finding talent

How does Michael Page attract the best talent for your business?

Simone Wu — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 11:29:18 +0000

How does Michael Page attract the best talent for your business? Simone Wu

If there’s anything the highly competitive job market is telling us today, it’s that sieving out the ideal job candidate is far from what it used to be. The simple task of posting a job advert on online job portals has now morphed into a full-scale digital contest that requires man-hours, resources, money and a snazzy-looking website.

Getting the attention of the right job candidates has become a skill that few companies have managed to get right. Time, however, equals money, and recruiting the right talent for your job should not be a difficult task.

This is where we, at Michael Page, come in. Whether you’re thinking about expanding your team, or simply want to draw on the untapped potential of young recruits, here’s how we can help make the hiring process seamless and, most importantly, effective.

Access to high-quality candidates

A recruitment agency is only as good as its experience and network of candidates. With a total of 149 offices in 37 countries worldwide, as well as over 40 years of recruiting knowledge under our belt, we have our finger on the pulse when it comes to even the most specialist markets.

Our in-house research team and senior consultants are constantly mapping out markets at a local, regional and global level, so they have a pool of highly-skilled, pre-screened and pre-referenced candidates at their disposal — which makes it easier to pinpoint the exact individual you and your team are looking for.

Saving precious time

Our extensive pool of professionals, with their innate understanding of both candidates’ needs and recruiters’ requirements, can shorten the time it takes for you to fill your vacant positions — especially in niche disciplines where exceptional talents are few and far between.

The hiring process can also be extremely time-consuming, and a recruitment agency will do the extra legwork of screening each candidate for interest and comparability before handing them over to you for consideration. This includes ensuring the candidates’ information is accurate by following up on references and conducting preliminary interviews.

Candidates who are highly selective or not actively job seeking are also notoriously hard to find. This can be due to a number of reasons that range from being too busy to search for jobs to simply not being sufficiently enticed by current job advertisements. Employing specialist consultants who are experts in their industries, Michael Page has a higher chance of leveraging its extensive global network to connect you to candidates with the right skill sets and experiences, many of whom might be way off the radar of in-house hiring teams.

Market knowledge

Through conversations with both organisations and candidates, recruiters are able to gain knowledge about the sector they are dealing with and can provide valuable advice to both parties. Knowledge of current salary rates, career expectations and market trends is also key to ensuring that either side is satisfied, which adds to the assurance that both parties will be committed for the long haul.

At Michael Page, we specialise in advising top companies in many of the most sought-after employment sectors globally. We cover professions ranging from technology and healthcare to banking and financial services. To find out more about these sectors and many others, explore our Recruitment Expertise here.

Company representation

Partnering closely with recruitment agencies like Michael Page can give potential candidates a better insight into your business. Like ambassadors, they can represent your company as an employer of choice, with a finely-honed ability to communicate your firm’s benefits, job descriptions and workplace culture, making the position even more attractive to your dream candidate.

A seasoned recruitment partner will also be incredibly valuable when it comes to clarifying any points that may arise from public platforms like Glassdoor, as well as social media.

Candidates > Applicants

Most job adverts are aimed at attracting applicants, many of whom end up applying on a whim. The problem is that many such applicants are not strong matches for the role, resulting in a lot of time invested in assessing, filtering and communicating with these hopefuls.

Because recruiters like Michael Page place priority on you, the employer, only strongly aligned candidates who have been pre-selected, and are worthy of consideration and interview, are thrust into the spotlight. This allows the organisation to only focus on a smaller pool of highly qualified interviewees, which translates into a far better candidate experience – a significant factor for job seekers when choosing a new employer. This positive employer branding makes it easier to attract talent far and wide.

Planning ahead

It’s important to look to the future. This means creating the right foundation to make hiring more efficient and facilitating workforce scaling when needed. Michael Page supports companies by providing a dedicated accounts team that will help you plan for the short, medium and long term so that you always stay one step ahead.

We also provide a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) solution that can help when multiple hires are needed across different locations at various levels so that you always stay one step ahead of the competition without the added stress of needing additional resources.

The candidate-driven job market is a tricky one to navigate, but any discerning employee will attest that using the right recruitment agency makes the hiring process an easy — even enjoyable — experience for both potential hires and the firm.

