The Asia Pacific Headhunter

Bilingual Japanese Online Job Boards

Just to add to my previous post Top 15 Japanese Online Job Boards, another generous reader and Tokyo-based search consultant Gary Bremermann of Robert Leonard Consulting, commented on two other Japanese online job boards that are bilingual. In addition to Daijob.com that was mentioned in the Gomez report, Gary recommended:

careercross.com - Tokyo-based online job board aimed at the niche market of bilingual jobs for Japanese and English speaking professionals. They have listings for full-time, part-time and temp jobs.

ecentral.jp - Aimed at bilingual professionals seeking international jobs in Japan and employers requiring bilingual candidates. They've partnered with the ACCJ, the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan.

And to add to that:

Jobba.net - a job board aimed at Japanese speakers for jobs world-wide.

Thanks Gary for your input!

 

Top 15 Japanese Online Job Boards

First of all, a big thanks to reader and freelance sourcer Bernd Kestler in Tokyo for generously sharing this find with me!

If you're interested in the Japanese market either as a jobseeker or employer - which job boards would you go to? To help sort through the different online job boards Gomez.com, a provider of on-demand web application experience management solutions, ranked 15 Japanese job boards based on user nominations and for ease of use, volume of information and content, site security and feeling of trust, and comfort in interface and service.

Here's a list of the top 15 job boards in Japan (all sites are in Japanese only except for Daijob!):

1.  Mainichi Communications (http://tenshoku.mynavi.jp)
2. Intelligence, Ltd. (http://doda.jp)
3. Recruit Co. Ltd. (http://rikunabi-next.yahoo.co.jp)
4. PROSEEK, Ltd. (http://www.proseek.co.jp)
5. SoftBANK Human Capital Corp. (http://www.ecareer.ne.jp)
6. Career Design Center Co., Ltd. (@type) (http://type.jp)
7. en-japan inc. (http://employment.en-japan.com)
8. Career Nikkei (http://career.nikkei.co.jp)
9. Mixi, Inc. (http://find-job.net)
10. Create Co., Ltd. (http://www.d-dj.com)
11. I & G Partners Inc. (http://green-japan.com)
12. JS Corporation Inc. (http://shigoto.js88.com)
13. Aidem Inc. (http://www.e-aidem.com)
14. Daijob, Inc. (http://daijob.com) In English see here (http://www.daijob.com/en)
15. Antique, Inc.(http://www.q-jin.ne.jp)

To see the fully detailed report compile by Bernd, you can download here:

Download japanese_online_jobboard_ranking.pdf

Get paid for going on a job interview

Getting paid to go on a job interview... by the company that's interviewing you???! Sounds like a far-fetched fantasy for candidates, but that's what start-up NotchUp.com is basing it's whole business model on. Candidates (preferably happily employed ones) can sign up for free, put up their (LinkedIn) profile and calculate what their interview fee would be with an interview-price calculator. This is based on your industry, job, highest educational degree, years in industry, time in current position, and current salary.

This platform is meant to cut out the recruiters and headhunters. Since companies need only pay the interview fees set up by the candidates they choose to interview, the comparable fees are supposedly lower than the recruiter's traditional placement fee which is a percentage of the new hire's first-year salary. As a recruiter, I should really discredit this model (after all, it's going after my job!), but I'm a fair person and see that everything has its merits and disadvantages.

First off, sure -- throw money into the mixture - and changing the roles of who gets paid, you'll get some interesting results. I'm sure in some cases companies -- esp. start-ups who's future depends on excellent talent can save money in placement fees by paying lower interview fees. Passive candidates (happily employed who are successful at their job) who otherwise would not put their profile up may be enticed to put their profile up if there's money in it for them. In it's best light - it may work well over regular online job boards and with a companies that work with lame recruiters who just slap up job ads everywhere and wait for whatever comes in - only to send out high-volumes of low-quality candidates to their client.

Now, here's where I see the model lacking:

First off, the point is to attract good candidates right? Good people aren't attracted just by a few hundred dollars for their time. They are attracted to good opportunities that help grow their careers and their strengths. I'd say 9 times out of 10 the candidates I recruit are attracted to the opportunity, the challenges, and the company rather than just the money.

