Help Not wanted: Expats need not apply

Over the last few years, a recent worrying trend has emerged amongst recruitment agencies, which has resulted in overt discriminatory behaviour towards hiring expats.


Here is a good example, from my own personal experience.

Awhile ago, I came across an advertisement for a native English-speaking “Finance Journalist/ Content Specialist/ Writer - PR Leader”.


I quickly rang up the recruiter, but to my dismay, within a few seconds of speaking to me, she shut me down. She asked me one simple question, “do you speak Chinese?”


I said, but the advertisement says, “Highly fluent English speaker preferred”.

She immediately said, “NO! This role requires trilingual skills.”


I said, but the advertisement says, “Ability to read Chinese, while not a requirement, would be an asset.”


Perhaps she was mistaken and thinking of another advertisement of hers. She said, “No. I only have one,” and insisted that this role requires trilingual skills.


She asked me to send in my CV to her again, just so the conversation could end quickly; even though they already have my CV in their database.


The funny thing was she didn't know my name, didn’t enquire about me or my background at all. And was clearly not interested in discussing other roles.


Gee. I thought recruitment agencies were in the business of placing the best talent.


Please share your similar experiences.


P.S.: Another advertisement has emerged, with exactly the same JD, but with a different title: "Senior Financial Writer - Top Agency".

From my experience, recruiters in Hong Kong are pretty bad. Seems like many collects CV. They serve only their own interest and won't go out of their way to help you land a job. They won't represent your interest in salary negotiation and only aim to close the deal. You are better off looking for the source of the job directly and try to some how get the contact info and send in your CV directly.

I have also encounter few great recruiters. The one that found me for my current job was really good, but she's an internal recruiter so I won't share any info. But most others are just waste of space, they are impend you from find job more than helping you.