It’s now the season for hunting senior personnel Head hunters have noted that they witnessed unprecedented happenings in the recruitment market the first half of 2013.   Managers jump into new business fields The news that caught the special attention from the public recently was that Phan Minh Tien, the Marketing Director of Unilever Vietnam, became the Marketing Director of Samsung Vina. Tien decided to leave after his 17 years of devoting himself to Unilever during which he was very successful in managing and developing the group’s brands, including OMO detergent, Lipton tea and Walls ice cream. The new destination for Tien is an electronics and mobile phone company, and Tien would have to work in a business field quite unfamiliar to him. The same thing has happened with David Teng, who was the CEO of the Vietnam Brewery Company and has become the CEO of AkzoNobel Vietnam, a paint company. AkzoNobel has its reason to invite the director of a brewery company to become the manager of a paint company. In 2012, the company’s business performance was influenced by the fall in the demand for decoration products in the European market. Meanwhile, the company still can see the great potentials in the South East Asian market. As such, the task for Teng, a businessman who has deep knowledge about the Vietnamese market, is helping protect the brand and expand the company’s market share, Nguyen Thi Van Anh, Managing Director of Navigos, a well-known job network in Vietnam, has noted that in the crisis period, companies tend to dismiss workers, but they need more qualified senior personnel who can help settle the problems and manage the companies in the difficulties. Therefore, senior personnel still have been recruited regularly. Businesses understand well that they need to prepare well in the labor force to get ready for the economic recovery period. Supply still cannot meet the demand According to Anphabe, the network of the managers’ community, the 11 leading head hunters specializing in seeking senior personnel for leading enterprises in Vietnam, namely Manpower, Harvey Nash, L&A, Infinity HR, RGF, Faro, Robert Walters, VTalent, Grey Finder, Career Planning, Talent Viet all have reported the increasingly high recruitment demand in 2013. Of the eleven firms, six have predicted that the senior personnel market would see the 10-20 percent growth rate in the next 6-12 months. The six business fields which have the highest demands for senior personnel in the time to come are the fast moving consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, education, manufacturing, health care and tourism & services. Meanwhile, some business fields may see the demand decreasing sharply this year, including banking, real estate, finance services, construction and information technology Fast moving consumer goods, pharmacy and oil & gas will remain the three business fields which maintain high salaries in the time to come. Retailing and e-commerce are also believed to have satisfactory pay. Marketing, sales and finance may expect the highest pay levels. A recent survey has found out that the market would see a new wave of senior personnel moving to other places. 54 percent of polled senior personnel said they with to see better jobs. Anh from Navigos has noted that both enterprises and head hunters now find it difficult to recruit senior personnel, because the supply is short. Vietnamese candidates have been highly appreciated for their experiences and deep knowledge about the Vietnamese market, but they still have shortcomings, including the foreign language skill. Source: DNSG