How can a westerner get an internship or Entry level Job in China?

[simonlaing]

Hi All,

I am finishing up a Post-Graduate Degree in Leeds UNI, and as part of it I need to do an internship related to China. Optimistically I would like to find an internship in Nanjing (I have a girlfriend, she likes to be near her family etc..) or if necessary Shanghai.

I have written to several western firms in the area. I got some names from the European Business Bureau and sent some emails there but still things are difficult. Though some guanxi I might be able to get a job proofreading at a translation company, but if possible I'd like to use these Business skills somewhere.

Since I have taught English before, I am wary about a job that has teaching English as part of it's requirements. My Chinese is decent especially with speaking issues.

I have had only basic teaching English jobs really for work experience. Most internships on the internet (since they don't seem to pay much) are targeted to Chinese University graduates of which there are more than a few.

Can someone give me advise about how to approach companies to get and internship?

A classmate is going to pay 300 pounds to an agency to get a good placement in a company. Princeton has a similar scheme. But I don't have that much money, and I can live for so long in China on 300 pounds it seems extravagant.

Also are there people on the board who got their start in China as interns and how did they get those internships?

Have fun,

Simon:)

[trevelyan]

I'm skeptical that "paying" for an internship is the way to go. I've seen a couple of places that advertise internships around Wudaokou, but they mostly look like they exist to take advantage of students. Has anyone had good experience with one of these?

There simply aren't many institutional connections between the job market and western universities here in China. Assuming you've gone through the business bureau you must know what those are.

Your best bet for non-teaching/non-editing work is finding a boutique consulting firm or some other small, incredibly-niche firm that has foreign clients but is still small and run by a foreigner. These are going to be the places that will require English-speaking generalists and will have work that is interesting. You'll probably find it difficult to set something like that up from abroad though -- and if you're only looking to work for a couple of months, these places probably wouldn't want to bother. On the other hand, if you don't have western salary expectations, and are willing to try things out before requiring them to arrange visas, etc., you're more likely to find something.

Good luck.

[JohnSmith1980]

From my experience I would say ur best bet is to get an internship in England related to china as it is only an inernship position. It is very difficult getting intern places in china as companies seem reluctant to hire on language alone and look for greater experience.This being said there maybe some option of teaching business english in a company and having it on ur CV /resume???

So...I think it depends on what u want to do. An internship position in china is possible but will not be as benefial as one in england in terms of gaining business knowledge. If you apply to Leeds/ London offices and state on ur application ur desire to work in china, all going well, they can normally tailor the internship to be market specific to a certain extent.

[roddy]

I'm not sure if this is something you are doing already, generally speaking internships have a much better chance of going ahead if the intern can not just present themselves as available but also demonstrate exactly what they're going to do and why it's of benefit to the company. The average internship application seems to be 'My name's X, I can do Y, and I would like to be an intern.' Which is fine, but most companies are set up to do their jobs fairly well without interns, and while an extra pair of hands might be handy you're also going to be extra work for whoever is managing you.

However, if you can be more specific about what you want to do, be clear about the resources you will need in terms of funding, access to admin support, boss-level consultation, etc; and the benefit it will have to the company you've got much more of your foot in the door. 'My name's X, I can do Y, and I'd like to use those skills to run a customer satisfaction survey / produce a report on the impact of recent regulatory changes' etc.

I agree about the dubiousness of positions specifying English teaching as any part of the work - you now see 'English teaching internships' touted about, as if these are anything other than 'even worse-paid English teaching jobs than you previously thought possible'.

Paying for one I might be open to if I could speak to someone who'd gone through the same route previously, but the China internship market, like the China study-aboard market, the teach-in-China market, etc, is in a period of high growth and low regulation, which does not naturally lead to high quality service provision.

I think C_Smith has a good point - what about a UK-based internship with a company doing business with China? Or indeed any business, and you can do a project on the prospects for their products in China. Doesn't get you any nearer your girlfriend though.

[Kristina]

I think it really depends on what can you do? what do you want to do in China? And what you have done in UK? After you got all these, you can apply from internet, email to certain people, post the ad or simply ask your girlfriend to call them up. Things can be pretty easy if you are in the right direction.

Kristina