Written by
Nancy Wang – CRM Manager
Nowadays in China, two out of every three foreign companies having business face the challenge of finding and attracting the right talent.
China’s labor supply market lacks workers with high job performance skills that are imperative to working in a foreign firm. International firms are thus facing this problem and it becomes difficult for them to find a workforce with top-notch skills.
A recruitment agency in China, also called headhunting recruitment agency, can help to solve this problem because usually these companies have years of experience in the market and know more about the current job seekers’ situation, so they can more easily match companies and job seekers.
In the article, we will explain to you what are some of the benefits to use of a recruitment agency in China and show you the steps used to find the right candidates.
What is a Recruitment Agency in China?
A recruitment agency acts as a kind of intermediary between a company that’s looking to hire someone and a job seeker who is looking for employment. At the end of the day, a recruitment agency’s main function is to find the most suitable candidate for a job opening its recruiters has been asked to fill.
But why companies and job seekers should use a recruitment agency?
For many businesses, hiring the right talent is often an arduous, and time-consuming task. One of the many benefits of using a recruitment agency is having an outside company take on the task of finding the candidates you need.
For job seekers, a recruitment agency can help because it is usually specialized in different sectors and they can effectively match job seekers with the right companies in the industries.
In addition, a reputable agency will adequately prepare you before the interview by offering tips on which questions to ask and how to present yourself as the ideal candidate.
Why Companies Should Use a Recruitment Agency in China?
From the perspective of talents, headhunting is very different from general enterprise recruitment, talent recommendation, and job introduction services.
Headhunting only seeks jobs for those who never worry about finding jobs, and provides opportunities for the most valuable talents to realize greater value and better opportunities for those who do not lack opportunities.
However, nowadays, the headhunting industry in China also provides services for different levels of positions and demands.
Below you can find some of the benefits that companies can have for using a recruitment agency in China:
- Save time: It takes time and effort to screen a large number of resumes, which leads to low efficiency and makes it difficult for HR to concentrate on recruitment and low accuracy in selecting candidates.
- Efficient screening: The resumes of the core talents of the companies are not public, so it is difficult to obtain talent information, and the back-tracking mechanism is not perfect, so there is the possibility of resume fraud.
- Effectively manage relationships with job seekers: The core high-quality talents of the enterprise have high loyalty to the enterprise, and it is difficult to recruit employees. High-end talents are very picky about the career choice, and they will change the career development platform only after they are highly recognized.
- Knowledge of the market: Since the employing department cannot fully understand the market situation, professional headhunting consultants can inform the market situation, timely adjust the expectations of the employing department, and more accurately and quickly find suitable candidates.
Headhunting Process for Companies in China
Below we want to show you the process for headhunting in China.
1. Demand Analysis
Upon receiving the requirements from the client, the first thing a headhunting consultant should do is not to search for candidates, but to conduct demand analysis, and the more detailed the better.
Background information, corporate culture, organizational structure, development strategy, management style, etc.
The aspects below should be considered:
- Department
- Structure
- Reporting object
- Job responsibilities
- On-board time
- Skill requirements
- Mandatory requirements (education, major, age, working years, working background, relevant experience, rank, etc.)
- Salary budget and composition
- Interview process
- Future career development prospect
2. Candidate Search
After full communication with the client, the headhunting consultant can have a preliminary analysis of the position according to the client’s requirements, and the talent model can also be established.
First, you should match the existing resources in your hand, if there is no appropriate, you need to use a variety of targeted contact candidates, such as the common channels like talent pool, online channels, past contacts.
After determining the target of the search, the headhunting consultant has to confirm the reliability of the resume through various means, and communicate with them to understand the candidate’s situation and intention. This information must be confirmed:
- Understand the candidate’s recent work status and confirm whether the candidate has the intention to see this opportunity
- Understand the focus of talents, communicate with the candidate about the client company and job position, and highlight the match point between the company’s highlights and the candidate’s skill expectations
- Learn more about their knowledge of the industry, the understanding of the position, the description of previous work experience
- Understand their knowledge of the client’s company and position
- Make sure the interview is convenient and inform the client of any special requirements and procedures
3. Candidate Recommendation
When the headhunting consultant confirms some suitable candidates, he will provide the candidate’s information and evaluation report to the client, seek the client’s opinion, and arrange a meeting between the candidate and the client.
A recommendation report is a form in which the client company can know about the candidate directly, so it is necessary to pay attention to details on the resume report.
State the recommendation reasons, highlight the candidate’s highlights, list specific data, highlight project experience or social resources, and show the candidate’s core strengths to the company.
Submit the report to the enterprise for review. During the submission, keep communication between the two parties at any time, coordinate the positions of both parties, and strive to reach an agreement between the two parties.
Give feedback to candidates as soon as the audit results come out. If the candidate is eliminated, make clear the reason to the enterprise side, so as to adjust the subsequent search direction.
4. Candidate Interviews
The candidate interview is a direct communication link between the candidate and the client company, which basically determines whether this order can be successful, so special attention should be paid.
You should coordinate with the HR of the client company on interview time, location, interviewer, interview rotation, expense reimbursement, and other information.
Get as much information as you can about the interviewer, such as gender, age, work background, personality preferences, interview strategies, interview questions, etc.
Conduct interview coaching for the candidates, and once again provide the client’s official website, customer business introduction, job description, positioning, and requirements, and simulation of the expected mentioned questions.
After the interview, follow up with the candidates, including the interview methods and key points, how the interviewer introduces the platform and position, what questions the interviewer asked, how the candidates answered, whether they said the next arrangements and timely communicate with the HR about the results.
5. Confirm the offer
Companies confirm employment, and during the negotiation, the executive search consultant should coordinate with both parties, not only one side.
Then you should confirm the entry time of talents, follow up the resignation procedures of talents, follow up with the salary certificate and resignation certificate.
6. Follow up
Communicate continuosly to understand the situation of the candidate in the company, and communicate also with the company to know if the candidate passed the probation period.
In case the candidate fails to pass the probation period, you can provide more help to the company to find the right talent.
How HROne Can Help Your Company With Headhunting Service
HROne specializes in the recruitment of senior, and secondary level talents coming from China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) and candidates coming from the Asia-pacific region, Europe, Australia, and North America.
We cover research in many industries, such as manufacturing, pharmaceutical, medical equipment, health, consumer products, trading, research and development, OEM, global procurement office, consulting, catering, etc.
Once the candidate is on board, we at HROne provide payroll and dispatch services if the client has a local entity, including representative offices. We can also provide PEO/EOR services if you don’t have a local entity in China.
