Z Visa with University Degree but No Work Experience?

[shepherdspie]

Hello everyone, I'm in the midst of interviewing for a position at an international company (not a language school, not english teaching btw) in Shanghai but the company and I are unsure whether I can even get a visa... Could anyone advise me on whether this is possible + what I can do to make it possible? These are some facts about me:

• Fresh graduate from a world top 100 University (non-tech major)

• Native English Speaker

• No HKC Certificate, but studied Chinese in school from 7-18y.o (took Chinese as a subject for my high school diploma) and probably between HKC level 6-9 I'd say?

• 2 years of work experience (Project Management + Admin Work), but heard it doesn't count as I worked while in university?

• In my early 20s

• Calculated my visa points and i'm either 53 or 56, don't meet the 60 needed for B

• Qualify for Shanghai's entrepreneurship visa

The company I want to work for is actually from my country and we were discussing the possibility of signing the contract here (so there'd be no visa problem), then having them "transfer me" to the Shanghai office. Would that help with the visa situation?

[mungouk]

Greetings , @shepherdspie welcome to the forums.

I think the silence here perhaps suggests that none of us has an easy answer to your question. 

 

Some things for you to consider:

• There will be more than 8 million new Chinese graduates looking for work this summer, in a job market that was already over-supplied with graduates even before COVID-19 came along and unemployment started to rise.  (Read that number again!)  They will be around the same age and experience level as you.
• Any employer taking on a foreigner has to demonstrate that the job couldn't be done by someone local.  What makes you so different that a local person couldn't do the same job?  Especially straight after graduation.  (This is the trump-card of native English speakers looking for English teaching jobs of course.)
• If this company is really "international", aren't they able to pay for professional advice on this?

 

As for working in your home country for now but with a view to moving to Shanghai later, that sounds like a sensible plan to me.

 

Apart from anything else, with the current COVID situation it is very difficult to predict how and when international travel will resume to anything like its earlier levels. Many expats have found themselves either "stuck" in China and unable to return home to be with friends and family, or conversely "stuck" outside of China and unable to physically return to their jobs, apartments and possessions.

 

Also, you don't say what your home country is, but there probably aren't many consulates, embassies or visa agencies world-wide that are accepting Z-visa applications right now.  High-flying business-people might be getting fast-tracked through "green channels" but the rest of us will have to wait... how long for, nobody can say.