china – how to hire for the office

A company wants an accountant – this is what they should do ..

Qualifications.

These should be demonstrable in the form of a notarised Degree or Diploma, or signed Accounting Certificate. All of which can be purchased for about 50 RMB at the local print shop next door to the offal storage facility, which itself is handily located next door to the best restaurant in town. Where you ate last night, with the first guy, the first short listed applicant. He paid, you ate.

Ask no questions and they will tell you no lies. Confucius said that once.

These quality documents as mentioned above are also available from the print-vending machines in the lobby of the Mansions Hotel in Nathan Road in Kowloon, and don’t worry about the clouds of smoke in there – everybody has to eat sometime. This place runs 24 hours.

Look for misspellings (Degree has 2 ee’s after the g).

Experience in Accounting Software packages

– of which there are many. The interviewer, you, should enquire as to the names of the particular software an applicant claims experience in.

Slick little homegrown applications such as ‘ Superclerk V2.13‘ and ‘ Ezy$Fix ‘ are not what you really need, neither are ‘ The Chinese Rotarians Charitable Multi Currency Loan Ledger Systems. ‘

Don’t go looking for trouble when you don’t need it, all these fellows is gotta do is add up to what you want the total to be. This is China, nobody checks, why would you pay someone to know all  about your business – they should pay you ..! Plus we don’t want to interfere with the slice.

Simple applications based on the 1458 AD Luca Pacioli’s Summa de Arithmetica Geometria Proportionalita (A Review of Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportions) are best suited to your particular business. This work is noted as the first book on algebra. It is also the first documented source of double entry bookkeeping; double entry accounting is used primarily as an illustration of algebraic equations.

So you frame Pacioli’s quote in the lobby. Everything is face over there, Confucius again. That guy was everywhere.

Ability to use Microsoft Excel

Any Accountant who says he does not use this spreadsheet in his every day’s work should have about as much chance of securing the job as a tradesman would if he reckoned he could get a job building boats without wearing a thumb on each hand.

Spreadsheets are the evil blossoms of ill-conceived precepts; their flower pleases – yet their tangled roots remain invisible. Men have been buried in there.

This concept is only understood by Masters of Commerce or anyone with a framed Masters Degree of Business Administration nailed onto his garage wall. TAFE accounting paper, though hard won, is universally discounted as an example of higher learning because the colleges don’t have bars and poolrooms.

Stay calm.

Must be able to Communicate

Talking to people about things Financial is no easy matter, even for an accountant. Remember, this is what you were, once.

The fellow looking for the job who insists on droning on about Capital and Equity Ratios, Positive Cashflow Indices, Relationships Between Variable Costs and Intermittent Cross Production Variables must be dealt with summarily. He knows more than you do.

Turf the knucklehead out of the room immediately; find a human being to talk to for a few minutes. Maybe the little woman cooking fish in the lobby.

Stay calm – that above all. Calm.

Should Have Management Experience

This is a most essential requirement, as managing you will be a measure of his ability to withstand pain. Look for someone who has been recently sainted, or has just completed 25 years in one of those Chinese political re-education resorts in the country. They will be the skinniest guys in the queue. Who knows, he might have been a General twenty years ago. So stay loose here, he may still know someone who signs cheques.

Don’t worry about whether he can manage his own office and clerical staff, this is a boat-building Company, it doesn’t matter whose arse management aims the kick at as long as it connects with somebody lower in the food chain. This is the Australian Way so Confucius be buggered, We are in China to teach.

Must be able to speak and write clear English

Difficult ask this as most Australians speak sparely and in muted grumbles, like old camels. Some Chinese, on the other hand, grow words out of their mouths like weeds in water. Their supply and delivery is endless and almost completely unintelligible. Imagine putting five cats in a sack and shaking it.

So don’t hire pussies. A word to the wise.

Must Understand Basic Accounting Principles

Statistics recently available from the CBS (Chinese Bureau of Statistics) have indicated that a disturbingly large number of recently Degree qualified Accountants, when asked how they would deal with a manual ledger out of balance, responded by saying that they would ring software support. So much for coming to Australia for their education, at least they learnt how to play rugby.