Foreign education no guarantee of success in China job market
Record numbers of newly minted university graduates are returning to the mainland to a job market not overly impressed with all their efforts
A record 300,000 university graduates are expected to return to the mainland this year, facing one of the gloomiest job markets in recent memory as domestic firms favour work experience over expensive foreign degrees.
But foreign-educated job seekers won't just compete with other overseas graduates for employment. They will encounter stiffer competition from an estimated 7.3 million domestic graduates.
"Job hunting is tougher than taking entrance exams at university," says Jacqueline Gu, 24, who recently graduated with a master's degree in law from Britain's Durham University.
After sending out more than 50 resumés and sitting through round after round of interviews in the past four months, Gu accepted a position with a Shanghai law firm. The catch? She had to accept a monthly salary of HK$3,800, a third of what she sought. At that pay rate, it will take Gu years to recoup the 300,000 yuan (HK$380,00) her family spent on her degree.
The Beijing-based think tank, Centre for China and Globalisation, found that 86 per cent of 830 overseas graduates surveyed in the first half of last year landed their first job on the mainland within six months of completing their studies. But 59 per cent of the graduates said their professional networks were weaker than their mainland counterparts. Three in four said they were paid less than they had expected.