Li Yong-ping, head of the news department at Global Broadcasting and a media veteran, points out that virtually none of Taiwan's television networks now hire rookies. Given today's extremely competitive environment, TV stations are not very likely to spend a great deal of time on individuals with no experience. So when a position comes open, television stations would rather go look for someone who at least has experience in radio or newspaper journalism. Moreover, it seems that most newspapers also are saturated with personnel right now, and are not hiring. Although a small number of newly founded papers are recruiting, they also want to hire people with experience. And experience is even more of a requirement in the magazine industry, which demands greater depth and expertise from its writers. Hot new show
Li Yong-ping suggests that Internet-based media sources, such as electronic newspapers and magazines, will offer many new opportunities to young people. She says that currently young people are the main users of the Internet, and Internet-based media sources are better positioned to reach them and understand their thinking. But the Internet also has its drawbacks. The market is highly segmented, and the modes of expression and thought commonly used online make it difficult for netizens to transfer over to the traditional media.
While things aren't so great in the media, there are some industries which have not experienced economic downturns and are suffering a labor shortage. According to DGBAS statistics, in 1998 the labor shortage was most severe in the manufacturing sector. The number of jobs for technical specialists, such as engineers and technicians, rose by more than 7000 over the previous year.
Other fields are also booming: With Y2K just around the corner, demand for computer experts is rising. There's a great demand for marketing personnel in the mobile phone industry. The financial, insurance, and real estate industries are moving toward increasing professionalization and are absorbing and training a large number of new people. And with the two-day weekend, the leisure industry is flourishing. Clearly the high-tech industries and new service industries are in urgent need of highly skilled young people.
Looking at the longer-term, changes in the employment market will actually benefit young people. As Y.L. Liu says, "The special thing about digital and high-tech industries is speed. Young people newly entering the job market are more malleable, active, and flexible. They're better equipped to cope with an employment culture of rapid change." Multiple channels
A person's first job provides an initial glimpse into the larger employment market. It will affect their work attitude, value system, and even their whole career path. This high-tech era provides young people, who have relatively few contacts, with multiple channels to seek jobs-newspapers, the Internet, specialized employment magazines, personnel recruitment companies, campus recruitment, in-military recruitment, and the National Youth Commission of the Executive Yuan. What should a young person do to ensure that they are "discovered" as quickly as possible?
In the first semester of the 1998 academic year, the career development office at Soochow University did a survey asking seniors about their employment propsects. Students were asked to name the three channels they favored most for finding a new job. The largest group of respondents, 59.7%, stated that after graduating they would look through newspaper help-wanted ads. This choice was followed by "introduction through teachers, family or friends" (46.2%) and by the civil service exams (45.8%). An additional 24.1% of students said that their channel of choice would be the Internet.
Kao Shih-ping, director of the office of career development at Soochow University, analyzes the results as follows: Newly graduating students do not understand the job market well. They often aren't very sure what they want to do themselves. The newspaper is a convenient way to access a large number of diversified options, and that's why it is the top choice. As for "introduction through teachers, family, or friends," such people can provide guidance and assistance in finding jobs, and a student is likely to have a strong sense of security about any job acquired through such a channel. As for the civil service exams, as employment competition gets more and more intense, a civil service position which provides a stable salary and social status is the ideal choice for many students. That is why a large number of them postpone graduation or employment to prepare for the civil service exams.
It is worth noting that although most youths are rather conservative in their choice of employment channels, students from the departments of business administration and information sciences, who are more likely to be sensitive to trends, are much more likely to do their job-hunting on the Internet. This suggests that there will be growing interest in the Internet as a channel for employment. On the other hand, students have little familiarity with or trust in personnel companies or employment magazines. These are the last choices for most students, though a few are beginning to try them.
Company choice
Thus there are many channels for seeking employment. But looking now from the other direction, what channels do companies use to recruit?
