China Paradigm interviewed Fabien Guerin, the CEO, and Founder of Talent Fishers, to learn more about internal strategies, human resources in China and how to hire the right employees in China to build a comprehensive team.
Listen to this China podcast episode and learn advice on hiring in Asia for both businesses and job searchers.
Fabien Guerin, an entrepreneur in human resources in China: “Keep Calm and Fish Talents”
French entrepreneur in China graduated from the University of Angers in France, where he accomplished his master’s degree in Political Science. He is a recruitment expert for Asia based in China with the most professional and adapted methodologies to guarantee expected results. Today, he specialized himself in assisting mostly Western companies in hiring the right employees in China adapted to their specific needs.
According to Fabien Guerin, as quoted in China paradigm’s podcast:
‘‘We are witnessing a real talent war in China.”
The market is marked by a significant shortage of qualified professionals (language skills and technical qualifications) and very strong competitiveness between the many foreign investors. So it becomes harder and harder to find out how to hire the right employees in China. This has resulted in wage inflation and very high instability among professionals, who have no qualms about leaving their jobs quickly for better conditions.
Talent Fishers, helping companies to hire the right employees in China
The Talent Fishers Group is a leading recruitment & human resources consulting group, focused on Asia. It has seven offices; they are in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Bengaluru, and Istanbul. Talent Fishers was founded by Fabien Guerin together with a group of local and international experts with years of recruitment experience in China, Asia, and Europe. Set up in 2007 in China to support foreign-invested companies with their recruitment needs, Talent fishers also advises in terms of business culture in China.
Talent Fishers use a tailor-made an approach, articulated around 3 main aspects:
- A deep understanding of their client’s HR branding
- An “out of the box” candidate sourcing approach, not strictly limited to your very industry, but opening to a broader ecosystem, to bring variety and diversity to your teams
- A thorough process, including systematic updates to their clients
How to hire the right employees in China: Attitude is everything
“First of all, the attitude, what the person expects is something that we assess very quickly in the first couple of minutes, and then we check and confirm over the interview. Then you have the skills and the skills growth; you have to run through it to actually ensure that the candidate is not pretending to be able or having experience.”
When talking about what is the most important quality a good employee should have in the interview, Fabien Guerin strongly believes it is the attitude. According to his own words, he is not hiring people for skills, but really for their attitude.
“One thing that is extremely important as well is that I never look for copycats of my personality. I want somebody very different from me because I am a developer. I am not a farmer. At some point, the country manager tends to prefer to be a good hunter and also a good farmer, a good manager, a good coach, and that’s what we want as well.”
According to Fabien Guerin, different opinions also play an important role in making decisions, developing a decision, and brainstorming. Communicating with internal staff cannot be ignored. At Talent Fishers, they do daily WeChat communication, weekly communication internal marketing, monthly team meetings, and at least twice a year altogether face-to-face working and having fun together.
Artificial Intelligence used in human resources in China
“We have millions and tens of millions of profiles, so the AI will help us refine a little bit in the future the pool. At the end of the day, our real job is not to get 20 resumes. It is to talk to these people and to make sure they are the right people for this specific client, for this specific project.”
It may take time and money to view millions of resume. Also, it is a huge project to select a few of them who are an excellent fit for the positions. Technology is very welcome to be used in Human Resources in China; it can make the sourcing life easier and more efficient and therefore changes the business culture in China.
Understanding business culture in China matters
According to Fabien Guerin, learning different cultural backgrounds can help the company make the right decisions. Business culture in China is so diverse that it has to be understood quickly by any foreign employee.
“One thing which is extremely important is that if you want to work in Chinese companies or foreign companies don’t embrace the whole China system.”
Human resources in China and processes are not the same. So companies need to be ready to discover the reasons for doing things that it wouldn’t even imagine and interact with people in a very different way.
Listen to this episode here:
