Demand for mid-level, top managers rises

HCM City (VNA) – Recruitment demands for mid-level and senior managers for enterprises nationwide rose dramatically during the first quarter of the year, according to recruitment companies.

A report from Navigos Search, a personnel recruiting agency in Vietnam, said that recruitment requirements sent by clients to the agency in the first quarter increased by 48 percent compared to the first quarter of last year.

In March, recruitment demand grew by 50 percent compared with January, and by 60 percent over the rate in February.

Increase in the demand for mid-level managers in industrial and manufacturing ranked first with 29 percent, followed by consumer goods and retail with 16 percent, and banking/insurance/securities/finance with 12 percent.

The most recruited positions were in sales & marketing, IT engineering, electricity/ electronics engineering, and human resources.

In the first quarter, Vietnamese groups and corporations sent many requests for senior personnel to Navigos, the company reported.

All of the groups and corporations said they wanted to develop their companies in a more professional manner after a long period of using family-based management models.

They said they were ready to pay higher salaries to attract Vietnamese or overseas Vietnamese talent.

Navigos said the two positions with the highest salaries were senior directors of a commercial bank and a customer services company, with a monthly salary of more than 200 million VND (8,888 USD).

Positions with monthly salaries ranging from 100 million VND to 145 million VND were in the field of health care, customer services, trading and banking.

Le Bang Giang, Deputy Manager of Saigon Hi-Tech Park Training Centre’s consultancy and recruitment department, said the park also saw growth of enterprises’ recruitment demand in the first quarter, with a 30 percent rise compared to the same period last year.

At the same time, many companies had opened plants in the industrial park, leading to higher recruitment demand, Giang said.

For instance, the Republic of Korea’s Samsung Electronics reported a need for a large number of managers. The firm’s expansion has led to the opening of more tech support service companies serving Samsung in the park.

At the beginning of the year, a number of enterprises’ mid-level and senior managers changed jobs to seek better working opportunities, he said.

The salary for managers and directors was reported to be 1,000 USD to more than 1,500 USD.

Giang said that foreign-direct invested companies needed to fill 70 percent of the positions in the first quarter with foreign managers or directors, and the remaining 30 percent with Vietnamese.

Vietnamese managers and directors have a number of disadvantages in the period of globalisation, including poor foreign language skills and lack of professional knowledge, critical thinking and professionalism, Giang said.

“Vietnam’s education sector should map out a route for innovation step-by-step,” he added.

Nguyen Thi Van Anh, Managing Director of Navigos Search, said there was a constant demand for domestic sources of mid-level and senior managers, which are in short supply.

For instance, many enterprises need to recruit hundreds of bridge software engineers for a one-year project but have not been able to do so.

The candidates not only need to be qualified for the position but also speak either Japanese or English.

More and more banks are trying to recruit digital banking staff, according to the report, but this has been difficult because the sector is new in Vietnam.

Anh said that enterprises should focus on training programmes, including those for directors or management trainees.

They should also build their brand names to attract mid-level and senior human resources and devise policies to help employees develop “a strong attachment” to the company, she said.-VNA