Secondly, recruiting and headhunting isn't just about getting the right candidate to the job or vice-versa. I doubt any recruiter would be paid just for that. (Contingent recruiters usually get paid ONLY when THEIR candidate gets hired, and they usually provide a guarantee for up to 3 months - it varies of course). The hard work doesn't end there (which is where NotchUp does). Job interviews don't automatically lead to a job offer. And a job offer doesn't necessarily lead to a successful hire. There's a whole process in making the successful hire go through. Recruiters and headhunters manage people (candidates, HR managers, hiring managers, other decision-makers), people's expectations, timing, and other factors that are crucial in making a successful hire. A lot of wasted time, energy and money (in terms of lost productive work time for everyone) happens not only in the search for getting that first interview, but in the follow-through that happens after the initial job interviews. This is another part of where recruiters and headhunters provide value and service.

In the end, I seriously doubt this online platform will make a dent in the demand for good quality recruiters and headhunters out there who provide very targeted, high quality service for their clients. It certainly won't replace third party recruiters. If anything, this will probably become just another tool for recruiters to use in research.

Crazy Job Trends in Japan

The way jobs work in Japan has always been different, with "Lifetime Employment" and Freeter probably the most widely known work and career styles that continue to be quite uniquely Japanese. But I just read an article from Joi Ito's blog (which is a great read for a variety of reasons) talking about a new company who are really bringing another very innovative work style to Japan. The company is called, "Otetsudai Networks" ("otestudai" is the noun form of the verb "testudau　手伝う" - which means to help or assist someone with a task) and they take advantage of the proliferation of cellphones with GPS technology and also the preference of many young Japanese to work in ways that give them a lot of freedom.

Joi explains it best:

With Otetsudai Networks, if you are willing to work, you sign up for the service with your skills and focus, take a GPS reading on your phone and then just hang out. If you are looking for someone for say... 3 hours to man a cash register or help wash dishes, you just send the request to Otetsudai Networks and within minutes, you have a list of people available. The list shows what each person is qualified for, how others have rated their work and exactly how far away they are. Typically you will receive a list of half a dozen or more people within a few minutes.

The businesses are rated too on a per-manager basis so when you're hanging out with your friends and you get a request to go help at the corner convenience shop, you know how your peers have rated that particular guy who's asking you to come and help. You can also counter the request and say you'd go if they paid you 2000 yen / hour instead of 1500.

As more and more people start using this system, it's liable to start filling a very important gap in the workforce. It's also a perfect example of a location based, peer-to-peer reputation based, mobile behavior oriented product for an aging society.

This is a REALLY interesting idea. For employers (or anyone for that matter) who want 2 or 3 hours of work done for them it creates a great opportunity to get help quickly. For people who have flexible time situations it brings opportunities to them where they are right now. I can imagine this kind of scenario. You have an area you want cleaned and it's too big a job for one person but you only have a couple of spare hours. You look for 3 available people in your area and you could have help within minutes that serves their needs and yours.

The fact that this is all run through cell phones also means you have a way of tracing all those involved to help eliminate any possible fraud. There will be issues with quality of work for some people, but the risk is low since you can start with short periods of time and since the system becomes reputation based over time. The other barriers I can think of are possibly legal in regards to some workplaces having legal requirements for safety training for employees. None of the issues are insurmountable though. I for one will be really interested to see how this grows.

How To (Really) Impress a Headhunter

Link: How To (Really) Impress a Headhunter.

It can't be stressed enough how important strong networks are in building your career. This is essentially the advice given here in Businessweek and something that I agree with. If you're reading this article in hopes of getting calls from the headhunter with the big opportunity you want, I hope you've already been actively working on building your network.

Good advice from this article:

The best way to initiate a relationship with an executive search consultant is to be introduced by a well-connected friend, colleague, industry opinion leader, alumni pal, or fellow association or club member who knows the headhunter personally. For even the most accomplished and widely respected executives, the power of the personal reference simply can't be understated. . .

The quality of your personal and professional networks will preordain the messenger and the caliber of leadership recruiters to whom they might provide you access. This alone should serve as a reminder of why smart executives continually build, expand and, when necessary, leverage their networks. If you don't have one, you better build one.

I'd liked to add that while strong personal references will most undoubtedly lead a headhunter your way, nothing speaks louder than your performance and achievements. If you perform well, achieve high goals for your company, and basically are outstanding at what you do, you should be found.

Having said that, it's just as important that you make yourself easy to be found. Aside from the high-quality networks you've built, you need to work on your presence in your industry. By speaking and presenting at conferences, mentoring others, writing and publishing articles, newsletters or a professional blog, actively participating in or leading forums -- these are all ways to make yourself known and onto a headhunter's radar. If you're any good, and they're good at their research, you'll get that phone call.

