Exclusive Q&A with Patrick Rooney, MD of AESC Asia-Pacific and The Middle East

Asian Executives are expecting the executive job market to growth in 2015. As reported by The Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) in their just-released BlueSteps 2015 Executive Job Outlook Report, Asian executive job trends show encouraging figures.

The report for the Asia-Pacific region highlights the following:

• Over 66 percent of Asian executives believe that the job market outlook in 2015 is positive compared to 2014.
• 62 percent expects strong growth in the healthcare/life science sector.
• 56 percent sees employment growth in technology sector.
• In order to dig deeper into the Asian executive job trends, we are privileged to have a Q&A session with Patrick Rooney, the Manging Director of AESC for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East regions.

Ivan Widjaya (Q): The 2015 BlueSteps Job Outlook Report has just released. Can you tell us a bit about the report and why it matters to Asian companies and job market, as well?

Patrick Rooney (A): This survey of 80 management professionals from the APAC region, director-level through C-suite, was conducted from January 2015 to February 2015 and included responses from management-level professionals in the industrial, technology, healthcare, professional services and other sectors worldwide. This report matters because there is very little information available on the executive employment market across Asia. Executive views on their own employment situation, and that of their peers, can provide indicate broader employment trends in the economy and impending changes to the regional economy.

Q: Talking about the supply-and-demand of the job market, how?s the competition for management-level positions?

A: Based on my own conversations with search consultants and executives, I would say that competition for management-level positions differs significantly from market to market and sector to sector.

Indonesia certainly faces some challenges getting the right people at the right level. Overseas investment, particularly from Japan, creates greater need for executives, but this is occurring at exactly the same time that Indonesian conglomerates are expanding domestically and internationally and also have a severe need for talent. In addition, Indonesia can be a difficult place to successfully recruit foreign executives to. In China there is a definite need for executives who are able to manage risk and compliance issues and this reflects global trends. Across Asia there is increasing demand for executives with experience managing digital aspects of business.

In terms of sectors, healthcare and technology sectors show strong growth. In the Expert Q&A (page 35) not all of the search consultants/career experts were in agreement. Some said competition is increasing, some said it?s situational and others said it?s increasing, but there are also more companies with vacant roles. This reflects variation between markets.

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