Barry Kirkwood (NPA #8470) has made his first split placement since joining the staff of J.M. Gemini Personnel Ltd. in Shanghai, China.
Barry placed a Country Manager in the Sales/Business Development Industry, provided by Joshua Ro (NPA #8459) of Venture People Corp. (formerly People Consulting Group) in South Korea.
Barry said he first met Joshua virtually through the monthly APAC Zoom calls, and then they were able to meet in person at the APAC Conference that took place in Hong Kong in 2019.
Barry explains how the deal came about: "One of our clients in Shanghai was looking to expand their operations into Korea, and to hire their first staff member there. They had a lot of questions about the market such as the labor laws, talent pool and salary guides etc. I was able to introduce them to Joshua, who handled all of their questions and needs in a highly professional manner, and he was able to successfully find their first staff member in Korea.
"Personally, I’m very happy to finally make a split after a couple of years of trying! The key for me was to remain active in the NPA networks and get to know my partners better so that when a request came up, I was able to reach out directly to an NPA partner and feel confident that they would be able to provide the support that my client needed.
"Now that my first split has been made, I have also been able to make a second split shortly after with AK Menon from Options Executive Search in India, and we’re close to making another one soon! Thanks to all of the NPA partners and team for their support to me and Gemini over the years, and look forward to making more splits in the future!"
Joshua added that soon after Barry put him in touch with his client, things were put on hold due to the severe cases of Covid-19 in Korea and China, but resumed back 6 months later.
Joshua said: "This assignment required more attention and follow ups with the client due they had no presence in Korea and wanted to hire directly from Shanghai so I had to provide necessary support such as payroll information, tax information, labor law information for them to assess what they need to prepare in order to hire an employee directly.
"We intensely searched and came up with top three prospective candidates. The client dropped one after reviewing their CVs and moved two for next round of video interview then dropped one more after the video interview and we were left with one final candidate. But then the client wanted at least one more candidate for comparison with this final candidate, but since we already have presented the most strong and most qualified top three candidates after screening so many, best we could do was to present no. 4 candidate which we know it wouldn't work and we also knew that coming up with another comparable candidate in similar spec and credential would be very difficult and time consuming. So we suggested the client to review the first candidate they dropped and they did and the final candidate they decided to hire was the very first candidate they dropped.
"All the intense communications were exchanged while I was in LA for my dad's funeral and we made progress including terms and conditions of the employment contract for my candidate. And on Feb. 1st, all were settled and candidate signed the employment contract and accepted the offer."
This is a great example of, despite setbacks of Covid and a client's changing expectations, how tenacity and clear communication can result in a split! Great work, Joshua and Barry!