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[Trailer]

OF: If you're not into networking, don't worry: I'm not into networking, and I was a headhunter.

[Intro]

OF: Welcome to Mosaic of China, a podcast about people who are making their mark in China. I’m your host, Oscar Fuchs.

So today I'm including another bonus episode in the feed for Mosaic of China, this time it's an edited version of an interview that I did on another podcast called China Flexpat, hosted by Francis Kremer. This is a podcast for young international professionals who see themselves as 'flexible expats', hence the term 'flexpat'. I don't personally think of myself as an 'expat', since I'm not too keen on the connotations of that particular word. I don't actually see myself as all that flexible these days either, I'm probably much more 'stuck in my ways' than I used to be. And yes before any of you say it first, I'm also neither young nor professional. But Francis specifically asked me to come on his show - all the way back in April of last year - to talk about my experiences in career reinvention and personal brand building, with a particular focus on my previous life as a headhunter and career coach. So I was very happy to oblige, and I hope you enjoy our chat, even though it's quite difficult to a regular episode of Mosaic of China.

So why aren't I releasing a regular episode of Mosaic of China? Well, I've just come back from taking some time off in January over the lunar new year period here in China. And I reached out to the person who is up next in Episode 16 to let them know that I'm coming back online. At which point she reminded me that she had planned on taking some time off herself in February. The regular episodes of the show are all very collaborative, so I can't actually put them together without pinging messages back and forth with the guest. And that's not very easy to do when the guest is doing three weeks of silent meditation in Thailand! I kid you not. So Mosaic of China is going on it's own course of silent meditation over the next few weeks, and we’ll be back again probably in early March. In the meantime, I daresay you might also be taking some time to reevaluate your priorities at the start of the year. If any of them involve some kind of career reinvention, I hope this interview with Francis gives you some inspiration on your way.

[Main]

FK: Welcome to the China Flexpat podcast.

OF: My name is Oscar Fuchs. For the purposes of this podcast, I would describe myself as an ex-entrepreneur. I was the co-founder of a headhunting company, which specialised in the niche of Human Resources Directors. And this is what eventually brought me to China, since we had been increasingly busy in the market and it made sense to locate one of the co-founders here. But in fact, I was the ultimate ‘flexpat’ because by that stage in the growth of the company, I had a global role which could have been located anywhere. So it was almost an accident that I ended up being in China, here in Shanghai. And yet, I've now been here for seven years. Prior to that I had been three years in Hong Kong, six years in Singapore, and three years in Japan. Since selling my stake in that headhunting company, I now focus my time on content creation, in particular in producing and hosting a podcast called Mosaic of China, which is a project that showcases interesting people from all kinds of different worlds - be it business, or arts, or sports, or science, or academia, you name it - anyone who can offer an interesting lens through which to observe and understand life in China.

FK: You were a headhunter, and a professional in this industry on how to change jobs and transition jobs. How did you get into headhunting yourself?

OF: I had been working ten years before that in a variety of jobs, but mainly in the field of research. So firstly, it was market research for Japanese companies, policy research for the Japanese government, and then later I was a conference producer, where I was creating programmes for commercial conferences. I didn't produce the event itself, I produced the content of the event. So I would research a topic, I'd figure out the feasibility of doing a conference on that topic, I'd write the programme, and then I would invite the calibre of guests that would attract companies to sponsor the programme and then ultimately to attend as a delegate. And that's what first took me to Singapore, where I was producing events for the Asia Pacific region. And it was in Singapore where I became a headhunter. When you are changing careers, it is a lot easier to transition into something which has some kind of overlap with your existing skills or interests. So for me, I had a natural curiosity; I had the research skills to find speakers; I had the interpersonal skills to convince them to be presenters at these conferences; and then I had the organisational skills to handle the running of these events. So it wasn't a massive leap to go into headhunting, which requires a similar basket of skills. Instead of researching topics, head hunting is more about researching people, their skills, their motivations, you know. Matching them not to a conference programme, but to a company who was looking to hire new employees. Later on when I was a headhunter, I would meet people now and again who wanted to make similar career shifts, but often without thinking about this overlap. So for example, there could be an HR manager in a tech company in India who wanted to be an HR director at a fashion brand in Singapore, for example. And maybe that person in India could have been exceptionally good, and could have done that job. What I would say to that kind of person is, if you want to be a fashion HR person in Singapore, then why don't you break it up into two separate moves? So either you could move into a fashion brand as an HR manager in India first, and then try to engineer the geographical move after that. Or you could try to focus on getting a role in tech HR in Singapore first, and then engineer a cross-industrial move after that. It's a simple piece of advice. But often people are a little bit too impatient. They get focused on that big move - the A to Z - rather than a couple of incremental moves, that could be a more reasonable way to reach the same objective. And it sounds a little tedious and unadventurous, in a way. But that's how I can say, I moved from teaching in Japan, to researching in London, to conferences in Singapore, to headhunting in Hong Kong, and now to podcasting in Shanghai. So it doesn't sound so boring and tedious when you say it like that. But all of those were small increments that in some way added up to something.

