by Vivian Yang

COVID-19 and its after-effects continue to create challenges for the global job market. Jacky Wang, Head of Recruiting at JD.com, shared the company’s overseas job prospects, insights on how international talents can adapt to a Chinese tech company environment and the transformation of recruiting for GenZ, as well as the future of jobs for technology companies.

Jacky Wang, Head of Recruiting, JD.com

 

Q：What is candidate sentiment like during COVID-19?

A: During the COVID-19 period, even though JD cannot conduct in-person interviews, HR department never stopped talent sourcing. With good reason, job seekers show different degrees of anxiety in this turbulent situation, especially overseas graduates who are facing travel challenges. When people become more risk-averse, they are inclined to choose big companies like JD.com as they believe big companies are more mature and resilient, and can provide stable employment. In fact, JD’s offers to overseas students in 2020 have doubled since last year.

In addition, companies that demonstrate a strong commitment to social responsibility during the tough time received interest from candidates. In the past six months, JD has done a great deal in the fight against the COVID-19, from transporting medical materials at home and abroad to ensuring non-stop daily necessities for customers. In doing this, JD has always put our employees’ health and safety first. JD’s contributions have been recognized by a lot of candidates.

JD Recruitment’s livestreaming session during the epidemic period

 

Q：What job opportunities does JD.com offer to overseas candidates?

A：Globalization is an important strategy for JD.com. JD has developed a robust cross-border e-commerce business, connecting international brands and suppliers with over 387 million Chinese consumers. The company also covers a wide range of businesses including retail, logistics, technology, finance etc. JD has expanded its physical presence globally, and currently has footprints in Indonesia, Thailand, and the United States, and we are continuing to extend our reach in Southeast Asia.

As such, JD is hungry for talents with a global vision. JD offers a variety of job opportunities for people to explore their career paths in rapidly growing businesses.

Jacky Wang at a campus recruitment event at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

Q: What are the highlights of your talent development programs?

A: JD believes learning on the job is the most effective way to cultivate business leaders. Thus JD offers trainee programs tailored to different groups of employees, including interns, fresh graduates, international MBAs, technology experts and overseas corporate employees.

Given JD’s wide range of businesses, trainees have a unique advantage to participate in flexible rotation programs where they hold various posts in order to gain a full picture of our core business and culture before they decide on a specific position. JD offers training and development programs, both directly job-related and cross-discipline, while on the job. Furthermore, trainees will have 1 on 1 mentoring with designated executives and receive frequent coaching and mentoring from senior managers. Raises and promotions are based on merit – JD has cases of high-performing young employees who were promoted from T2 (an entry-level position) to T8 (a mid-senior managerial position) within three years’ time.

After finishing rotations at JD Headquarters, management trainee Christofer Surjadi

joined JD.ID’s Warehouse & Logistics Department in Indonesia

 

Q: What is it like working at JD Headquarters?

A: JD Headquarters is located in the Southeast suburb of Beijing. So far, four office buildings have been put into use, and several are under construction. JD currently has 15,000 employees working in the headquarters.

JD offers all sorts of facilities and services to accommodate employees’ work and life: gyms, a library, a hair salon, a bakery, laundry services, a pharmacy, massage services, and more. The staff cafeteria occupies five floors, and offer three meals a day with various flavors from different cuisines across China and globally – one of the most satisfying benefits for JDers. Unmanned convenience stores, vending machines and delivery robots ensure daily groceries are easily within reach.

It’s never easy to commute during Beijing’s rush hour, so JD provides over 60 lines of staff shuttle buses all around the city, and offers subsidized employee housing near the office. JD has also opened its own day-care and kindergarten, which is a rare benefit for employers to offer, but very much needed support to many people in China.

JD Headquarters in Beijing

 

Q：In your observation, what kind of international talents can do well in Chinese companies?

A: The understanding of Asian culture, especially Chinese culture, is quite important. I have spoken with a lot of international candidates, many of whom expressed challenges in internal coordination and communication with their Chinese colleagues. In Chinese culture, the inter-personal relations, or “guanxi”, is typically subtler than what you might find in a western workplace. However, if they can be aware of their subtleties and embrace interaction with their teammates and other colleagues, it is not impossible for them to navigate this kind of environment. Foreign candidates, who have the ambition to make a difference in the business world, see that one of the charms of a Chinese tech companies is the speed of execution. Once a decision is made, it will be actioned quickly.

 

Q: As a recruiter, how do you appeal to GenZ during their job hunts?

A: Indeed, compared with the post-80s generation, GenZ or the post-95s generation is much more independent and individualized. We find that when they go through the job application and interview process, many of them prefer digital interactions for answers to simple questions, such as which documents are required for application, or the address of interview locations. So we introduced a straightforward and effective chatbot to interact with them in the recruiting process. Also, during the wait time before face-to-face interviews, instead of giving them wordy questionnaires to fill out, we start to offer them gamified digital HR evaluations so they won’t feel bored.

But this doesn’t mean they don’t need human interaction. On the contrary, they need even stronger emotional connection. In the past, we won’t do much communication between when a student signs a letter of intent and when they graduate and sign official employment contracts.  But now, we make a lot effort to keep them engaged in between by organizing office tours and warm-up campaigns in their ACG (anime, comic and games) culture. These activities have been greatly welcomed and enhanced their sense of belonging.

 

Q: Machines are replacing human jobs in a fast pace. What kind of future talent can thrive and help the company succeed?