Currently the hottest field, with the highest incomes and the greatest demand for new talent, is high-tech industry. One representative firm in this field is Applied Materials Taiwan (a US-based firm). Human resources director Chen Chung-hung says that more than half of their new employees have no previous experience. This suggests that people just entering the workforce may find more employment opportunities in this field. Looking at search channels, about 50% of incoming employees are recruited through newspaper ads. Though newspaper space is expensive, it is something everyone is familiar with, and has great exposure. A half-page ad not only can attract a large number of resumes, it can strengthen the company's corporate image, thus killing two birds with one stone.
Meanwhile, 15-20% of new employees are recruited through the Internet. Says Chen: "Internet users in Taiwan do tend to be young, and most of the people we find through the Internet have no work experience."
Other channels, including campus recruitment, introduction by current employees, military-base recruitment, their own human resources data bank (based on previously received resumes), and personnel agencies, account for less than 5% of new employees hired. Chen says that most of the people who they find through personnel agencies do administrative work, while the hiring and retaining rates are generally higher for people hired through introduction by employees, because there is someone who can confirm their qualifications and suitability.
With regard to newly rising service industries, the channels through which they recruit personnel do not differ greatly from high-tech industry.
One company popular among people looking for their first jobs in recent years has been the Hsinyih Real Estate company. Chiang Fei-yi, assistant director of the education and training center, describes her company's recruitment situation. Most of the people they hire have responded to newspaper ads, just as in other industries. A number of young people with a particular interest in real estate will go directly to the company's website to look for employment information, and they can send a resume directly through the website. The company has also had good results in the past few years with recruitment from the military.
"In the past people didn't have a very good impression of real estate brokers. But our company has changed this prejudice. We insist that our recruits be under 32 and have no previous experience in real estate, but they must have high levels of education. We will train them ourselves, to ensure and control quality," she says. This is one of the special features of Taiwan's newly rising service industries. Many financial services and insurance companies are taking the same tack.
Unstoppable Internet trend
Although newspaper classified ads are still the most common way to get employment information, the growing pluralization of employment information has weakened the hold newspapers have on recruitment. Take for example two of the major providers of employment classified ads, the China Times and the Liberty Times. Only the Sunday editions carry a large number of employment ads. Because newspaper space is expensive, and space is limited, it is difficult for recruiters to provide complete information. This is less than ideal both for those seeking employment and for companies seeking employees. This provides an opening for alternative channels.
The Internet is the most rapidly developing employment channel. In a short time, more than 50 recuitment websites have entered this market.
Each manpower company has its own style on the Internet, but most allow people seeking jobs to register for free. Internet recruitment companies place the greatest emphasis on providing well-organized information. Take for example the current industry leader 104 Job Bank. When you get to the top page on their website, you can opt for one of two categories, "seeking employment" and "seeking personnel." The "seeking employment" item is subdivided into part-time, full-time, high-level, and handicapped. Each of these items is in turn divided into type of job, type of industry, and even locality. As General Manager Yang Chi-kuan relates, currently more than 4000 companies recruit through 104, providing a virtually inexhaustible pool of job information.
Yang says that the reason Internet recruitment has grown so quickly is, besides the obvious factor of a rapidly growing number of people using the Internet, that it provides speed and security that traditional sources like newspapers and magazines cannot.
"A person looking for a job can fill out the resume, and the website will receive it immediately and send it out to firms. A single resume can be used countless times, and updated at will. Because companies looking for people must have a contract with the Internet company, there's a built-in filter, so that people seeking jobs can feel safe that these companies are legitimate." Yang says that people can get responses from companies usually within a week, and sometimes as rapidly as three hours.
104's own statistics show that most of the people looking for work through the Internet are between 20 and 30 years old, and tend to be looking for jobs in high-tech industries like computer peripherals. Companies that recruit through the Internet are mainly in computer software, hardware, and peripherals, and they mainly offer jobs in marketing, engineering, and research and development. There are relatively few jobs in mass communications, advertising, or creative work.
