Hays Sales & Marketing
January - March 2012
CHINA Hotspots
The retail sector remains strong in China with many consumer goods employers opening up stores, leading to increased demand for retail operations candidates. Merchandisers, Store Managers and Sales Managers are highly sought, along with Key Account Managers and Retail Managers.
Communications Directors, Marketing Managers and Business Development specialists are also needed.
High on employer wish lists are candidates who have strong market research skills and can demonstrate flexibility. With a number of new projects this year, more leadership roles will also become available. Most of these positions require strong English skills while certain sales roles require employees to be in second and third tier cities.
More manufacturing corporations are moving to North-West areas due to cost.
Overcoming skills shortages
Employers are using internal referrals for hard to find talent in addition to head hunting and cold calling. As the China market nears saturation in terms of variety, customers have far more choices than they did before so customer service and providing a better customer experience has become a more important factor to generating sales.
Some employers are opting to bring in candidates from abroad to take on mentoring roles and they are providing more training to develop staff. We are also talking to Chinese nationals who have had international exposure to training and retail operations to encourage them to return to China.
The coming quarter
This quarter will see a number of positions open for replacement. While the majority of these will be permanent there are a small number of temporary positions available as well.
Executive recruitment
We have noted some executive level recruitment activity occurring in the sales and marketing sector. For these positions, most require strong market research skills.
Employer trends
Employers want more candidates with overseas backgrounds as they compete for experienced all rounders. We have also noted employers are increasing salaries to attract good candidates.
Candidate trends
There has been an increase in candidate movement and we are seeing employers become very selective about the candidates they are choosing. More highly qualified candidates are attracted to Eastern China due to the comparatively higher salaries they can achieve there.
