Robert here. As we have been predicted would happen in past posts, a sizzling biglaw US associate lateral hiring boom has arrived in Hong Kong / China for the first quarter ’11. We expect this hiring boom to continue until spring, with hiring being steady afterwards but dropping to more normal levels.
A “perfect storm” has developed, causing many US and UK firms in Hong Kong / China to have multiple US corporate / cap markets urgent openings at one time now.
A lot of these top firms in Hong Kong / China have been understaffed since late 2009. When the global recession went into full swing in late 2008, the downturn had started to seriously affect biglaw deal flow in China (about a year after negative effects were felt in US and other Western markets), with IPOs coming to a stop. There was misguided concern at the time that because China had some dependence on US exports for its economy to be fully fueled, China would be heading into a bubble-busting down turn, even much worse than what was taking place in the US. However, in mid-’09, deal flow in China was booming again, fueled in large part by China’s own consumer economy expanding rapidly. This was no surprise to many of us who have observed China for several years. After all, 2009 was the year that China over took the US in new cars purchased annually, China overtook India in gold purchased annually, and the Asia Pacific Region overtook North America in daily commercial flights.
But much of the world was skeptical the boom could continue more than a short time (dramatic bubble-busting predictions sold newspapers and perhaps made some Westerners feel better about themselves) and thus senior firm management at many firms were reluctant to invest heavily with new hires in China, especially considering the recession in West. With the worst recession of our lifetime in full swing, most US firms were on a global hiring freeze and trying to avoid more layoffs, rather than trying to hire laterals for China. The feeling was also that if there was a need to staff up on some deals in China, it could be done by sending over associates not busy in US, at least temporarily, which was a band-aid on what was becoming an understaffing problem. Further, it was just bad internal politics back them for a partner at a US firm in Asia or elsewhere to try to pressure their management for lateral hires because of the big push in ’09 to keep down costs and try to salvage profit numbers (to help recruit and retain partners) in the midst of a major recession.
Tags: Asia | Hong Kong
Keep in mind that there can be very negative consequences in giving control of such an important career move and job search to someone calling you out of the blue (no matter how many times they may call). We often get calls from very well qualified US associates with sad tales of at worst their resume being plastered unauthorized all over China or other Asia markets; or at best only authorized submissions (thankfully) but realizing their recruiter has done little more than emailing their resume to begin with and is unresponsive for weeks.
In just the past few weeks, we have seen a noticeable rise in the expat / cola allowances for US associates at some of the most competitive group of US and UK firms in HK / China. In fact , it appears that for the first time $80,000 may be taking hold as the eventual standard in HK / China. For the past several years, while there were anywhere from zero to four firms paying as much as $80,000 expat / cola for associates with no children, most of the top US and UK firms remained in the $60,000 to $65,000 allowance range. The competitive range continues to be $60,000 to $80,000, but more firms are at the top of that range than ever before in HK / China. Further, two top US firms pay $90,000 expat / cola (although one of those has tax equalization on the base).
To clarify, a clear shot to partner opportunity is one where a business case already exists at a new hire’s new firm for that person to make equity partner. In other words, there is already an equity partner slot open and pegged for such new hire. Of course the senior associate / counsel / salary partner will have to perform, but there is already plenty of deals for that person to execute and the only variable (baring a catastrophe in the market) to making equity partner is that person’s performance, rather than the many variables outside of one’s control that almost always come into play for equity partner promotion (even in the most realistic and strong partnership tracks, there is most usually not already a business case for a new hire to make partner before he / she joins the firm and the business case can be in part made by the new hire’s performance, but also even more usually relies on supervising partners’ and / or new hire’s ability to expand the current practice).