Start a hiring conversation with Michael Page to find out how you, too, can reap the many benefits of a leading global recruitment agency.

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Michael Page

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How to identify resumes created by AI or ChatGPT

Simone Wu — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 06:38:34 +0000

How to identify resumes created by AI or ChatGPT Simone Wu

So, how do you differentiate between a resume penned by a human and one by a machine? For one, look for subtleties. Algorithms often miss the nuances that come with human experience.

They may cram in job-specific jargon but miss the mark on the emotional intelligence that can only be conveyed through human words.

To increase your chances of identifying AI resumes and weeding them from the recruitment process, here are some things to note:

How to identify AI-generated resumes

1. Identify uniform, repetitive language

AI-crafted resumes frequently resort to monotonous and repetitive expressions. These documents are shaped by expansive data algorithms that inherently include recurring language structures, specific phrases and keywords. For instance, you may encounter the phrase, “I am a highly motivated and results-oriented individual,” echoed multiple times in an AI-powered resume.

2. Look for generic language

An AI-generated resume often uses generic language and all the “right words” that could apply to anyone in a particular field. Phrases such as “Possessing strong analytical and problem-solving skills” may surface, but without the substantive examples one would expect from a human applicant.

“AI-generated resumes often sound like generic job descriptions. They would contain very general action words without tangible or relevant information,” adds Imeiniar Chandra, Regional Director at Michael Page Indonesia.

3. Look for a lack of personalisation

AI-generated resumes often lack the personal touch that a human writer would bring to the document. For example, an AI-generated resume might not mention the specific job that the applicant is applying for or the skills and experience that are relevant to the position.

4. Look for unnatural sentence structures

AI resumes may occasionally betray themselves through awkward sentence constructions. Rooted in machine learning algorithms, these documents are trained on text datasets that may not strictly adhere to conventional grammatical norms.

Here are some examples:

Disconnected phrases: “In my previous role, I increased sales and adept in Python.”
Ambiguous statements: “Experienced in tasks, I have done many.”
Overly formal language: “Utilised my competencies to effectuate revenue augmentation.”
Illogical sequences: “Fluent in English, Bahasa, and JavaScript.”
Redundancy: “I am a person who is highly skilled in programming and also I have programming skills.”

5. Review by multiple people

A multi-faceted review and selection process involving several team members can offer invaluable insights into a resume’s authenticity. For enhanced scrutiny, consider including individuals who have honed their resume evaluation skills before the ChatGPT era.

6. Use an AI content detector

In the battle against AI-powered resumes, consider using machine learning countermeasures. Screening tools like Sapling AI Detector and Copyleaks are not merely surface-level scanners; they delve deep into the text, identifying language patterns, flagging unnatural sentence structures, and even sniffing out plagiarised content.

7. You be the judge

If you are a seasoned hiring manager or recruiter, you already possess a treasure trove of insights from hiring processes in the era before machine-generated resumes flooded the job market.

Your firsthand experience can serve as your best sensor. When the language of a resume appears too polished or utilises almost perfect phrases, it could very well be the handiwork of AI algorithms.

The future?

As AI continues to transform the hiring process, expect to see more AI-developed resumes flooding your inbox. In this AI-dominated world, the resume game has clearly changed. It’s time to adapt or get left behind.

AI is here to stay; if you can’t beat them, join them. But first, learn to identify them. Consider this your cheat sheet in the era of the AI-driven resume revolution. Welcome to the future; it’s written in algorithms.

Looking for a recruitment partner that understands your needs as you grow? Get in touch with us, and we can share more on the value Michael Page brings to your organisation.

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Simone Wu

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Why candidate experience matters and how to do it well

Simone Wu — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 03:09:18 +0000

Why candidate experience matters and how to do it well Simone Wu

The competition for the job market is heating up and as the fight for top talent gets more intense, so has the focus on two of the most important words that can set businesses apart from the rest: Candidate experience.

Now that information – both positive and negative – about companies is more readily available, and that candidates are less restricted by geography, the increasingly competitive job market has meant that every aspect of the hiring process matters now more than ever.

Building an engaging candidate experience requires thinking about every step of the journey to ensure that the message is consistent across the board — and ultimately, that your company is one worth working for.

