EDUCATION EMPLOYMENT TALENT DEVELOPMENT
China – Accounting firm KPMG plans to hire up to 2,000 fresh graduates come 2012, to support the long-term growth potential in China.
“Talent is not developed overnight, so we can’t let temporary economic problems affect our hiring, otherwise we would regret it in a few years when we didn’t have enough people to support our growth,” Melissa Wu, head of people, performance and culture, KPMG China, said.
KPMG has begun offering “elite internships” to high-flying second year universiry students to filter out “the best ones”. For the two month internship, students attend summer training courses as well as assist the firm before becoming a full-time permanent employee when they graduate.
“These people love to see themselves developing ahead of their peers,“ Wu said. “Some students are even willing to defer graduation by one year in order to fully participate in the elite internship.”
In China, finding good talent remains a challege for KPMG, as local firms go global and become more attractive to younger talent. “They can compete for talent on an equal footing.”
But Wu said the biggest challenge lies in advisory recruiting. “Finding advisory people with the right technical skills and who can speak Chinese is difficult. We are an international firm but we are also a local firm in China. We need our people to have the language skills to serve our Chinese clients,” she said.
Due to the talent shortage, KPMG also recruits from consulting firms with an interest in overseas-based Chinese speakers. Wu said the economic uncertainties in the US and Europe are causing more employees to consider a move to Asia. Additionally, KPMG China taps on its global talent pool, to find Chinese-speaking professionals. “We have found that there are lots of Chinese speakers in other KPMG offices around the world.”
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