Internet recruitment has one very special characteristic: there are no national boundaries. Yang Chi-kuan says that about 15% of incoming applicants at 104 are from overseas (mainly Chinese students studying abroad). Through the Net, overseas students and foreigners can rapidly access information about the job market in Taiwan and communicate with firms. "They can even conduct interviews through chat software like ICQ." A broad mandate
Besides private Internet recruitment firms, the National Youth Commission (NYC) of the Executive Yuan very early on, long before the Internet was widespread, made its human resources database available to companies online.
The NYC was founded in 1966 with the special mission of recruiting Chinese living abroad to come back to Taiwan to work. As times have changed, it is now one of the channels through which young people with tertiary educations can find jobs in Taiwan.
Lai Mao-nan of the Third Department recalls that in the early years the NYC provided outstanding overseas students with travel money and work recommendation services to encourage them to come back to Taiwan. But today, there are many graduate schools in Taiwan as well, and in the interests of fairness, everyone is handled equally. The largest number of people who register at the NYC after returning from abroad are in the sciences and engineering or in business administration. Because overseas students generally have better foreign language skills, they are preferred by many highly internationalized firms.
In past years between 23,000 and 24,000 college and university graduates would register at the NYC each year. This year, because of a stronger public information campaign, already 29,000 people had registered by the end of July. Because services are provided free both to job seekers and employers, companies are glad to register, and the success rate for job-seekers is 50%.
According to Chen Tzong-hsien, director of the Second Department at the NYC, three-quarters of the jobs listed by firms are in engineering or commerce. Other fields-humanities, law, sciences, agriculture, and so on-account for only one-fourth.
"The main reason graduates of these departments have a hard time finding jobs is that their expertise does not fit the needs of corporations. To help resolve this problem, the NYC offers training in a second area of expertise to these young people," says Chen. In the past, training was mainly provided in business studies. But in recent years, as Taiwan has become a high-tech island, computer and information industry classes have become dominant. The most popular classes among students are those offered in conjunction with the Institute for Information Industry. The III is trusted by business, so nearly a hundred percent of the graduates of those classes are hired. Searching the dorms and barracks
Besides registering prospective employers and employees and arranging training in a second specialty, each year from March to May the NYC assists universities in holding campus recruitment activities. In addition, at the request of soldiers and officers, each May, as another group of young people complete their military service, the NYC and other government agencies coordinate firms in recruiting directly from the military.
Soochow University is one school which offers campus recruitment. March is "recruitment month." The office of career development contacts various firms and invites them to the campus to hold seminars. There are also lectures and seminars on trends in the employment market and on techniques for job hunting. Thus students about to graduate go through another "cram session" to prepare for their next "test."
Kao Shih-ping, director of the office of career development, says that because most male students must do two years of military service after graduation, and because many female students prefer to take the civil service or teachers' exams, campus recruitment has not been particularly productive. But firms still come, if only to reinforce their corporate images. And offering students some information on the employment market and techniques for job hunting before they go out into society can help alleviate some of their fears and uncertainties.
Recruitment activities in the military have been much more productive than those on campuses. The Ministry of National Defense, the NYC, the Council of Labor Affairs, and the Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen co-sponsor job fairs, which are run by Career magazine on the half of the government. Career general manager Christine Ongg says that each year more than 20,000 people attend recruitment activities at major military bases in Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Kinmen, and Matsu. Since they about to retire or be discharged, most hope to find jobs as quickly as possible, and they are much more serious about this than students typically are.
The wave of the future
One major trend for the future is "temp agencies." Young people should know what this means, but most don't have a clue.
Currently there are about 30 significant employment agencies in Taiwan. Most focus on two things: head-hunting and temping. Head-hunting focuses mainly on recruiting highly-skilled people for long-term jobs in high-ranking positions. There is little room for novices. Temping, on the other hand, involves short-term assignments-a week or two, up to a year, maybe two at most. Many of the firms using "temps" (for "temporary employees") are foreign firms, and most of the jobs are secretarial or administrative.