According to Michael Page’s Talent Trends 2022: The Great X Report, there has been a wave of resignations in Hong Kong as 42% of our respondents have only been at their current job for less than two years. Our research also found that 76% of respondents will be looking for new career prospects over the next six months.

With the pandemic forcing home life and work-life into the same physical space, people now view their work and lives more holistically. Employees are re-evaluating what constitutes quality work, and they want it to be purposeful.

According to our findings, 69% of respondents in Hong Kong are willing to accept a lower salary or forgo a pay rise or promotion for better work-life balance, overall well-being and happiness.

What does all that have to do with the candidate's experience?

As the first-stage job seekers interact with your company, the candidate experience is highly crucial because it immediately influences their decision to apply to your company and subsequently, accept your job offer should they be selected. There are, however, still businesses that do not fully appreciate the sizeable ripple effect of the candidate experience.

An astonishing nine out of 10 respondents surveyed for our Talent Trends 2021 report recounted frustrating experiences during the interview stage, and more than half of them stated that these dissatisfactions would eventually affect their decision to accept a job offer.

When candidates have multiple job offers, they tend to go for the employer that made them feel welcomed during the interview experience, and many times, it is not necessarily the offer with the best remuneration.

What makes a great candidate experience?

The application process: Creating a better candidate experience requires businesses to review their recruiting process from pre-application to onboarding. To start, make your candidate’s job search process as fuss-free as possible.

This means ensuring that your company website’s careers section and job descriptions are clear and straight to the point while keeping your online job application process seamless.

Making your careers page engaging and as easy to find as possible, while giving clear application instructions, are also practices you should implement.

The way hiring personnel communicates: Following that, the way the company's recruiters, HR personnel or hiring manager communicate with candidates for their job interview contributes to the candidate experience as well. This refers to the phone or video call to the candidates, and the way interview details are communicated.

The interview: The interview process can be tricky to navigate. The three most common frustrations faced by candidates are a lack of follow-up; a lack of transparency regarding job expectations and remuneration; and an unnecessarily long and tedious interview process.

Candidates don’t enjoy feeling left in the dark, and a lack of communication is frustrating. Respecting the candidate’s time with the right number of interviews and following up quickly absolutely impacts their overall experience.

According to Google’s oversight of its own hiring process, four interviews are more than enough to make an informed hiring decision — all you have to do is ask the right questions. Those who make it through should be kept updated on the remaining steps of the interview, such as who will be carrying out the interview or what test assignments can be expected.

The candidate experience has never been more important, now that hiring in most parts of the world has moved online. In fact, 86% of organisations made the switch to virtual interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced businesses to rethink how they can connect and provide information to candidates to the same extent as they would for physical, face-to-face interviews.

Giving candidates projections for the business, both during and after the pandemic, can also help establish trust and prevent blindsiding in the future. Making digital interviews convenient by utilising video technology, and closing the loop with regular check-ins and feedback, can eliminate any gaps in communication.

After the interview: The way a company follows up after a job interview significantly affects the candidate's experience too. Candidates talk to each other, especially when they are from the same industry, and you want them to recommend your company to others, or even apply for another job in the future. Whether an organisation extends a job offer to the candidate or not, it is crucial for the company to provide clear and timely feedback.

Rejected candidates who had a poor experience will also likely tell others, creating negative publicity that will affect your ability to attract potential talent in the future.

Glassdoor has also found that its users read at least six reviews before forming an opinion of a company. In addition, 70% of job seekers now look to reviews before making career decisions.

Research by Talent Board, a not-for-profit organisation focusing on candidate experience, revealed that as many as 35% of job candidates who had a bad experience with a company shares it via social media, as well as by writing reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed— so a candidate’s experience will often travel quickly via word of mouth.

Being consistent from pre-application to interviews and finally, the moment when the candidate officially joins the team is indicative of how a company truly values its people. The onboarding process plays just as important a part in the candidate experience as the other stages of hiring.

A good candidate experience contributes to a strong talent brand

The candidate experience is important, and that’s not only because 65% of candidates say a bad interview experience makes them lose interest in the job. It’s also a major component of employer branding: how companies treat their employees can define their brand and reputation for years to come.

