Before recruitment can begin it has to be decided what role or position is available or needs to be filled. (IRS 2003) Today however as many jobs roles include many different aspects that change from day to day employers are more likely to look for a set of quality in the ideal candidate rather than looking for a employee to fill a specific job position. (IRS2009)
 
Attractive candidates or potential employees can be attracted by a number of ways such as financial rewards or the possibility for personal development and recognition.
People may be attracted to organisations based on the prestige of that organisation or by their own awareness of the goals and aims of the MNE. In the survey carried out by the charted institute of personnel branding was considered a important factor when selecting a organisation to work for.
Typically within the UK approaches to recruitment focus on the power of the employer.  Where a large number of candidates are attracted before screening begins to find the best candidate.
In china this is not always the case where candidates may have significantly more power than their UK counterparts by Guanxi that helped them get the job position over someone else perhaps more qualified. Guanxi  (connections ) are an important cultural factor within Chinese society (Yang, 1994) which has an effect on recruitment methods.
Recruitment methods
Tradition recruitment channels are such as advertising, commercial recruitment agencies, recruitment fairs, job centres, word of mouth, walk-in’s, links with education and internal recruitment, online applications.
These are typical methods with varying usage used in the UK.
According to Cranet (2006) using clerical positions as a example 49.3% of candidates are found by advertising, 23.4% by recruitment agencies, 21.2% Internally, 2.6% by company website vacancy page, 2.1% word of mouth, 0.4% vacancy on job website, 0.4% direct from education, 0.7% others.
 These recruitment methods vary quite considerably from country to country.  Using my Father’s company Yankuang that he is the CEO of in china as a source example I found some relevant research data. In this Yankuang petrochemical Co ( a state owned enterprise ). which employs over 2000 people most of the employees are sourced direct from educational institutions based in the same Provence of Shandong,  either from the top state universities of Qingdao or Jinan.  They have own recruiting department who make contacts with the teachers are the universities to find potential students. Most of the new trainees are found this way.
If the student is thought to be of the required level they come to the company for a 1 month training period for safety and company culture training.
There is also the alternative method of recruitment for people who have passed the National Public Servant exam. These are usually people who go onto government jobs but can apply directly through the company website. There is also a significant number number of family members, over 30, employed who did not need to go through the normal recruitment procedure.  This is typical of Guanxi effect on recruitment practise in China. State owned enterprises still give weight to political background. Zhu and Dowling  (2002, cited in Ben Lupton, Rosemary. L & Mathieson, 2006)
Additionally in terms of internal recruitment this is the only method used for top level positions such as executive or middle managers. It seems as if trust, required experience and Guanxi built up within the company were the main reasons for this.
A study by IP (1995) indicated that about 80% of respondents in China had found their jobs through references from friends and family. Nepotism in China in a study by (Chatterjee and Nankervis,2003) is also shown to be quite prevalent for low levels job applications. This implies that recruitment practices in china have changed little in terms of adopting western business recruitment methods.