I have always liked bulletin board sites like Gumtree or Craigslist. I think they have a tremendous business model and will have entirely replaced the classifieds pages in local papers in the next half a decade.
I have found them very useful for recruitment. Compared to the hundreds of pounds it takes to advertise on Monster or similar sites with huge advertising budgets they are tremendously effective. My esteemed colleague Lua, of whom you have read many times, found Herts Lettings via Gumtree.
These sites do not, as yet, exist in mainland China. At least not that I can find. In Shenzhen however there is the admirable Shenzhen Party site, especially the jobs section. I put a small ad on this site, which used to be viewable at this address, but now seems to have disappeared. The text was:
I am looking for a Guangdong-based partner who can help me find investment opportunities for UK real-estate investors.
You will have to speak excellent English and work well under minimum supervision. You will have to be prepared to travel regularly to the UK, but your base will be China.
If you have legal or real estate background, or experience of working with a European employer then this will be positive.
Over a couple of weeks it was read 750 times (i.e. clickthrough from title) and produced 34 responses, the majority of which were quite suitable for the role, certainly as described (I forgot to specify that Mandarin Chinese was a must, because I assumed that I'd get inquiries exclusively from locals, but in fact got a significant proportion from foreigners working in Shenzhen or Guangzhou.
I will wait to discuss with Lua the final selection - not least because the role is the one she has been performing by flying back and forth to the country. I still don't know exactly how this will work out, because I feel I really need to provide some kind of office space and physical base there.
I have had much less success with Gumtree in London where I have been looking for web designers and accountants. If you know of anyone in these categories, please get in touch!
