When one candidate requested a salary four times more than his previous position, Eltschinger asked why he felt he deserved such an increase. “Because you’re a foreign company. You should pay more,” was the reply.
An interesting little article from InfoWorld on the issues technology companies in China face when interviewing and employing young local talent, including a sound byte from Sam Flemming (China Word of Mouth Blog):
Other serious issues include a lack of skills and creativity, breaches of business ethics, and a dearth of understanding of how to function in a Western or other type of multi-cultural work environment….
Finding workers with basic IT skills is not a big problem for companies in need, but asking them to do more can be difficult.
“If you need someone who understands and can use the software or hardware, that’s no problem,” said Tao. “But if you need them to do something with it on their own, something creative, that’s entirely different.”
Several employers interviewed for this article complained about workers who show up completely unprepared for interviews, who start off by asking questions about what the company does and what the job entails.
“Not so much now, but earlier we got applicants who never looked at our Web site, never Googled us, and came in without the slightest inkling of who we are or what we do,” said Sam Flemming, chief executive officer of Shanghai-based CIC Data, which monitors Internet-based public opinion via bulletin boards and blogs.
Read the whole article: Finding talent a challenge for China tech firms.
August 2006