Theresa Huang is a senior personnel consultant for Manpower Services (Taiwan), a branch of the US' largest employment services firm, which set up shop in Taiwan a full two decades ago. She says that young people make up only about 5% of "head-hunting" recruits, and most of these had temped for the company while still in school, had done very well, and were recommended to their eventual employees.
There are exceptions. Career magazine was once commissioned to do large-scale recruiting for a mobile phone company. Most of those recruited were newcomers to the workforce, with first priority given to those who had resumes on file with Manpower.
And if a young person is not lucky enough to find such exceptions, there's always temping. Christina Ongg notes that "temps" are technically employed by their agency, so companies don't have to worry about paying their labor insurance, pensions, or whatever. There is also greater flexibility regarding when and where they can be put to work. Temps are especially popular with foreign firms, who have more flexible management outlooks.
Ongg says that temps still get their salaries, insurance, and retirement benefits, it's just that they work for the temp agency instead of for one firm in the traditional fashion. Moreover, the company can, depending on circumstance, help them find better positions. Temping not only offers a greater variety of work, a temp gets the chance to meet lots of different people. In addition, if employers do not fulfill their contracts and let their temps go early, the company will help them find new jobs as quickly as possible so there is no period without a job. Ongg concludes: "It's definitely the way things are headed."
Alfred F.L. Chen, chairman of the National Chemical Industrial Co and also a member of the Council of Labor Affairs, confirms that temp agencies have great room for development in Taiwan. In the future, not only administrative work, but also technical work will be handled by temps. "Some industrial jobs are very dangerous, and experienced people are best. Someone who has been temped out to a number of different factories to do such a job will know best how to handle it." He adds that temps are likely to be of more use to small and medium firms, which stress flexibility; large firms, on the other hand, will probably still want to hire "their own people."
What about high school grads?
Most of the employment channels and issues discussed above apply to college or university grads. But there are far fewer opportunities out there for people with only secondary educations (high school, vocational high school, or middle school).
Hsin Ping-lung of the Chunghua Institution for Economic Research says that most of the jobs open to people with less than a tertiary education are in labor-intensive or traditional service industries. Such jobs are often found informally, through friends and family, or from help-wanted ads stuck to bulletin boards and utility poles. Few of these jobs are even advertised in the papers; less than 10% are accessible through the types of formal channels discussed above. Ongg notes that apprenticeships and government training are aimed at creating new channels for people with lower levels of education, but these are of only limited effectiveness.
"The basic problem is that labor-intensive industry is being replaced by technology-intensive industry, reducing the availability of blue-collar jobs. Meanwhile imported foreign labor provides a large number of low-paid blue collar workers. It's getting harder and harder for people with only secondary educations," says Hsin. Take this job and...
Regardless of one's level of education, however, the real killer in finding a job might be their own outlook.
Many people subscribe to the following hip definition of a desirable job: "High pay, little work, right near home, high status, lots of perks, little responsibility, and you can wake up whenever you want every day." Y.L. Liu of the Council for Economic Planning and Development says that more than half of unemployed college grads are unemployed for "non-structural" reasons, like excessively high expectations or unwillingness to stick to one thing.
Avers Liu: "Given the good economic conditions in the second half of this year, if a recent college grad can't find a job within three months, they should look carefully at their own attitude."
Kao Shih-ping says that young people today expect jobs to fit their personal interests and to pay well. They don't want to start from the bottom and work their way up. Naturally, with such a "take this job and shove it" attitude, it's not easy to find long-term work, and even those who find jobs are easily frustrated and need little excuse to quit.
As a successful entrepreneur, Alfred Chen advises that people should not begin thinking about a career only when looking for that first job. While still in school they should be thinking about their interests, looking into overall employment trends, and preparing themselves psychologically, so that their first job turns out to be just another step in a lifelong process of learning and growing.
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