The Chinese Job Market

I recently attended an event on the Chinese Job Market, organised by the British Council Beijing office and hosted in London.  Interestingly the event was aimed at giving information on Chinese students who have been studying in the UK and are returning home and UK students who may be interested in working in China in the future.

Speakers included:

The HR Director of Microsoft China
Senior Director of HP University
Senior HR Director of Baidu.com
Senior Manager of HR & Organisational Development for Epsom, Greater China

Comments on Chinese employers perceptions of UK educated graduates. 

Many employers said that the strengths of UK educated graduates were:

• English Language skills
• Leadership potential
• Communications skills
• International perspective
• Creative thinking

They also commented that the weak points of UK educated graduates were as follows:

• Lack of local knowledge
• Higher expectations than local graduates (salary etc)
• Team work can sometimes be an issue

All the employers said that Chinese graduates returning to China, after studying in the UK needed to concentrate on the following:

• Developing a positive attitude
• Having a clear career plan
• Be capable of handling stress and working in a high pressure environment
• Be a fast learner
• Focus on results rather than processes

Graduate statistics

• 7 million Chinese will graduate in 2012.
• 30% of them want to work for state owned organisations, as it's safer, more secure
• Many graduates want to live in 'Tier 1' cities, of which there are only 4.
• Only 20% want to go to 'Tier 2' cities, of which there are around 25.
• Hardly any graduates want to 'go West'.

The Chinese Job Market today

95% of UK educated Chinese alumni who are registered with the British Council found a job within 6 months.  Right now in China, there are more jobs than graduates.  Employers are beginning to say that it is difficult to find the right person.  Most graduates end up working in IT/Business and Engineering and most work for multi-national corporations.

The alumni network of the British Council in China has over 30,000 members and they run professional networking events and career development events.

The IT industry in China.

They said that there is huge demand for talent in the Chinese Internet industry. Tencent one of the main companies, hire 1,500 new graduates every year. They also said that the smaller companies are growing even faster.

Benefits and challenges of  working for a Private Owned Company

Benefits:
larger platform to develop a career from
high performance driven culture
communication environment is very straightforward

Challenges:
Management style can be very direct
Processes are not defined
There is a lot of peer pressure

Generation UK 

A new programme being supported by the British Council to encourage outward mobility.  This would involve UK/British students being offered a 2-3 month internship and 1 month of language study.  British Council hope to role this programme out by March 2013

For more information and to access the presentations please go here