A: Hiring employees with skills in new areas that are still in exploratory phases is difficult. But we do see people who can play multidisciplinary roles, have malleable skillsets, or the so-called “hybrid talent”, will have greater chances to advance. If an IT engineer understands management or arts, he might create new value in his coding that leads to better end-user experience products.

Soft skills are equally important. In the past, HR paid a lot of attention to a candidate’s working experience and how these match rigidly the job description. I think for now and in the future, leadership has become essential. Everyone needs leadership in a dynamic workspace – not only teamwork, and the ability to manage up and down, but also the ability to empathize, understand others’ needs and emotions, and be able to rise above challenges. An HR recruiter who only knows how to pick resumes and arrange interviews can easily be replaced by robots. But the ability for an HR specialist to recognize and understand a candidate’s emotions and value orientation is something near impossible for robots to take over.

 

Q: Do you see any new job format coming up in the foreseeable future?

A: Sure, in response to the rapid development of cutting-edge technologies and changes in society, there are already many innovative jobs emerging on the market, and JD is pioneering several of them.

For example, on the high-tech front, there are AI trainers, drone, VR and industrial internet engineers. On the retail front, global buyers for new product categories will continue to grow, as well as supply chain management experts. On the health services front, demand for telemedicine doctors, and personal healthcare consultants is on the rise.

 

To follow more information about JD.com’s recruitment activities, please visit the JD Campus website, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

This article was first published on FT.

by Jianguang Shen, Vice President of JD.com and Chief Economist of JD Digits

At last month’s National People’s Congress, China unveiled a much-anticipated fiscal stimulus package to counter the damage caused by the Covid-19 crisis to the world’s second-biggest economy.

The virus-fighting spend, which amounts to an extra Rmb3.6tn ($500bn), or around 4 per cent of China’s annual economic output, will be paid for by the issue of special Treasury bonds for pandemic relief, as well as infrastructure-bound local government special bonds and a wider fiscal deficit.

For many in China, the intervention is reminiscent of the Rmb4tn stimulus introduced by Beijing after the 2008 financial crisis. Held up as a painful lesson on the risks of ultra-loose fiscal policy, it has since dominated economic debate. But where does this stimulus phobia come from?

Aimed at boosting sagging demand, the financial crisis-era programme involved massive public infrastructure investment, social welfare spending and rural development. True, it left China with a painful legacy that was felt many years later, such as bloated local government debt, a red-hot housing market and hordes of zombie companies. People understandably fear a new debt-fuelled bubble from the latest spending spree.

However, the 2008 stimulus package also proved to be a strong and timely relief from the maladies of the period. The side-effects would have been held in check if the structural flaws in China’s economy had been better addressed.

When the world was reeling from the aftermath of the financial crisis, China’s policymakers were absolutely right to worry about the downturn it would cause. Months later, the country’s exports would drop, unemployment rose and many small businesses collapsed. Stimulus enabled China to quickly restore its economic vigour and the country went on to overtake many of its rivals in the ensuing decade.

The public expenditure did not just prop up aggregate demand; in particular, huge spending on infrastructure has paid off. A high-speed railway network, new airports and logistics — mostly built after the crisis and once deemed as being premature investments — have shaped the country’s urban clusters and made its manufacturing sector more competitive. China’s share of the global manufacturing sector’s value-added rose from 14.4 per cent in 2008 to 28.2 per cent in 2018, according to our analysis of World Bank data.

China now finds itself in a completely different landscape. The current situation calls for even greater urgency than 2008. As the battle against Covid-19 dragged on, China’s GDP shrank 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, the steepest year-on-year fall ever recorded. By contrast, the country’s economic trough between 2008 and 2010 was a 6.4 per cent year-on-year expansion.

Although April’s data contained some green shoots, domestic demand lagged behind supply. While the added value of industrial production grew 3.9 per cent, retail sales and investment contracted. And as the world braces itself for a sharp technical recession, with the US economy heading for a 38 per cent annualised decline in inflation-adjusted output in the second quarter, a temporary rebound in China’s exports in April disguised the grim reality that more and more foreign orders were being cancelled.

Beijing has vowed to work on what it calls its “six priorities”: employment, basic livelihood, companies, food and energy security, stable supply chains and smooth operation of government. For example, saving jobs and small and medium-sized businesses would call for something similar to the US’s Paycheck Protection Program. A more resilient supply chain suggests increased infrastructure spending.

China has more room for manoeuvre than other big economies. According to IMF’s fiscal tracker, China’s Covid-19 support packages (including spending, loans and guarantees) amounted to only 2.5 per cent of its gross domestic product by April, compared to 34 per cent for Germany, 20.5 per cent for Japan and 11.1 per cent for the US. Even after adding the measures announced at the NPC, China’s fiscal commitment is still a far cry from that of western economies.

The country also boasts a fresh and promising pool of projects. Of course, much of the fiscal spending will be earmarked for the six priorities, but the spotlight should also be turned on those “new infrastructure” investments such as data centres, industrial facilities powered by artificial intelligence and cold-chain logistics for products such as frozen goods, all of which could unleash China’s potential as an economic powerhouse over the next decade.

A healthy dose of fiscal action serves both shorter-term stability and longer-term prosperity. Of course, stimulus alone is no panacea. The best way to overcome the sceptics is to build on a well-structured and carefully targeted spending plan. Further efforts to rejuvenate the post-pandemic economy — through measures such as rural land reform and a further opening-up of the financial sector — remain key to China’s sustained growth in an increasingly uncertain world.