Hiring Online in China with 51Jobs.com

If you are looking for hiring online in China you should consider 51jobs.com which is one of the online services for sourcing local talent. The site is the largest online job resource and also a US listed public company.

The service can be traced back to classified print edition popular in early 90th in Beijing. Since then, it has evolved into a primary destination for job seekers, employers and recruiters.

It is also growing at the rate of about 11% every year, boosting healthy profits of around 30% for the last 3 years. Although 51jobs still has a print version, online recruitment service accounts for 65% of the sales.

Services for job seekers are free but employers are charged on ads basis as well per each resume download. The site also offers E-hire system for employers which is an applicant tracking system.

Although, the service can be used for all types of job listings, hiring online in China has been most active with sourcing IT, finance and management talents. These are also the most active areas of 51jobs.com.

For job seekers, the site also provides a social media platform to communicate with others as well as recruiters.

Hiring online in China with 51Jobs.com for employers

 

Paid job listing

One way to find candidates is to place an ad and wait for potential candidates to contact you directly. The ads can be either simple text ones or more complex and attractive graphic banner types which are priced on weekly basis. Unfortunately, 51jobs.com doesn’t offer bidding-based CPM or CPC model, so the price is only based on display period (usually 1 week with discounts for longer periods).

Featuring your ad on the front page can be quite expensive with prices ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 RMB per week. Smaller banners and text links on home page can go for 9,000-45,000 RMB per week. The least expensive option to be featured on home page is with the text link at the bottom of “hot companies” area for 8,200 RMB per week.

The price is also determined by target location with top tier cities being the most expensive. For the second tier city, placing a simple text ad can go for as low as 500 RMB per week.

Searching for candidates

Another way to use 51Jobs.com is by actively searching for candidates going through job seekers’ resumes that they publish on site. However, downloading a single resumes costs somewhere in the range of 30-50 RMB. Usually, employers purchase a bundle download package for 400-600 RMB which allows 20 downloads per months.

Searching for candidates is done based on location and with filters for skills, education, experience etc. Once the promising candidate is located, his/her resume and contacts can be downloaded for a fee as described above.

Company advertising

Employers often purchase advertising packages to promote their companies to potential candidates or even recruiters – the concept that is, perhaps, unfamiliar in the West. High turn over can be a real problem in the job market from employer’s perspective and projecting a better image to potential recruits can go a long way in securing their interest and desire to work in a stable environment.

Working for a prestigious company can also be a matter of a social status for potential employees and this is another reason that many employers choose to advertise themselves as a brand targeting high quality candidates.