China Staffing Leaders Discuss Social Media

The Chapman Consulting Group hosted its China and Regional Staffing Heads learning session at Cisco in Shanghai on 15 October. The session was chaired by Vineet Gambhir, Regional Staffing Director, Cisco. This quarterly session brought together some of the brightest, high potential staffing talent in China to discuss emerging trends in Social Media. The Chapman Consulting Group was fortunate to have Martin Cerullo, Global Head of Branding and Communications, from Alexander Mann Solutions in Hong Kong, as the guest speaker. Matthew Chapman, CEO of The Chapman Consulting Group, was also in attendance.

The results of the annual APAC Staffing Leaders Social Media Report, jointly prepared by The Chapman Consulting Group and Alexander Mann Solutions, were presented to the group. The results showed that Linked In remains the dominant social media tool being used by Staffing Leaders, closely followed by Facebook. Singapore had the strongest social media usage in the region followed by India and Hong Kong. The 50 page report will shortly be available for download on The Chapman Consulting Group’s website.

Cerullo captivated the group with an update on the latest mobile technologies available for Staffing Leaders to embrace smarter social media strategies. He made it clear that more and more activity is being driven towards mobile devices, and this is having an impact on how information should be presented on websites. He gave an example of JP Morgan’s campus recruitment website which can be viewed three different ways on a normal computer, a tablet or a mobile device, despite the same website URL being entered in all three situations.

Staffing Leaders, in attendance, noticed that social media strategies being adopted amongst the group, were very disperse and inconsistent. Some companies appeared very advanced and others were lagging behind. Most leaders admitted to not being completely on top of the latest trends and were relying on hiring gifted individuals into their teams to help push things forward. All agreed that budget constraints as how much companies were willing to plough into social media meant Staffing Leaders had to be creative on achieving results in this domain.

The group will reconvene in January 2013 in Shanghai and details will be provided soon.