Interviews are innately awkward since they are essentially intimate conversations with a complete stranger. Because the candidate is in a vulnerable position, taking some time to make them feel more comfortable during the interview will make them want to tell other people about their experience.

Shift your communication with candidates to better align with their priorities. Interviews should no longer be treated as grilling sessions — they must evolve to become conversations that map out mutual interests, values and passions.

Companies that can relate to a candidate’s desired purpose will find it much easier to convince people to join them when competitors are outspending them.

A strong candidate experience is good for business

Revenue is another reason why the candidate experience is so crucial today. Businesses that fail to provide the same experience for their prospective candidates as they do for their customers are costing some companies millions in lost revenue.

Virgin Media, for example, receives 150,000 applications every year, but only hires 3,500 of them. Because of lapses during the interview process, 7,500 of these applicants in 2015 were sufficiently upset enough to cancel their contracts and sign up with Virgin Media’s competitors instead, costing the company US$6 million in lost revenue each year.

The company updated its hiring process to focus on creating a candidate experience so positive that it would even attract new customer opportunities from the people it engaged with, despite not landing the role.

Just as a company assesses the suitability of a candidate, job seekers are always evaluating whether the company is a good fit for them. By grasping the importance of a candidate’s journey and designing the recruiting process around respect, trust and welfare, firms are sharpening their competitive edge in the burgeoning job market.

Discover the latest in our 2022 Talent Trends report, The Great X. This survey report covers what hiring professionals need to know to address talent attraction and retention for the year ahead. It also highlights a change of times in the hiring outlook as job candidates and employees now prioritise their well-being more than ever. Download our report to find out more.

Michael Page

PageGroup Talent Insight of the Greater Bay Area: the market is maturing with a bright future ahead

Simone Wu — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 19:51:00 +0000

PageGroup Talent Insight of the Greater Bay Area: the market is maturing with a bright future ahead Simone Wu

As one of the earliest professional human resources service providers based in the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau, we have recently launched an exclusive column – “Talents Empowering the Greater Bay Area”.

We interviewed senior talent recruitment experts from PageGroup with more than 10 years of experience in the Greater Bay Area to share and discuss their insights and outlook on the talent market.

The Greater Bay area was one of the earliest regions to open up and also one of the most economically dynamic regions. Its first-class infrastructure makes the flow of people and product transportation more convenient and efficient; it’s one of the global shipping centres, an ideal base for the import-export trade.

Today, the Greater Bay Area aims to be a dynamic world-class city cluster and focuses on building a global technology and innovation centre with global influence. In the last decade, many companies have seized this historic opportunity to take root and flourish in the Greater Bay Area. More and more talents worldwide have also seen the unlimited possibilities in the area and are willing to come here to work hard and realise their dreams.

Different industrial structures of Guangzhou and Shenzhen offer development opportunities.

Overall, the talent pools in the Greater Bay Area mainly cluster in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, with the most recruitment needs and the highest talent flow rate in financial services, technology, high-tech manufacturing and consumer goods. Since 2020, some industries have experienced obvious changes, and the development pattern varies in different regions.

Guangzhou is an outpost of China’s reform and opening-up. With a developing and maturing market, new industries and companies join in, bringing vitality and changes. Many FMCG giants entered China and were headquartered in Guangzhou in the 1990s, so many foreign companies here were from traditional industries.

Cindy Li, Director at Michael Page Guangzhou, points out that the development of the ABCD industries (AI, Biomedical, Cyber Security and Data) has recently received tremendous support from the Guangzhou government. And the transformation of some traditional industries has also been accelerated by seizing the good development timing.

“For example, some new energy companies that were first traditional manufacturers of machine parts have shifted from fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles to meet their customers’ iterations. They are stepping into the new energy industry”, she says.

Another noticeable change she has observed is the continuous penetration of digital transformation across industries. “This change is not only limited to foreign and mainland commercial banks. It also affects big-data-driven industries, such as pan-finance and consumer goods, as well as the digital transformation of industrial chains across industries”, she adds.

In contrast to Guangzhou, a city with lots of foreign companies that entered early in China, the industries of the Shenzhen-Dongguan area, known as “China’s Silicon Valley”, have a typical dumbbell structure.

