Internship in China

[grawrt]

Hi everyone! I'm not sure if anyone is interested in this topic but I thought i'd open it up since I started an internship recently. I'll keep it vague and if anyone has any questions you can feel free to ask. I decided to do an internship because I was bored and had nothing better to do than to accompany my friends to open recruitment day at a hotel. I also thought it would probably help my resume as I have never worked a real job in my life besides tutoring English. 

So things people should be aware of when applying for an internship:

1) It's incredibly easy to find an internship if your chinese is up to par (depending on your internship just a basic knowledge of chinese is okay). This is my second job interview for an internship, the first one I refused because the hours were too long and the pay was too low, that internship was at a tech firm in need of English speakers to help their App, which included translation, fact checking etc. My current one hired all of my friends (4) and we had our first and second interviews the same day.
2) The pay is low and the hours are long. The terms of my current internship were much better than the first job offer I had but the pay is basically the same. The only bonus with this one is that I get 2 meals. 

ie: internship (x3 a week/8 hours per day)= 2000 rmb/month vs. tutoring english (once a week/2 hours) = 800, after one month (8 hours total) = 3200
3) It's great practice for chinese. I learn something new every day, the other day I learned the words for 'stapler'(钉书机） 'shawl'（披肩）, and then I also had a girl teaching me sichuanese and bad chinese (according to my assistant manager who told me my chinese would get worse if I learned from her haha). 
4) It can be fun. I'm not going to lie, its hard work, I work as hostess at the hotel so it's a lot of me standing around with nothing to do after seating people. But I have fun chatting with my coworkers, there's usually about two or three girls around with me and they all have very different personalities. My assistant manager takes me and my friends for training usually between the time after lunch and before dinner since there's nothing to do, and I've learned how to make latte's, cappuccino, espresso. Sometimes my coworkers will pull me aside and we'll sneak a few bites of the desserts from the buffet in the storage room gossiping. 
5) Depending on your position or job it might not be so flexible. I'm lucky that my manager is really nice and understandable, so when I told her I couldn't come in at 7 on Friday because i have class until 10 she didn't mind changing my shift and kept it in mind for the next week. My other friend however is having trouble getting his summer vacation off (my manager said yes to me though). 
6) overtime work sucks and you don't get paid for it as an intern. I'm lucky that my manager and the assistant managers usually let me off early or when the shift is over they shoo us away. But my friends have worked overtime with no pay. 

Hum. That's about it. Hope this helps anyone. 

[hejmeddig]

Great, informative post. Seems like a great way to explore China while getting experience at the same time.

 

Did you use any websites in particular to find your internship?

[grawrt]

10 hours ago, hejmeddig said:

Did you use any websites in particular to find your internship?

 

No. Went via word of mouth from my friend, who found out from his teacher. The other internship I applied to (but didn't take) I found out from a wechat group. 

 

I would say if you're looking for these kinds of opportunities you should keep your ears open and try and attend events or at least reach out to learn more. You never know. 

[Lu]

In what way do you consider this an internship and not a low-paid entry-level job? (Honest question.)

Do you need a particular type of visa?

[grawrt]

@Lu

 

Honestly I also feel like its just a low-paid entry level job. I think the thing that makes me think it might more of a training program/internship is because we often go through training in areas of the hotel that we don't necessarily work at. For instance, learning how to make latte's cappucinos for me is quite useless as I work as hostess and I just handle reservations, seat people and answer the phone. If someone I seat asks for a latte then I just have to tell the waitress or the person in charge of coffee to bring a latte to table 53. Other things I've learned so far that aren't directly related to my job as hostess are things like table setting, napkin folding, processing payments and coupons, etc.  Also, our outfits are different though i'm not sure what the correlation is, but we wear the same outfits as the manager and assistant managers do. 

Im on a student visa so I think if you want to find a low paid entry level job realistically you can just list it under' internship' as its easier. But from what my job proposes this is actually an internship program.