When hiring in China, don’t confine your candidate search to the typical “blue-chip” model of Chinese professionals. Spend a little time in Shanghai or Beijing and you may get the impression that the entire Chinese economy is being driven by Fudan or Beida graduates who grew up in major coastal business cities. But China is a big place, and there is more to it than just a few brand-name universities.

If your job description calls for a strong networker or a passive team player, then these guys will work out just fine. But if you need an aggressive closer or a self-starting manager, you may want to widen your search.

Consider the Provinces for Salesmen
Your big-city HR guys may tout the virtues of maintaining harmony and homogeneity by hiring from their alma-mater and extended network of contacts – but when it comes to sales pros you may want to try rocking the boat a little. For most Shanghai salesmen, building relationships and working the network are the keys to their success – but not necessarily to YOURS. Locally bred dilettantes are good for morale, but not always great for top-line sales. They tend to wait for prospects to initiate transactions – and then seal the deal with deep discounts and favorable sales terms.

Try adding a little variety to the sales mix by hiring an out-of-towner from one of the less prosperous provinces – even if the candidate isn’t a product of a name-brand university. Your HR managers may look down their noses, but these rough-around-the-edges outsiders have a lot of the attributes that you look for in a sales professional. First, they tend to need the job, and won’t have the sense of entitlement and attitude that many international managers find hard to work with. They tend to be more proactive – dare I say aggressive – than their local counterparts. And since they may be coming from non-privileged backgrounds, will respond well to commission plans and other performance-based incentives.

Manage diverse teams more carefully
Diversity is great, but may require a bit more management attention than a locals-only approach. Your new hires may be a little rough around the edges, and may not communicate well with your existing team right off the bat. Spend a little time on team-building – and make sure that all supervisors and managers are on the same page. Remember: an aggressive salesman can be trained to present well and wear a nice suit, but a meek yes-man can never be taught to fight for an order or close a tough sale.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 10:16 am and is filed under Sales Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.