Jesaline Huang, Managing Partner at Page Executive, explains: “One end of the dumbbell is numerous entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies which attract massive capital, bringing vitality to the investment in Shenzhen. The other end is giants like Huawei, Tencent, Mindray and Vanke, which have developed here for decades.”

She adds, “There are lots of entrepreneurial companies in Shenzhen serving as the upstream or downstream of the giant companies, making the industrial structure lack strength in the middle.” Looking ahead, she believes that “based on this industrial structure, the small companies will grow and get private financing to become medium-sized companies with RMB 10-billion sales and RMB 30-billion to 50-billion market values. Some candidates with long-term vision will join and grow with the small companies and then become the initial members of the medium-sized companies.”

Talents in Guangzhou and Hong Kong integrate deeply; Generation Z pursues self-realisation.

The “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau integration” is the feature of the business culture in the Greater Bay Area. Hong Kong’s systems and modes significantly affect the development of Guangdong province.

In the early stage of market development, talents from Hong Kong showed advantages in management positions with their international perspectives and abundant experience in capital markets. However, this trend is changing as the Greater Bay Area matures.

“In the past, if companies chose to list in Hong Kong, they would favour candidates from Hong Kong because they knew the local rules better. But now, such regional advantages are gone. Companies are looking for talents with a fused background.”

Jesaline says, “Now candidates from Hong Kong need to proactively know companies and their cultures in Mainland China. Otherwise, they will be irrelevant. Simultaneously, the talents from Mainland China working in Hong Kong are starting to return. They are competitive with their Mainland background and work experience in Hong Kong.”

Alex Gu, Regional Director at Michael Page Shenzhen, shares that talents from Hong Kong also have several advantages in terms of business ideas and institutions. “Hong Kong has a solid foundation and deep accumulation in the absolute maturity of the market economy. Professionals working in Hong Kong today, such as lawyers and accountants, still have a clear advantage in their professionalism in the business and workplace.”

Company culture and leaders’ values play an increasingly important role in attracting talents. The new generation of professionals, especially the post-95s and post-00s who grew up in an era of material abundance, show lower needs for materials and money than their predecessors; they have higher requirements for spiritual resonance and recognition.

“The young professionals believe work should be valuable and meaningful and are less likely to work for material and money. As a result, they need more spiritual and equal communication from the organisation”, Jesaline says.

She points out that different intrinsic career drivers attract the younger talents, “They admire the role models (workplace icons). If they think one person or company is worth following or joining, they will even give up some benefits and jump in to shine and realise their values.”

From her standpoint, managers with personal charisma are advantageous in attracting talents to the Greater Bay Area. “The successes of many companies have resulted from their dreams of changing the world. Such values can carry their employees further and longer.”

Two decades of deep ploughing in the Greater Bay Area for a limitless future.

With two decades of deep ploughing in this area, Michael Page has accumulated an extensive talent network and built robust customer relationships. Our offices in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou serve many domestic and foreign companies from different industries, including companies in the stages of start-up, transformation, expansion, or even going abroad, as well as pre-IPO companies intending to list in Hong Kong. The job functions cover all the major functional positions in the key sectors such as finance, technology, FMCG and retail, healthcare, real estate, etc.

We are accumulating experience and broadening our boundaries as policies and markets change. Not only do we assist companies in talent recruiting, but we also play the role of consultant, sharing and discussing issues such as talent strategy and planning. We hope to move forward with our customers in this developing market.

Billy Chan, Regional Director at Michael Page Guangzhou, looks into the future of the Greater Bay Area and points out, “As the regional integration goes deeper, the interconnection between cities will be more closely integrated, and the cultures of different regions will become more compatible. Companies in the Greater Bay Area will become more systematic, more scaled, and closer to the international standards.”

Alex believes, “In the future, the Greater Bay Area will become a market with the feature of local competition and overall cooperation. Each city in this area will have its own major industries. And the real interconnection between the cities’ ecosystems will be one development direction.”

In terms of attracting talent, Alex summarises, “The Greater Bay Area will be a favourable place for returned talents, especially for those in the technology innovation field, and new generation talents with international vision and pioneering spirit.”