For what to do when you do get that call read this.

Learn about Hispanic Recruiting at LatPro.com.

Where Do The Highest Paid Executives Live?

We really live in a mobile world nowadays. In particular many people will consider working not only different careers but also in many different countries during their career. There is no doubt that Asia is seen as an excellent area to move to and work for many people, at the same time many people in Asia are very interested in working in other parts of the world. The spirit of adventure drives many but if you are also interested in the power of money you might want to check out the Hay Group's 2007 World Pay Report available here (beware the link goes to a PDF download).

I like this report because it doesn't just show salary levels, it takes into account the cost of living and tax in each country to reveal disposable income levels - the true purchasing power of executive salaries for 46 countries in North America, South America, Africa, Europe and Asia Pacific. The results might really surprise a lot of people. The USA is 24th while countries like Russia, Turkey and Thailand are all in the top 10. From within Asia Hong Kong is 3rd while Thailand is 8th, Singapore 9th and China 14th. If you've been thinking hard about taking your executive skills off the beaten track then this might make you even more interested. While you might take a pay cut to go to many places your purchasing power may make up for that cut.

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Experience.com provides information on internships and entry level jobs.

The Single Most Powerful Question in Recruiting

Link: The Single Most Powerful Question in Recruiting - Articles - ERE.

Dr. John Sullivan has been called the "Michael Jordan of Hiring" by Fast Company so I think  it's worthwhile noting what he feels is the single most powerful interview question a Recruiter and hiring manager can use:

"What criteria will you use to determine whether to accept a job offer?"

Dr. John Sullivan hits it on the nose with his analogy to car salesman when they ask the customer" What is it going to take you to get into this car?"  Without asking this question of a candidate it's like putting any kind of car in front of a prospective buyer without knowing what kind of car he wants. Sportscar or family van? Does he want to go off roading or does he want an energy-efficient commuter car? Only a rookie sales person wouldn't ask this and in an employee's market it's only rookie Recruiters who forget to ask this too. The information is useful for quite a few reasons (which John notes in his article) but in my opinion it's most useful for "crafting your sales pitch", and "getting managers to change the job".

In extremely tight labor markets the ability to change a job and the way you present to a candidate are going to be key factors in getting them to choose you over another company. I find that doing this in hindsight (asking them what they want in the offer stage) is often seen as reactive by candidates and they sometimes question the legitimacy of the changes. But if you can get this question in early then you can really smooth the process.

Now from a candidate perspective, this question is just as important to you. Knowing that good employers truly value what you want should be a catalyst for you to take the time to really isolate and prioritize your wants when looking for a new opportunity. The more clear you are of what you want - what points are essential and which ones are negotiable, I think the better results you'll get in your job search.

Find thousands of Bilingual jobs at LatPro.com.

How To Find a Career in Asia

I'm often asked by people who want to move into the Asia Pacific region, especially those with training in Asian languages, "How do I get a job there?". There are also a lot of people who find themselves in Asia, gain good local language skills and knowledge who also want to leverage that into a corporate position. Now as a Headhunter I can rarely help these people directly. But I have seen a lot of people in the past use the following method to get their footstep in the door in the Asia Pacific and not just get a job, but build a career.

Firstly, remember this: you are in a very lucky position! It's unlikely that at many other times in your career will you have such a clean slate to work with on where, and what you want to do. Next, try the following steps to thoroughly to really give yourself some choice.

1. Establish the skills and experiences that make you valuable for companies. By this I mean analyzing your experience and finding great stories of how you can help others from your recent experience. Make sure you are convinced of the validity of these stories of your experience and that you can back them up with both referees and if necessary hard numbers.

2. Choose a group of 10 companies through online research where YOU think these stories will really resonate.

3. Find someone in these companies to try your story out on. Anyone will do but ideally someone who has been with the company or in the industry for more than 5 years. When you approach them ask them if you can do a quick, "information interview" on their company. Ask them what is valuable to them in an employee etc. Finally tell them one of your stories and ask them, "honestly do you think my experience is useful for your kind of company".

4. Go back to your original list of 10, from what you've learned from the people you spoke to, is your experience still valuable to them or should you look at another industry or position? If the group is right then congratulate yourself. You now have a real world understanding of where you can add value quickly. That is what companies care about, knowing this point is CRITICAL to selling yourself.

