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Tough Love: What employers want from Chinese students

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By Marc Steward - Careers Consultant - University of Leeds 

 

Background-Author

I have worked as a Careers Consultant for 22 years, the last four of which have been at the University of Leeds. My core work at the UoL is with both LUBS and Earth & Environment students, but I have had an additional project for the last 3 years, which has been looking after careers, and employability activities for international students run by the central Careers Service.

 

Background-Presentation

In the 2018/19 academic year, the number of Chinese students enrolled on courses at the University of Leeds totalled a shade under 5,000. This number far outweighed any other international student group on campus.

The increasing number of Chinese students attending the university meant that it was important for a member of the Careers Service to visit China for the first time to speak to employers and recruiters of our Chinese returners, to get an insight into selection and recruitment practices and employment sector trends.

I have visited China twice now in the past 2 years (up to March 2019) and have produced 2 reports on my findings regarding recruitment and selection practices and what Chinese employers expect to see from our returners. I have also generated beneficial employer networks in order to run on-campus and webinar activities for our Chinese students, and any other students who are interested in working in China.

 

Summary of findings

In total, I have spoken to, and listened to presentations given by, around 65 employers in China. These employers cover a range of job sectors and were spread throughout 4 cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Qingdao. Despite this variety, four common themes emerged from the employers regarding advice that they had for our Chinese returners

  1. Develop their English

All of the employers offered this feedback. They felt that the majority of applications they received from students who had studied in the UK were not very good in terms of the level of written English. They also mentioned that domestic students’ English was improving dramatically and so the historic major “selling point” of UK-based Chinese graduates was slowly being eroded away.

The key tip from the employers was that Chinese students needed to interact more with English speaking students and spend less time with other Chinese students or on WeChat.

  1. Commercial Awareness is poor

This topic is an issue with many students that I work with at the moment, not just Chinese (or international) students. The world of work in China is moving so fast. A year away from their home country can mean that UK-based Chinese students miss out on many changes, not just in the recruitment and selection process to graduate roles, but also the economy in general.

Employers expect Chinese students studying in other countries to keep up-to-date with news from China as well as connect and develop relationships with recruiters and employers via WeChat

  1. International Experience – the new stand out

Most of the Chinese employers outlined that the international experience the Chinese students were immersed in overseas was now the “number 1” stand out experience for studying abroad and as a selling point in applications and interviews. That said, students still needed to engage in extra-curricular activities, internships or employer events to achieve this, not just from course-related activities.

  1. Managing Expectation

Another viewpoint expressed by all the employers…because it annoys most of them! This relates to Chinese returners who feel they are entitled to both a very good job and a very high wage because they have studied overseas. This often results in no job offer and a “flea in the ear”. Often rejection is the result of points 1 and 2 above. The other main reason for rejection was the lack of an internship from the UK, something which is particularly difficult for our Chinese PG students due to their academic timetable not corresponding with the internship timetables of most global employers.

 

What the Careers Service is doing to help our Chinese returners

The work that needs to be done for our international students has been recognised as more than just a project on top of my core work. Therefore, in April 2019, the Careers Service recruited Jan Spalek to the new role of International Employer Engagement Manager.

  1. Jan and I now split the careers and employability work aimed at international students between us: Jan looks after most of the employer work – on campus talks, webinars, updates to the Careers Service website tab for international students – and I mainly write and present talks and workshops on important topics such as CV Writing, Interview Skills and Commercial Awareness
  2. Jan and I have developed partnerships to run our activities cross-campus. For example, my student-facing workshops are run in LUU, and are facilitated by the International Students’ Programme Coordinator there.
  3. We are also running the Global Careers Month event across the university in March 2020. This is an event that will see overseas employers present to our students, both on-campus and via webinar, on a myriad of subjects, ranging from talking heads about their own companies to hints and tips about applying to job roles in their home country or mock assessment centres.
  4. Jan and I continue to research into internship possibilities for our PG students. The September to January period after their studies is an attractive one for the students, but we are finding that large, global employers are not open to providing internships then.
  5. Marianne Savory (LUBS HRM PGs) and I have piloted an interview workshop for her (mainly) Chinese group of students, whereby they mix with home students from another faculty. This workshop was based on a whodunit theme and can be read about here: https://luminate.prospects.ac.uk/an-interview-with-death--careers-services-delivered-differently We shall be running this activity again in February 2020.

 

Marc Steward

Careers Consultant. January 2020.