Finding a REAL job w/o experience ?

[novemberfog]

Absolutely, if they can help take care of the benefits, basic needs, and flexible time(not refering to laziness). As, long the employers know that I am also going back to school, I will try my very best to complete the given task. It isn't easy starting at first because it depends on the pace, it could be slow of fast.

That will probably largely depend on the company. Some companies are open to working and education at the same time. Some are not. Things like benefits vary as well. I don't know about China honestly, but in Japan stock options are not common. Pension systems are the most common.

I am surprised that your boss was sleeping, and didn't get into trouble, well it is kinda like that in the U.S. too.

He has been with the company over 30 years so I guess no one will mess with him. I could get into a logn rant but I won't start.

[mind_wander]

Novemberfog,

That might explains why your boss can sleep, about 30 years in the organization. Also, it would be nice to see what things I could learn to get the experience out of it.

Just yesterday in my operations management there was a female Asian subsitute teacher, has poor English with an Asian accent. I myself, Asian, has hard time understanding what she was talking about. If poor English and heavy Asian accent like in the Chinese movies, I would quiver, because, if this is what I have to face in China, then my English fluency can help to make way for new things. However, other native Chinese can read/write Chinese while I am struggling, in which I don't mind, but learning experience.

[mlomker]

I'm ready to bust my ass learning Chinese, because I need it for my future plans anyway (graduate school).

Perhaps you should make attending school your priority, then. American student loans can be deferred as long as you are still in school. You could sign up to do a second bachelors in Chinese (at a university in China) and have the interest accrue on your loans.

China also offers a lot of scholorships for language study if you're young enough to make their age cut-off (25 for undergrads, I believe). Tuition is dirt-cheap in the smaller cities, regardless.

[parasite]

I hate leaving this thread stranded without a final conclusion to the story.

The final conclusion is this: Don't take the advice of professional debaters on the internet. These people are bored and could amuse themselves for countless hours talking on any topic whatsoever using purely what seems like "logical deductions" when in actuality they have no real qualifications whatsoever to say much of anything on a given topic.

Leaving it at that, I don't want to get specific about who in this thread I think was talking out of their ass because I do sincerely appreciate those who left advice (good or bad) with good intentions (as opposed to those who have the internet disease of just wanting to prove others wrong for the sake of proving them wrong).

Yes, logically it DOES seem like I should be an inferior candidate on all fronts considering my Chinese ability is less than average and I had 0 work experience in real life. Logically one might DEDUCE there should be 100 quadrillion Chinese deserving a better salary and this and that. IT IS SIMPLY NOT THE CASE, (ever see the news articles about how useless the millions of Chinese and Indian engineering graduates are because only about 1 in 10 is acceptable by the standards of any international firm's HR managers?) don't listen to the logical 'deductions' of blowhards on the internet --- no one should be discouraged from moving to China based on this thread because dreams come true in spite of the hardcore discouragement I got. In REALITY not only was my "limited" (as some people in the thread chose to rephrase my description of it) Chinese about 5x better than several of my friends who successfully passed all-Chinese job interviews, but there is a huge salary bonus in a great many jobs in China just for being white and native English speaking or Western educated or whatever it might have been... fair, or logical, or whatever the hell --- reality trumps logical deductions. Whether or not I know the REASON that it is rational and that I provide that much value to the company is irrelevant, the company did not do it out of charity.

In short, I moved to China in summer 2006, found a job in my field (not Engrish teaching by any means) at one of the best companies in the world, worked for a salary which was 3 times that of my Chinese peers, was asked specifically NOT to do overtime (they wanted to keep my as long as possible and didn't want me to burn out and quit), and in short had an experience which in many regards was perfect for 2.5 years until I got sick of it and quit a while back. (They were really unhappy to have me leave and had expected I'd stay 5 years or more.)

[yonglin]

Sounds like a great experience! Thank you for sharing!

I just wanted to add that in some fields in China, there is a very significant return to overseas training. I'm a graduate student here (in Canada), and my department has quite a tough time placing Chinese students into academic positions in North America since they often choose to take up very generous 海归 (also, "海龟") offers in very good Chinese universities instead. These offers typically pay in the neighbourhood of 250-300k RMB per year (i.e significantly more than locally trained academic staff), and I wouldn't be surprised if major corporations have similar pay schemes for returning Chinese/overseas employees.

It would be very kind if you responded to your original question

...please tell me about how you found your job, and what recommendations you would make for me.

for the benefits of future readers who might have similar enquiries.

Thank you again! I think follow-ups like this are great for these forums.

[parasite]

Yeah thanks for suggesting I answer my own question~! Good idea:

The most important thing is to be committed to being in China, I think, and being there long enough for one of the PLETHORA OF opportunities that DO exist to present itself to you. You should NOT have the mindset that there might or might not be opportunities. There are a billion people in China and thus opportunities for every conceivable thing the imagination can imagine! It is a matter of FINDING the needle in the haystack—I absolutely guarantee you that it is there, and just remains to be 'found'. That is your challenge.