Michael Page

finding talent

5 common hiring pain points every hiring manager in Hong Kong can relate to

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 08:20:33 +0000

5 common hiring pain points every hiring manager in Hong Kong can relate to Anonymous (not verified)

With countries around the world experiencing varying levels of economic downturn, businesses might think that now is a good time to maintain (or even reduce) headcount and take a more conservative approach to recruitment. The truth, as Sharmini Wainwright, Senior Managing Director at Page Group, wrote in a recent article, is that it really depends on your industry, business needs, as well as financial circumstances. “Faced with questions from clients asking us whether they should delay their team’s hiring, my teams’ answers are typically pragmatic. You have the budget available, the talent available, and the chance of a first-mover advantage? If the answer to each question is ‘Yes’, then now may actually be the best conditions for hiring that you’ll find in the near future.”

With that said, the same hiring challenges your business faced before the pandemic will likely persist in the weeks and months after. Here is a list of common pain points we hear from our clients, and the one thing you can do to make ‘recruiting the best and most suitable talent ’that much easier in the post-COVID world.

1. Senior management roles are hard to fill

Hiring for senior management positions was tricky enough before the pandemic. For one, several pieces need to fall in the right places for the relationship to work for all parties. For example, beyond the credentials and experience on paper, senior management roles often require a solid set of soft skills as well, such as leadership, teamwork and the ability to learn. A reluctance to change jobs during an economic downturn is only going to make the process that much longer and more arduous.

2. Specialty field + Specialty role = Especially difficult

The challenges associated with filling senior roles are further exacerbated in niche fields that require candidates to have comprehensive prior training and certification to even be considered. Take healthcare interior design, for example. Healthcare facilities are designed not just to meet the practical needs of patients and medical practitioners alike, they also have to adhere to a whole host of different regulations — and these regulations change all the time. This means that an extensive career in residential, corporate and commercial interior design is simply not enough. This individual has to have a finger on the latest regulatory developments and make adjustments to the healthcare facility accordingly — a tall order for those unfamiliar with the field.

3. Trying to fill urgent roles, fast

In a recent interview, Anthony Thompson, Regional Managing Director, Asia and Executive Board Director of PageGroup, foresees an upcoming war for talent, “When we moved into this pandemic, there was very much a war for talent. There will be another war for talent on the way out. Companies will want to hire across all sectors. We’ve seen it in all past crises. It’s just a matter of when.” Opportunities, too, will come hard and fast once the economy stabilises, which means that companies will likely experience a sudden uptick in manpower needs.

This is where the pain point comes in: filling an urgent role fast, if not done with care, often comes at the cost of a quality hire. Instead of making the right hire, time-strapped businesses sometimes opt for making a hire right now. Traditional methods of recruitment like job boards are not the best options because they rely more on candidates reaching out, which can be a passive, time-consuming process.

4. Hiring in a new market is a challenge

Entering a brand new market is challenging enough as it is. Aside from local rules, regulations and cultural differences, companies also have to contend with finding the right candidates and building a team from scratch. While big-name multinational companies might not have as much trouble attracting talent due to name recognition alone, small-to medium-sized enterprises without a prior presence in Hong Kong might not have such luxuries. In short, unless you have local partners to work with, it is hard to know what the talent pool is like, how best to reach out to the very best and what they expect from employers.

5. Conventional solutions are too general for my needs

Conventional recruitment strategies typically involve posting vacancies on job boards. And while these methods still play an important role in the future of recruitment, they are certainly not one-size-fits-all solutions. With the competition for talent fiercer now than ever before, businesses want tailored, more targeted services to differentiate themselves, and this extends to their hiring solutions and approach to bringing top talent in as well. Furthermore, most candidates visit job boards to look for vacancies either because they are actively looking for a new job or are interested in the available prospects — but what about those who aren’t considering a career change in the first place? Passive candidates form a large reservoir of untapped opportunities for employers, and the only way to reach them is a tailored, more targeted approach through other channels, such as social media newsfeed or message ads.

The one thing you can do

The hiring market is changing every day, and the way we find and attract talent must evolve along with it. That is why a digital recruitment strategy is becoming an up-and-coming trend in the world of hiring.

