Most high-achieving university graduates prefer working for foreign-invested enterprises which are willing to pay thousands of dollars a month compared to state agencies that receive several millions of VND, said Ta Thi Yen, deputy chair of the National Assembly Standing Committee's Board for Deputy Affairs during the interview with VietNamNet about policies to attract and use talented candidates.

What do you think about the current mechanism on attracting and using talents?

The Party and the State always attaches much importance to discovering, attracting and using talents, and have laid down many guidelines and policies on the issue. Most recently, in the orientation for the country development in 2021-2030, the Resolution of the 13th Party Congress puts emphasis on ‘attracting and using talents’.

In addition to the general policies such as Decree 140/2017 on creating and developing staff resources from excellent university graduates and young scientists, cities and provinces apply specific policies to attract high-quality human resources to their localities.

However, it is undeniable that the policies remain unattractive. They are fragmented, different in style and not comprehensive. The implementation of the policies is also ineffective. Many localities can attract talents, but cannot retain them.

The regimes and policies on inviting experts to offer opinions to build laws or projects for the National Assembly are an example. Many experts and scientists contribute ideas to build policies and laws mostly to fulfill social responsibility and respond to the call of inviting agencies. They work because they are passionate about their profession, because they want to contribute and devote themselves to the country, not because of the benefits offered to them.

Reasonable salary, income and remuneration policies are very important to attract talents to work at State agencies or to attract collaborators and skilled experts to participate in policy making.

Currently, working for State agencies and enjoying a lifetime working regime are no longer the top choice for young people as seen in the past. Young workers with high qualifications, skills and deep knowledge now have a lot of job opportunities. Most of them choose to work for foreign companies to receive salaries of thousands of dollars a month, rather than state agencies to receive several millions of VND.

The people who apply for state agencies are mostly those from families where parents and relatives also work for state agencies, and they want stable jobs. For them, high incomes are not the top priority.

Some localities offer very high pay to attract talent. HCM City, for example, offered a monthly pay of VND100-150 million a month but after the program finished, talents then began to receive slightly more than VND10 million a month like other officers. So they resigned from their posts. What is this about?

This regime is applied to non-business public units or state owned enterprises. Meanwhile, under the current mechanism on salary and bonus for state officers, such a high salary level doesn’t exist.

So, as you said, when HCM City applied the pilot mechanism and offered high salaries, talented officers worked for HCM City, but when the common mechanism was applied, they refused the low salaries and resigned.

Many people work for certain agencies not just because they are well paid, but also because they like the working environment there. When taking the jobs, they feel they are respected, their knowledge is highly appreciated, and their efforts are recognized and applied in reality, which brings positive effects to society.

I noticed a statement in the draft of the national strategy on talent use that age and education degrees should not be used to select talents. What do you think about this viewpoint?   

I agree with this. There are many people no longer in the working age, but they have good health and knowledge, capability and experience to continue to work and devote themselves to the country. They should be used and respected. Such valuable human resources should not be wasted. 

Many people said that if we still have to strictly follow the current procedure on appointment which requires officers to experience many different positions in different fields, we won’t be able to attract talents. They suggested to have an outstanding mechanism which doesn’t have to pursue the procedure. What do you think about this?

We already have the mechanisms for specialists, collaborators, advisors and consultants to use retired capable cadres and civil servants to continue to contribute their intelligence to the country.

Thu Hang