Searching for top talent in a high-tech nation

The race to secure top talent in Chinese tech companies is heating up exponentially, with the industry growing at what is considered an explosive rate. Already, venture capital investments into Chinese start-ups have more than doubled to US$32.2billion last year, with US$4.7billion of investments collected so far this year, reported Reuters.

Finding and attracting the right tech candidates can often be a heady challenge. At times, many companies are unclear about their recruitment strategies — some hire for certain positions with little consideration of whether the roles would be a right fit for their business models or plans.  

For example, companies in traditional industries (for example, manufacturing or retail) that are looking to establish e-commerce platforms should ideally look into hiring technical roles first, such as technology and product directors, before recruiting for product operations specialists.

Although some of the sought-after skills in 2016 in China include cloud computing, Java, IOS, HTML5, PHP, UED Design and knowledge in Ten-Million-User level app operations, not every tech company should be hiring specialists for these roles. Young start-ups, for instance, should be looking for generalists who have adequate knowledge to work across these functions and are able to get things up and running quickly.

Looking out of the box

At Michael Page, we often have clients stating their preference for candidates from top-tier Internet companies. Candidates from these companies are believed to be more experienced in the design, development and troubleshooting of complex application systems as they come from companies with large customer databases. Also, such professionals typically have solid project management experience in the digital sector and often do well fitting into the “Internet culture” of being open to new challenges.

While these are valid points, we would often encourage clients to sometimes look outside the box and ask themselves: “These candidates are good, but are they good for my project? Can they get their hands dirty?”. Instead of focusing on the brands that a candidate has worked for, it is important to also focus on his or her experience as well. At times, a candidate from a second or third-tier company may have had a track record of successful project management across industries.

Evaluate carefully whether candidates are the right fit in terms of personality as well. Sometimes those from first-tier companies may not be able to work well with a start-up’s frequent direction changes. A wrong hire will often result in more money spent to hire replacements.

From attraction to retention

After the right candidate is hired, the next challenge is often retention. In China’s tech industry, movement across jobs is relatively high.

Remuneration is an important factor in retention. Although rare, there are candidates who have increased their salaries by 200% in 2 ½ years just by switching jobs, indicating the importance of competitive increments. In the industry, increments can range from 10 to 60%, with candidates in the “hotter” tech areas, like big data and cloud computing, getting the highest raises.

Still, retention strategies should not be completely focused on the money. In the 2016 Greater China Employee Intentions Report , 52% of those in mainland China surveyed said that the lack of new challenges was one of the reasons why they would consider leaving their current job. Employees should ideally create opportunities for employees to work with new technology, like artificial intelligence or virtual reality, and get them engaged in new projects.