The first hire is a strategy decision, not a staffing one
Groups entering Vietnam usually arrive with one of two theories. Either the market is run from the region and the local hire executes, or the market is genuinely local and the first hire owns it. Those two theories need different people, pay differently, and attract different candidates. Getting them confused is the single most common reason a first search stalls.
A country manager who will own the P&L, build the team and carry commercial responsibility is a different proposition from a senior representative who implements regional decisions. Both are legitimate. Strong candidates work out which one you are offering within about twenty minutes, and they respond accordingly.
A sequence that tends to work
Country lead first
In most cases the country manager or general manager comes first, because that person should hire the rest of the team. Bringing in functional heads before the leader and asking the leader to inherit them is a known way to lose the leader within eighteen months.
Finance second
Vietnamese statutory accounting, tax and audit obligations arrive early and are unforgiving. A finance director or controller is usually the second hire, often before commercial roles.
Commercial and operations third
Once there is a leader with authority and a finance function that can close the books, the commercial and operational build becomes a normal hiring exercise rather than a gamble.
On timing. Plan roughly three months from brief to start date for a country-level hire. We commit to a shortlist within ten business days; the rest is your interview cycle, which for a first hire often involves regional and global stakeholders, plus a notice period that is commonly 30 to 45 days at this level.
Hiring before the entity exists
It is common for the first search to run in parallel with incorporation, and it can be done. What it requires is honesty with the candidate about the sequence. A senior person being asked to resign from a stable position in order to join an entity that does not legally exist yet will ask how they will be employed and paid in the interim, and a vague answer will cost you the candidate.
Decide your answer before the first interview, not after the offer. Our role is to make sure the question is asked early rather than at the worst possible moment.
Local hire or expatriate
Both work, for different problems. An expatriate leader with group experience can be the right answer where the mandate is to transplant a model faithfully and the relationship with headquarters matters most. A local leader is usually the right answer where the mandate is to win in the Vietnamese market, where government, customer and partner relationships carry real weight, and where cost efficiency over several years matters.
The honest version is that the cost difference is substantial and the capability difference is much smaller than it was ten years ago. The Vietnamese senior market has matured considerably. We will give you a view on both options, with named comparators from the mapping exercise, rather than a recommendation dressed up as a fact.
What usually goes wrong
- A job description written for headquarters. Titles and scope that make sense in the group hierarchy often read as junior in the local market, and strong candidates decline before the first call.
- A salary band set by regional benchmark rather than local reality. Vietnam is not uniformly cheaper at the senior end. Scarce profiles price closer to regional levels than most groups expect.
- An interview process with too many stages. Five rounds spread over ten weeks loses candidates to faster competitors, and the ones you lose are usually the ones you wanted.
- No decision on the entity question. See above. It is the most avoidable of the four.
How we support an entry mandate
We start with a market map rather than a shortlist, because a group that has not hired here before benefits more from seeing the landscape than from receiving three CVs. The map shows who is doing the equivalent job, at which companies, and at roughly what level of seniority. It frequently changes the brief.
From there the search runs normally: direct approach, assessed shortlist in ten business days, reference and background checks, offer and resignation management. Fees are success-based with no retainer, so the mapping stage does not commit you to anything. See fees and engagement model.