5. Now that you know the industries that will benefit from you start researching which companies you want to work for in the region. Once you have that list it's time to approach them and actually see if they have a need for you now. Often the people you spoke to in your first calls will recommend someone as long your original value and personality has resonated with them.

This may sound a little difficult but it should give you more choice that YOU want. The fact is there are many jobs for good people, if you are a good person you won't have a problem finding a job. But finding a career you love is a different story and I think the process above can help with achieving that.

Checkout Austin jobs at itzbig.com.

Interview with Doron Vermaat of NewChinaCareer.com

At Asia Pacific Headhunter, we try to be a source of useful information for those wanting to work, network or research career opportunities and the recruiting/executive search market in Asia Pacific.  I'm working on putting together a series of interviews with some key people in the recruiting industry giving insight into the uniqueness of the Asia Pacific market.

As we know, the recruitment market, especially the online job boards in China has been heating up over the past couple years with the increasing demand and shortage of talent - read Workforce.com's article on Recruiting on Asian Job Boards.

So to get behind the scenes, first up is Doron Vermaat, Managing Director of English-only China-based online job board NewChinaCareer.com which started up early this year. He talks about the online job board market in Asia, the importance of English as the medium, and gives some advice for both employers and candidates.

1. Doron, can you tell me a bit about yourself and NewChinaCareer.com?

I’m a Dutch national and have been working in the field of online recruitment for quite a while. I was part of internet startup NationaleVacaturebank.nl, a leading Dutch job board that was acquired by VNU Business Publications in late 2005. When I left after the buy-out I joined an international recruitment company where I was responsible for all online and offline marketing and branding strategies. When they wanted to expand their business to the APAC region, I found out that there wasn’t a serious English language online recruitment platform for the Greater China region. The idea for NewChinaCareer.com was born.

NewChinaCareer.com went live in January 2007 and is currently listing over 15,000 (mostly executive) jobs from over 400 companies.

2. Why come to Asia to start a job board?

We’ve been seeing the growth of online recruitment in Europe for some time now. On this side of the world, I also expect the trend to continue.  (The number of Internet users in Asia is approaching 400 million, up 241 percent from 2000, according to Internet World.)

There’s more and more demand for native English speakers by foreign companies but also by local Chinese operations who are increasingly looking to do list in Europe and the US. We are also seeing that there are a large number of Chinese students who have studied overseas and are looking for jobs back in China. NewChinaCareer.com hopes to capitalise on the fact that English will be their medium of application preference.

 3. With the boom of career sites and online job boards coming out of China, how does NewChinaCareer.com set itself apart from the other big players in Asia, such as ChinaHr.com, 51job, JobsDB etc, etc?

 Although we are new on the scene, there’s no doubt that we are already a serious player in the market. By using English as a platform medium, I am positive that NewChinaCareer.com will appeal to a particular type of sought-after professional in Greater China. For both jobseekers and recruiters, as far as I’m concerned, there is now no other alternative.

There are a variety of job boards out there, but normally the English they use is just for the site’s menus. When you get down to the details of the listing, it can often be very disappointing for users who don’t read Chinese. We offer an easy, one-stop shop for China’s top jobs and China’s top professionals.

We did a lot of research in China and it seems that the top-end multinationals are all desperate for highly-educated people. One of the things that helps us, is that because we are an English-language site, we have a built-in selection filter. You can’t post or apply on the site if you can’t read or write English.

For years, more and more expatriates, highly-educated locals and returning students have been seeking top positions in Chinese companies. By using English, the site is in the exclusive position of being able to narrow down a particular type of candidate and vacancy.

4. How do you find the online recruiting market in Greater China different from other markets, such as the US or Europe? Or is it not different at all?

The volume is extreme. The major players are job boards such as ChinaHR.com, which posts nearly 1 million jobs each day and offers 10 million registered job seekers. Another thing that surprised me at first was the usability and the look and feel of most China based job boards: Looking at them is like walking through a Hong Kong night market, with every neon advertisement hoarding trying to capture your attention.

5. What do you think are the biggest issues facing employers hiring in Greater China from an online recruiting perspective?

Hiring is through the roof in Asia, particularly in China and India.

China’s major cities generated 12 million new jobs in 2006, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China. This volume of hiring is possible only when sourcing is fully automated through employment sites.

Multinationals recruiting for professional positions on local job boards like ChinaHR.com and Zhaopin receive an extraordinarily large volume of responses and need to be prepared to target individuals.