FK: I was always dreaming of working in China. But then I had to learn to take care of the engineering, not only the sales.

OF: Yes.

FK: And then I had to find a way to be working for a Chinese company. I can totally relate to what you're saying, because it's not just one goal. But within five years, you can actually reach a lot. Guys like me - flexpats - how can they get into the view of a headhunter?

OF: My general advice would be try and do things without needing a headhunter. This is the freedom I have to talk about this because I'm no longer a headhunter. The thing about headhunters is that there can be some downsides, and that's because of the way the markets generally are these days. Headhunters can be a little bit inflexible. A company will reach out to a headhunter often as a last resort. It's because they've exhausted all the other options. So for example, they might ask their employees for referrals, or they might have an internal recruiter who could go through sites like LinkedIn. It's only after all else fails do they go “Right, we can't find someone, let's use a headhunter.” So already, they have an expectation that the headhunter will have to be more exact in terms of who they can put forward. If you try, as a headhunter, to put someone who is not the 10-out-of-10 candidate, then often they will push back on you and say “Look, I'm paying you to find the exact right person. Why are you giving me someone who I could have found myself on LinkedIn? That is quite complicated. And it gets harder if it is a senior role in, let's say, an international company where there is an international matrix of decision makers. It can be a complex group of five or six stakeholders, all who need to agree. So that limits even more the idea of someone who is a little bit ‘out of the box' getting a chance for that role. And sometimes being a non-Chinese in China, for example, can mean that you are ‘out of the box’.

FK: Well, if headhunting is not the only option, then what else can you do to build a career and to build long-lasting relationships?

OF: Headhunters can be great, you need to be on-side with headhunters. But use your network to develop your long-term chances of being found for roles by the employers themselves. It is a social skill. Just like any other social skill, they are skills which you need to develop. So first of all, if you're not into networking, don't worry: I'm not into networking, and I was a headhunter. So it is a skill that you can develop, you've got to push through the resistance and learn the skill in a comfortable and authentic way. You should keep an eye out on who the right people are - you know, the friends of friends - and work out which of these people you ought to have a relationship with. And then invite them to be LinkedIn. Now, I would always personalise your LinkedIn invitations, never just send a link without a message. I personally never accept invitations without one. And then when you are writing to them, maybe you've seen a news article, or maybe you… Just something personalised, when you write it, so that they know it's not a group message that you send to everyone. And then build a relationship. Don't do anything too quickly, just say “It's great to be in touch, I hope that our paths can reconnect in the future at some point.” Maybe they'll reply, maybe they won't, it doesn't matter. And start thinking about posting your articles on LinkedIn. Posting just small posts. It could be a comment; it could be re-sharing an article that somebody else has written, and just adding your own personal commentary; it could be writing a short piece yourself, whenever the idea comes to you. Just start to build a body of work. And that's how you can start to build this online persona, and start to find your own voice. And don't do it inauthentically. So if you have nothing to say, then don't say it. And don't do it too much either, otherwise you'll give the impression that this is all that you do. Start with one sentence about you, and figure out “What one sentence can define who I am?” And then whenever you create some piece of content, just make sure that it largely fits into that persona. And then that will create some kind of consistency with the stuff that you post. And as you grow, that definition of yourself will change. You know, you don't need to stick to it any longer than it defines you. You know, that would be like a snake not being able to shed its skin when it grows. It's not supposed to suffocate you, it's supposed to inspire you to just create content. Slowly, you will start to build some kind of brand. When you do need a job, maybe what you've done over the past six months is, now and again you have sent specific people links to your posts, and said “Hi, as I was writing this, I thought of you.” Or just something which gives you an excuse to be in touch with them on a personal basis now and again. You know, these are just human beings. These are not faceless corporate robots. So wherever possible, you try to touch on them, which then hopefully engages with them on a personal level, defines who you are. And because you're doing it when you're not asking for anything in return - you’re just doing it in a way which is developing a relationship - then if you do meet them in real life, you already may have developed this digital identity with them beforehand. Then you can say “Oh, you know what, I am starting to look at options outside my company, and you came to mind. Why don't we have a quick coffee?”

