face interviews. Some clients wanted to use the videoconference technique in order to make up for the restrictions on travel; under these circumstances, there is still face-to-face contacts, despite the non-ideal situation and will also resolve the distance factor. Using these methods, we have been able to preserve the majority of the recruitment activities.
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Perhaps, nothing is duller than the Human Resource Exchange Conference! It used to be a major event, with more than ten thousand people in attendance; now it was desolated or was subsequently cancelled. Some positions, such as Technical Engineers and Quality Supervisors, were clearly in demand and not filled; the prospective employers needed to negotiate with recruiters for the recruitment of these positions. Such outside recruitment services were never done before. In other words, the SARS situation has created certain needs for the recruiters. So we believe, SARS has played a positive role in the HR market. It has changed the traditional way of recruitment of many ventures, especially the Minying enterprises. |
Of course, SARS has also brought a lot of inconvenience to the recruiter’s operation, e.g. it’s very troublesome for candidates to travel from an “infected area” to a “non-infected area”, and vice versa.
Onpress welcomes the end of the SARS disaster. As a recruiter, the SARS experience tells us that the Chinese economy will continue to prosper and that more professional services will be required on a continuing basis. More of such services will also be required with a high level of integrity and business ethics. All of us at Onpress will be prepared to take on such challenges.