Recruitment & Selection: East vs West

After 5 years of work experience, with 15 different job roles in around 10 different organisations, and 100s of job applications/interviews in the West, here I am in a completely different world of corporate practices (or in some cases, malpractices) in the ever colorful East. In my opinion, it's quite interesting how HR practices vary from region to region, some of which I would like to document here.

1) Job Listings;

Age Discrimination requiring Payment upon Application

Moving from West, where adverts are role specific free of any kind of gender, sex, age, race discrimination, it's an entirely different scenario in the East.

Here in South Asia, the listing is majorly person specific, and almost all vacancies would list at least some sort of a discriminating criteria. Gender and age discrimination is widely found, however in some instances might only encourage member of a certain religion or resident of a certain area to apply for a particular job.

2) Job Applications;

Job listings in the West, despite being more fairer in defining candidate eligibility, then creates the biggest barrier when applying for that role, with mostly long winded application forms, almost demanding life long history of work experiences and skills, where every form is different! This creates unnecessary inertia for candidates and in some instances almost puts them off from applying for the advertised position. Some might argue, after such an investigation, employers can probably guess your age, gender, race etc by evaluation of your application form.

However, here in the East, most organisations will only demand your CV/Resume to be able to process your job application, and the first time where you'll fill a form, will be at the first interview. Websites and platforms such as www.rozee.pk, are majorly used to source candidates based on a unique application form, by both large and medium enterprises, streamlining the selection process.

3) Interviews;

While the East offers a fast-track to the interviews due to quicker application form processing, it can take months to get through the interviews (and a massive fuel bill due to number of visits). Almost everyone with a degree (minimum Masters) will get called for the first interview where you'll be asked to fill an appalling application form which will cover your whole life history. 

It's not just a typical knowledge and skills evaluation form, but in this form, the mandatory fields will include a candidate's age, gender, religion, sect, father's name, father's occupation, number of siblings, job occupations of siblings and other personal information on which the individual has no control over, and which in no way influences the ability of a candidate to perform in the workplace. 

After this beautifully crafted personal investigation form, you get to meet someone you think is the HR manager, department head or CEO, however you usually find out later that it could be one of the interns or company secretary taking your first interview. Then you get forwarded to HR executive, who, in case of approval/disapproval, forwards you to the HR Manager, who then forwards you to Department Head, then to the CEO (regardless of approval or disapproval as no one within that chain has any authority to hire or fire, apart from the CEO). Before every meeting there'll be a delay correspondent to the position of the interviewer, starting from 10 minute delay on first interview to 45 minute delay on final interview with the owner/CEO.

Whereas, in my experience of the West, when you're called for an interview, it's mostly a make or break moment. It's usually straight to the point, where the telephone operator will usually advise the candidate beforehand on the format, structure and criteria of the interview and you'll be met and navigated into the organisation with the help of an employee on your first visit. The interview may include some out-of-the-norm activities, role plays, psychometric tests and checklists, where the candidate might feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable through the process, but it mostly would be strategically linked to the kind of work you'll be doing or the environment you'll be operating in.

4) Feedback/Decision;

Speaking from personal experience, the better employers in the West will usually give you a call back to give feedback on the interview and gently explain why the job will be/will not be offered, however there can be considerable delay in getting back due to administrative barriers or until the successful candidate has accepted the offer.

However, there's no such thing as feedback in the East, and certainly not when the candidate is unsuccessful. Even when the candidate is successful, the HR executive will wait until the candidate calls to inquire about its application status, and then the candidate will be called for a final 'interview' to give details on the offer.

5) The Offer; 

Job Advertising in the UK

Now, in the West, when an opening is advertised, it'll usually display the kind of compensation a candidate can expect, displaying figures within a shorter range with reasonable levels and working hours. When the job is offered, the compensation is mostly firm and not negotiable so it's 'take it or leave it'.

In the East, this is a more complex stage of recruitment and selection, especially when it's a career job. The advert will show salary ranges from ranges going lower than minimum wage to peak ranges, where sky is the limit, in order to attract everyone to apply. After various interviews, trials and meetings, the offer is usually presented by the top person in the hierarchy, which will usually be one of the most ridiculous you'll ever hear! (sorry, I've not had a decent offer yet!)

The offer will be followed by various examples about people working in the company, company background, the riches of the owner, training opportunities, the foreign presence with chance to travel, personal acts of generosity and working environment, to encourage the candidate to accept the offer. Even then if the candidate think it's too low, the focus will shift on the individual with scrutiny over candidate's lack of past experience, incompatibility of it's educational background, lack of proper skills, unsuitability to deliver within the current areas of expertise etc, which would usually end with a challenge for the candidate to find an employee within the organisation who's not happy or find a better company who'd pay better!

6) Working Conditions;

In the West, the hours of work, holidays and performance standards will be defined on the contract which you'll be expected to work and manage flexibly working accordingly. However, in the East, there's no such thing as fixed working hours and you'll be explicitly told that if you can't work overtime and on Saturdays (without a premium), you're no good for the organisation. Working hard has a whole new meaning, which actually means working 14 hours a day and 6 days a week without any defined criteria for growth, premiums or performance related benefits.

Working environment however, will be more social and informal within Eastern settings with people taking a calmer approach towards work, more socially integrated with activities like meal shares in lunch hour and cricket matches on weekends among the colleagues, like a big family. Contrary, in the Western settings, work is done more seriously in a fast pace with high emphasis on quality and performance.

Conclusion

What I have presented above may just be my personal experience, and things might be different out there, however it largely depends on the type of industry you're operating in and the level of roles a candidate is seeking. Personnel function is largely handled by people who're dealing with people to add value to a business, and with various different types of people from different backgrounds,cultures and education levels around the World, Human Resource is one area of business which is most influenced from region to region. 

You can guess a lot about the HR practices of a place by the people operating it!

Stop Discrimination. Promote Equality!


This is +Nauman Wasif, tell me what you think!

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