finding a job in China

[aimei]

Hi all, I studied in Beijing last semester and would like to go back to work after I am done with college. My ideal situation would be working for a US multinational, but my problem is I have no idea where to even start looking! For those of you working in China, how did you obtain your positions?

[venture160]

hard work. hours of editing resumes. interviews. luck. Unless you have family connections, thats about all you can rely on.

[kudra]

Ask your professors if they can recommend someone to talk to about careers in China.

Ask each prof. to give you 2(or more) names. Talk to each of those people, get advice, and ask each of them for the names of 2(or more) people, repeat. After a few iterations you have a network of 100 people you can ask for advice. You can not be shy.

This is outlined in "What Color is your Parachute?" the main point of which is that time spent cultivating connections like this is better spent than mailing out resumes to job boards.

I think there are probably other threads on this site that address this.

When are you graduating?

[myann23]

I agree with the other posters. Connections are really important. Probably the best way though is to work for a multinational in the states for 2-3 years or so, do a good job, and then get transferred overseas. Since you get transferred after working in the USA, you'll also probably get a ridiculous expat salary as well.

How are your Mandarin skills? They will be obviously important as well. Now is definitely the time to start honing them before you go, whether it's right after you graduate or in a few years.

I have been working in the entertainment industry in LA for only a year, but after visiting China on an extended break, I got China fever and really wanted to work there. I wanted to stay in the entertainment/media industry, so I did a lot of research on people/companies operating there, got e-mail addresses and phone numbers and started to contact people. When you contact them, make sure you have your story down pat, and make it specific. Simply saying that you want to work in China because it's an interesting place isn't enough.

I contacted this one person, the director of a entertainment company HQ in LA, just opened up China office, and got really lucky. He told me if I want to work at his company in the long-term, I need to learn Mandarin, so he's allowing a foot in the door for me, letting me intern part-time (unpaid I might add), while allowing me to focus on my Mandarin studies. I will need to teach English to support myself once I'm there in a few months. While it does suck not to have a paid gig for my internship, it's one of those deals where I have to take a step back before I take two steps forward, but I think it's totally worth it on both personal and professional levels.

Feel free to ask if you have any other questions. What's your major and work experience so far during college?

[novemberfog]

The best thing to do is to talk to everyone you know and see if they know of any companies or an people who are talking of China lately. HR departments and computer systems work hard to keep people out, but if you know someone on the inside you can completely bypass the computers and HR for the most part.

You could also visit china as a "tourist" and spend a few weeks submitting your resume with companies. You might be able to talk with a few recruitment companies as well.

It is really hard to directly enter a multinational and work in their foreign offfices right away. Normally you grind away in your home country for a few years bulding your reputation, and then you can apply for internal transfers or volunteer to work on new projects starting up in overseas offices.