What's up with Chinese recruiters?!

[Alex Whiteman]

- I'm not sure this belongs in the other thread. -


  Lately, I've been ignoring a bunch of mails from recruiters asking upfront how much money I want. . . or things like how long does my visa last, pictures. . . Often failing to introduce themselves properly - so that I find myself scanning the entire mail for a name - something! - to put in google or the LinkedIn search. . . often to conclude I don't even know who the hell is contacting me; shrug shoulders and move on.
 

  Yesterday, for example, I decided to stop replying to one who seemed to think it's ok to just completely ignore my questions and try to force things forward money-wise. Total anonymity and broken English. . .
Had to google his/her QQ to confirm he/she is, after all, a recruiter for the company he/she claims to be for. . .

Is this a cultural Chinese thing?  . . .or only sketchy companies trying to scam you do this? Both?

Companies with western culture still contact you the "right" way - the recruiter introduces himself/herself and asks relevant questions about your qualifications/experience. . .

Also, I was once told (more or less indirectly) by one of these "western-style" recruiters that he was doing the hiring because the local ones had not been doing a good job (reaching out to foreigners, I suppose). So it's a cultural thing?

[gato]

Had to google his/her QQ to confirm he/she is, after all, a recruiter for the company he/she claims to be for. . .

Is this a cultural Chinese thing?

 

Are they contacting you through QQ?  No legitimate recruiter would make initial contact through QQ.

[Alex Whiteman]

No, but this last one was using QQ mail.

I googled his/her number and up came a Chinese page with a zhaopin for engineers for the company in question. . .

Some are better than others. . . but all are about the same.

[tysond]

I am finding stories from your search interesting.

Perhaps I can share some things I learned while hiring in China that might help.

 

Most CVs I receive have all information including previous salary, sex, marital status, number of children, party membership status, photograph, requested salary etc.  Admittedly I have never met a candidate that looks like their photograph, but it's there.  They will usually try to verify your previous salary before employing you, because they don't want to overpay for you.

 

So you could eliminate these questions by supplying the information they are used to seeing.  

 

The recruiters are probably working for 3rd party companies (this is super common) and the one who makes the placement will make the commission.  The actual hiring manager may have put this position out to multiple companies.  Unless they are going to represent you, there's no point in them getting to know you.  If you don't fit the budget, they cannot represent you.   The recruiter wants to find 2-3 candidates who fit the budget, and keyword match the job, so they can come back with choices for the client and have a chance to get the commission.  

 

For the kinds of jobs that foreigners are needed to do -- I don't think this is an appropriate search strategy.  But for every hot-shot recruiter who's working on a job that's suited for you (but can't find you), I bet there are 999 half-assed recruiters who are trying to fill a requisition with anyone they can and will send you an email or two to see if you are the one.   Remember also you are in competition with English speaking foreigners from other countries who may be well and truly willing to work for a lower salary than you expect - e.g. India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Philippines, etc.

 

Every foreigner I know here who is working either came in via teaching and found something on the ground, had existing network and landed a job through it, or transferred over via international company internal transfer.  Not saying the recruiter route can't work, I just haven't seen it yet.

[Lu]

Don't know about recruiters specifically, but email etiquette in China can be very... different from the West. Not including a name is not uncommon; doing serious business from a hotmail or sina address is completely normal and not necessarily a red flag, and QQ is used as a tool to send files. As to the broken English, you can hardly blame them, no? The obvious workaround would be to handle the communications in Chinese.

 

Of course if someone is not meeting your professional standards, it might result in you writing them off and them loosing out on an opportunity, and that's their loss. On the other hand, if this is a very common thing even among recruiters who otherwise seem legit, you perhaps need to reconsider your standards for the time being.

[Alex Whiteman]

I do. I absolutely agree.

What keeps me back is mistrust - fueled, in particular, by all the stories about employers using lies and taking advantage of circumstances to get employees working illegally (and then taking advantage of the consequent vulnerability to screw them many times over).

I would need a better way to tell legit from non-legit but there probably isn't one.


To not sound like a bigot I can say I actually replied to this last guy in Chinese - answering his "graduation date", marital status and wage expectations questions.
I also asked him one or two simple things about the company. . .
He only replied a line that was like: "Are you in Shenyang? The boss is very interested in you; you can discuss the wage with him!"
(third/fourth line of my CV states my location - which is certainly not Shenyang)
 

I don't know anymore. . . I could reply to that but. . . how? what for?. . . he did not read my CV. . . let alone the "boss". . .  what boss anyway? his? mine? when? there was no time. . . I'm not in Shenyang. . . why would I be in Shenyang if the job is in Guangdong?. . . someone save me. . . 
 