FK: In this whole world - LinkedIn especially, but not only LinkedIn, not only digital, but also offline events, and so on - how can we flexpats really build a kind of a brand which would then lead into differentiating ourselves from Chinese professionals?

OF: I would probably focus on soft skills. They are the skills that help you to be persuasive and consultative. Saying “No” to someone senior is especially hard in places like China, where there are strict hierarchical norms when addressing someone senior. And by the way, it's even harder in Japan and Korea. Knowing how to do that is differentiating when it comes to a market like China. You have to know how to use that power. You can't be always the outlier, you have to use that power sparingly.

FK: The way that I'm working with my Chinese team is actually to tell them that they can do this. They can tell me what they like, and what they don't like. And they can tell me how they would like to solve a task. And then I will tell them if that's okay for me, or what I would do instead. And what I really want to know is their decision, in this case. It takes a long time to train this mindset, to get people to think about what they want themselves, and not just to do what the boss is saying. I really enjoy this. And I think it's a great opportunity to test your leadership ability in China, where you have this big cultural difference between these two worlds, right? The very direct - say, “You're wrong, and I'm telling why” - and the very indirect, say “Well if you say so that must be right.” I have to make a judgement. If I don't make a judgement, then there is no value that I provide. But if I make a judgement, I will make people unhappy.

OF: You touched upon the next point that I was going to make, which is actually the cultural adaptability piece. You came to China a long time ago, then you went back to your home country, and then you came back to China, correct?

FK: Exactly, exactly.

OF: Right.

FK: There were 12 years in between.

OF: This is the same as me. So I was first a teacher in Japan, and then I did some work in my home country - that was the UK - probably, I think, four/five/six years, something like that. And then I came back, and I've been in Asia since then. When I went back to the UK and started working in the UK, that was where I learned about how things are done in my home culture. I made plenty of mistakes. It's how you then react to your mistakes, it’s just learning the ways that you do business; the ways that you have responsibility…

FK: Yes.

OF: It's these fundamental cultural corporate skills. There are those who come to China - it could be anywhere in the world, but let's say China - and then from school they have a job, and never work elsewhere. If you're making these mistakes, and you're already in another market, they are corrected in different ways. Or - you know what - sometimes these mistakes can go unnoticed entirely. Because maybe as a foreigner or a ‘flexpat’ sometimes you already have a job that's slightly to one side of the rest of the company, and you're slightly the anomaly, and it's quite easy to go unnoticed. The people who had never really had professional experience in their home countries, you know, there's something a little bit off in the way that they do business, simply because they do not have that cultural baseline by which to measure how far off their equilibrium they were at any one point.

FK: I think for me it's quite interesting that when I was going back to Germany, and starting my career, I was kind of brutally starting in sales. So I was doing cold-calling for a senior guy who was ten years older than I am now. And so he was telling me “Do the dirty work”. So I would do it, and then he complains that I'm not quick enough. “Come on, do it yourself man!” But then when I came to China, I had this experience of doing dirty work for a long time. And this is how I think we can differentiate. Oscar, I really enjoy listening to your podcast Mosaic of China. And what I really like are the lots of different stories about lifestyle in China, not only careers and business. So can you share a little bit more about what you do and what your mission is?

OF: So yeah, what I try and do with Mosaic of China is a bit similar to what you do. You're focusing just on business, but for me I broadened it to any kind of person. Living through their story, and at the same time, you learn a little bit about China. And some people, their stories are very China-specific; and others just happen peripherally in China. But with every single story, it offers a new lens on how to understand life in China, sometimes by injecting serious topics, other times by being a little bit more cheeky and lighthearted, but hopefully in a way that can educate and entertain.

FK: Oscar, thank you so much for being with us today. We learned a lot about transitioning from one career stage to the next; working with headhunters, but also doing it yourself, building your own digital persona in order to get found by potential employers, or make friends who can help you later in your career. I also like what you shared about your podcast Mosaic of China, and I hope that our audience will tune in and have a look themselves, and connect with you on LinkedIn. So with this, thank you so much for being here on the show. 谢谢 [Xièxiè] and 再见 [zàijiàn]!

OF: 谢谢 [Xièxiè], 再见 [zàijiàn]!

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