6. What about employees? What do you think is the most important thing they should know about using the internet to find a new job in Asia?

 Be careful with using social networks to jump start your career. They attract millions of visitors every month providing lots of opportunity for individual interaction and relationship building. While this activity is indeed networking, however, the most important aspect of its description is the adjective that defines it: "social."  They should be aware that it can harm their reputation or even jeopardize their employment if their profile is full of pictures from late night party adventures or other “social” activities.

7. There is a lot of argument in the recruiting industry at least about the effectiveness of job boards. Certainly they provide a cost benefit over print advertising but they have proven to not necessarily be great source of talent. Still the huge advantage I personally see for job boards is the ability to tweak a product over time and improve. Where do you see the greatest changes and improvements coming from for Job Boards and online recruitment within Asia in the near future?

 I personally think you can only deliver a large percentage of qualified candidates if you are a niche player with a certain focus.  The problem with the large general job boards will always be the extremely large amount of unqualified candidates that apply to their clients' job postings. The biggest challenges for these job boards is to help their clients to filter this large amount of applicants. 

8. There seems to be a lot of ways that job boards are trying to change online over the last few years, with advertising on social networking sites, vertical search, paid referral systems, and social networking sites that are also job boards (phew, that was a mouthful). Despite all this change and creativity many of the larger players strictly advertising based services still continue to produce excellent revenue results. What's your opinion on all the new models that are appearing? How much is hype and how much is here to stay, or ahead of it's time?

So far the most successful job boards in terms of revenue are still the traditional web1.0 job boards like Monster.com, Careerbuilder and for Greater China ChinaHR and Zhaopin.com.

From a user's perspective I do believe in vertical job search engines like indeed.com or social networking sites like LinkedIN, but as an entrepreneur I prefer to make some money. Something that still seems to be a huge problem for web2.0 startups that are based on the Freemium business model.

9. Doron, do you think Headhunters like me (and Harry Joiner) are eventually doomed to be replaced by the internet or online savvy guys like you and Joel Cheesman?

Definitely not. I think that especially recruitment agencies and headhunters like you benefit from recruitment tools like job boards and social business networks. Besides this there will always be positions that can not be filled by companies themselves, simply because they don’t have the expertise. I think guys like me and Joel are serving both the HR community and the recruiters / headhunters but I am convinced that the last will benefit most. Simply because it’s their core business.

10. I really appreciate you talking with me Doron, is there anything else you'd like to add about NewChinaCareer.com?

 Thanks for having me Steven.

And thanks to Doron for taking the time to answer my questions.

 

ZDNet Asia - IT Employment Trends 2007

Link: A ZDNet Asia Special Report - Asia's IT Employment Trends 2007.

To get an overview of the IT employment in Asia and how you fare compared to professionals in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, India and Indonesia, ZDNet Asia conducted a salary survey of about 5000 IT professionals from these countries. With IT skills crossing various sectors, their survey includes respondents from ICT; Government, Health and Education; Legal and Finance, Media, Marketing and Sales, and Manufacturing.

Some quick info of interest:

Highest Paid IT professionals (for 5-10 years experience):

#1 Hong Kong at US$ 48,830

#2 Singapore at US$ 40,465

This drops to #3 Thailand at US$21,703, with the lowest paid being US$ 9,836 in the Philippines.

Highest paying job functions on average are in IT Management, then Project Development, Systems Development, then Other functions.

Where are the Hotspots?

Hong Kong. The opportunities are great for IT professionals, particularly in the Legal and Finance sector - as Maneck Mohan of Recruit.net noted in an interview with ZDNet Asia. Those in IT management are paid the most, especially those with over 10 years experience, where their salaries are often double or more of their entry-level colleagues.

Singapore. IT Management specialists are highly paid and sought after. Candidates who are business savvy with strong management and execution skills are what most recruiters are looking for. A recommendation from Doris Cheng, managing director of an executive search firm is to work on managing skills, in particular, managing outsourced vendors as outsourcing grows.

India. Again, IT Management skills and strong experience, especially in infrastructure management is key and hotly pursued. Best paid jobs are in the IT, Web and Telecom sectors.

Malaysia. Has become a center for outsourcing, after India and China, and so there is a growing need from MNCs there to find good IT talent, particularly those with management skills.

Overall, their findings in all countries point to the same critical skills of having strong management skills and experience, and business-savvy entrepreneurial skills that will push a technically-skilled candidate further along to the higher ranks with higher compensation.

To see specific information for each country, check here.