I'm not trying to disparage anything; I really mean it that I have problems figuring out how to take these mails seriously.
At best, my gut feeling is that it's a scam and I'm playing along.

Maybe I need time (and some linden tea). . . looks like it'll be a long search. . .

Truth be told, if these communications made sense to me content-wise I wouldn't mind how broken the English was.
Ask me in broken English why would you hire me or how does my experience relate to my future job. . .
I'm also a non-native speaker after all. . .
. . .but then again, as said, it might be just a recruiter who doesn't care about these things; not that that was ever clear as it's a "QQ number" that's talking to me.

-

As for the lack of personal info in my CV I plead guilty. 
. . .except for the photograph which I do have - although it didn't stop one of these from requesting "several" ones. (my last whine)

Thanks all.

[Lu]

I would need a better way to tell legit from non-legit but there probably isn't one.

Guanxi? If you know anyone who found a job though a certain recruiter, that would be a good sign that that recruiter is legit.

 

Can anyone call themselves a recruiter? If so, there are probably tons of people faking it till they're making it, many of them with little clue on how to look professional and legit, and you wading through tons of them before occasionally finding one that knows their business. Must be a very frustrating situation.

[roddy]

Recruitment, like many fields in China, is largely new, unregulated and unprofessional. This does not make for orderly behaviour. Use a disposable email address or phone number (seriously, it's worth buying a cheap mobile and pay-as-you-go SIM for this) and put up with it. 

 

Same goes for renting an apartment and probably hundreds of other things. 

[Tianjin42]

This is a very interesting thread to me. I gradually became more and more involved with a recruitment group here (Beijing). I see it as a great means to get an insider view on things (essentially it is a Chinese company) and I will probably do a post at some point to let everyone know about it (and declare an interest).

 

When I started co-operating there were certainly some practices that I wouldn’t have employed (but even then it wasn’t bad). There were some small issues similar to some mentioned above. However it was clear that a lot of those things were simply accepted practice locally and in the team I was assisting at least – there was certainly nothing malicious.

 

Since then I have been changing things a little and as a model the team tries to follow the British guidelines for recruiting (REC). The team here actually embraced it with zeal of convert and a lot of candidates are clearly surprised by the interviews and manner of contact (that is fair enough – during my first year in China I did my fair share of piss-poor interviews where the employer hadn’t checked my C.V., turned up late etc so it makes a change).

 

The point about guanxi is a good one. The majority of candidates (both for teaching and non-teaching jobs) this team hires originally get in touch through word-of-mouth recommendations. It is worth a lot if a colleague/ friend says they are legit.   

[Lu]

Since then I have been changing things a little and as a model the team tries to follow the British guidelines for recruiting (REC). The team here actually embraced it with zeal of convert

I wonder if a (large?) part of the sloppy, unprofessional-looking practices aren't because people just honestly don't have a clue. As Roddy says, this is a fairly new field, perhaps ten or twenty years ago it barely existed, so there is hardly anyone telling people what are some good practices. They may simply just not have the models and are just throwing whatever they can think of at the problem in the hope that something works.

Similar to white collar work in general. The reason that books like 杜拉拉 sell well is that for large numbers of people, 杜拉拉 is the only person really explaining them how to do stuff. Their parents never had such a job, their friends are also just starting out, their bosses perhaps pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and don't really know how to explain simple things, or expect them to already know it.

[Alex Whiteman]

Ha! I knew I wasn't crazy!

http://answers.echinacities.com/question/whats-oddest-question-you-were-asked-interview-china?type=alatest#lastcomment

[Suzee]

Can I state here I am a Chinese employer but even Chinese job applicants can ask silly questions.  I advertised for a person to work as an office assistant and also fill in as a co-teacher/translator to work with foreign English teachers when I am not available.  A woman came for an interview and when I asked her to speak English she asked "can I just speak Chinese to you as my English is not very good and I am too scared to speak English to foreigners" .  She actually started to cry when I told her I could not hire her.

[Summer Song]

According to my personal experience, recruiters as you described are probably not from a big and formal company. When I got a interview invitation emails from xxxx@qq.com, I usually ignore it. I prefer accepting invitation letters sent from an email address with its company name as suffix, such as xxx@lenove.com.