Instead of relying solely on job boards and company websites to do the leg work, a comprehensive digital recruitment strategy reaches a bigger pool of talent by advertising across various digital channels, such as Google, LinkedIn, as well as niche job sites that cater to specific sectors. Casting a wider net also addresses some of the most pressing pain points mentioned above, such as the need to fill urgent roles. Instead of the usual text-based job description, a comprehensive digital strategy also utilises creative tactics, such as video content, to showcase the role and the business at large — perfect at capturing the interest and attention of time-short professionals.

This means embracing and implementing a more targeted approach to sourcing, selecting and hiring candidates, from active and passive candidates to senior roles and talent in brand new markets, will take less time than ever before — and with much better ROI, too. Businesses who use this approach can therefore hire smarter and hire faster in this new normal.

To find out more on how we can help implement your digital recruitment strategy, click on the banner below:

Michael Page

finding talent

Hong Kong’s Legal market

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 05:41:25 +0000

Hong Kong’s Legal market Anonymous (not verified)

2019 thus far has been dominated by geopolitical events, speculations and a constant news cycle regarding trade policies and market trends. Most recently, the ongoing Hong Kong political situation has come to play an important role and we can’t yet fully predict what the effects will be.

What we definitely noted is that the perception from abroad is much worse than the actual situation in Hong Kong: while Hong Kong as well as mainland Chinese clients are confident in a speedy recovery of the local market we’ve noticed that the situation, as represented by the international media, as created concerns for our overseas clients.

Despite all of the above, we’ve objectively identified the most relevant trends in the Hong Kong Private Practice recruitment landscape. These should give guidance and reassurance to many of us within the legal field who are wondering what the rest of 2019 will look like.

Hong Kong as a candidate-driven market

Hong Kong remains a candidate-driven market. Law firms are still aggressively competing to secure the best talents in the market in both fee-earning and business support roles. And this is evident in the M&A and IPO space, where despite the significant market downturn compared to last year, the battle for the best talents remains. In the current market, clients are simply more cautious and use a selective approach. We are seeing that hiring processes are perhaps a bit slower, but those headcounts are very much still there and quality capital markets and corporate lawyers with strong language skills are still in demand.

Technology and cybersecurity driving major trends in hiring

After a slow start this year, we have seen a steady flow of new openings and headcounts since April 2019. Something certainly new for Hong Kong is the significant wave of new openings in the cybersecurity and data privacy space.

This trend is being driven by the ever-evolving privacy and cybersecurity regulations and issues not only in Hong Kong but across APAC and globally. It has caused a few firms to explore the possibility of setting up specialised teams in Hong Kong, as well as growing and scaling existing teams.

The lack of homegown talent and the fact that these roles often do not require Chinese language skills often brings these searches overseas.

Cybersecurity is a concern for law firms themselves, given the amount of sensitive data they handle. This is driving a major trend in hiring in the IT space, especially when adopting cloud-based practice management software.

This has also been the need behind newly created IT headcounts who can provide internal consultation in strengthening the cybersecurity of international law firms – both in setting up the system and leading the execution. Most hires so far have been at mid-senior level, especially for consultancy roles. However, with a shortage of talent, candidates aren’t necessarily coming from other law firms. Instead, companies have to expand the search to include professionals from other industries.

Agility and flexibility the key to retention

The implementation of cloud systems has had another significant consequence on the recruitment market: it allows for a significant amount of legal work to be carried out in agile and flexible working environments.

This is a key topic in the industry, particularly after the launch in June 2019 of a report from the Women in Law Hong Kong (WILHK) titled “Making the case for flexible and agile working in Hong Kong’s legal industry”. The report highlights who the virtuous players in this industry are and what is holding Hong Kong back from alternative working models.

In our opinion, law firms need to be up-to-speed with these trends in flexible and agile working conditions in order to retain top talents and compete with alternative legal services providers. Top professionals in the field are looking for better work-life integration and companies must adapt to client needs.

We will keep a close watch on how technology and cybersecurity continue to impact the Hong Kong legal market this year, along with keeping an eye out for new trends that will affect hiring, employee engagement and the overall job market throughout the rest of the year.

If you would like to discuss the above in more detail, please contact Associate Director, Marta Verderosa, at martaverderosa@michaelpage.com.hk

Marta Verderosa

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