Thus, if possible, I think the ideal route might be to go with the plan to be there a year regardless if you find a job or not --- and bring enough money to enroll in full time Chinese classes if you don't find a job. (That way you have a visa and stable living situation and yet plenty of free time to "play" and do the kinds of activities that lead to the building of social networks that help you find out about the existence of opportunities.)

Basically in my case all I did was apply to ~30 random jobs on the internet. I got a call in a week (mind you I had moved to Shanghai and signed a 1 year contract for an apartment) and was interviewed for a job requiring native English but which wasn't particularly suitable for my major. When I got to the 5th interview and the top manager saw that I had a computer science degree, he told me on the spot that he wanted to hire me but didn't want to "waste" me on the other job, and instead wanted to put me in a spot where my computer science would be as important as my English and Chinese ability. Thus, in essence, a position was made for me because the boss saw me as having the potential to fill a "gap" they hadn't previously realized existed. (Another North American was hired to my team a short time later.) I think in a LOT of cases there are job opportunities where a Chinese manager or businessman sees potential when he encounters a Chinese speaking foreigner with a certain skill set. These positions will often be 'created' because of the encounter (since it isn't something the manager had ever thought of before), so it is important to try to maximize the number of such people you run into if at all possible. (See the large reserved table areas in night clubs with a bunch of young hot girls and old Chinese guys? Someone is dropping serious change to reserve these table, as much as $500-2000 a night, so --- it's a lot more useful to have a drink and friendly chat with some of those dudes than a random farmer on the street. They are the kind of guys that are highly connected.)

Since I got my job just through the online want ads, the best advice I can give is based on opportunities that I 'would' have had if I didn't already have a good job. Many of these presented themselves through social networks, a lot with people that I met at work -- thus you have a chicken-and-egg problem because the people you most need to meet are the people you won't meet until you have a job! If you take my advice and study for a year if you fail to find a job within a reasonable time-frame, I would suggest you be cautious about socializing too much with social networks of students who have no connection to the working world. Try to get out to bars and public events and meet people who are working in YOUR industry. Someone always knows someone who knows someone. But far too many students are only connected to networks of peers who are completely outside the working world.

As MY purpose in China was Chinese language, I wanted to avoid hanging out with foreigners as much as possible. As counter-intuitive as it is, this is not a good idea unless you have extraordinary social skills. It is ironic, but it was always through other foreigners that I had the best opportunities to meet Chinese people with whom I could speak exclusively in Chinese (though being with foreigners entails English) and with Chinese who could help me reach my goals (had the potential to help me find job opportunities) in some way. I almost NEVER ran into such Chinese people entirely by accident on my own! One North American I encountered told me with much regret that he had intentionally avoided foreigners at all costs for 2 years prior to meeting me in the hopes that his Chinese would improve faster. He changed his mind about this on the spot because he was frustrated to see that my Chinese was a lot better than his. (I loath to evaluate my own ability in comparison to anyone else -- this was HIS opinion.)

[gougou]

Thanks for sharing (and thus belying your name), and congrats on the job!

[colour wolf]

This article from the NY times seems to suggest its fairly easy to land a job. As I thought this isn't the case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/business/economy/11expats.html?_r=1

Without a knowledge of the language how many jobs are really available?

Good luck with the job seek. I might be in a similar position myself in years to come!

[u4132534]

I got a job about 2 years ago with a decent salary and no experience in the consultancy industry (in hangzhou)...kinda lucky i guess. So there is always stuff out there, you just need to know someone (or get to know someone), it is that simple. I have for years browsed websites/job papers and thats a really tough nut to crack. Someone told me once only about 20% of the significant hirings are done cold (no known reference). And for most local offices, an expensive white guy is a significant hiring.

On the other hand, the fact remains that only a small percent chinese english students can write professional english (maybe .001%)...even most chinese graduating from the UK who have lived there for 5 years+ will only be able to write basic english (at best in IMHO). So there is a market.

I might be able to earn a little more teaching english and live a much more comfortable lifestyle...but for me its about respect and learning chinese.

[gato]

This article from the NY times seems to suggest its fairly easy to land a job. As I thought this isn't the case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/business/economy/11expats.html?_r=1

Without a knowledge of the language how many jobs are really available?

That NY Times article was a puff piece, not a serious article. The author Hannah Seligson doesn't know anything about China. The article is part of the NY Times' effort to reach a younger audience, by having young writers write about young people. The problem is that the articles often have no depth. And note that the young people she interviewed were all graduates of elite schools: Harvard, MIT, Wesleyan University, and Barnard College.

http://www.hannahseligson.com/bio.htm

Hannah Seligson is an author and a journalist based in New York. Her writing has appeared in, among others, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Boston Globe, and The Village Voice.

Hannah is the author of New Girl on the Job: Advice from the Trenches, a career guide for young women based on over a hundred interviews she conducted. New Girl on the Job has been called “a must-read for every woman entering the work world” by the Houston Business Journal and the Washington Post said that it “covers the key things any young women needs to know to thrive at those first couple of jobs.”

Her second book, A Little Bit Married: How to Know When to Walk Down the Aisle or Out the Door, will be published in the Spring of 2009.

Hannah graduated with a B.A. from Brown University in 2004.

See this article, written in reaction to the NY Times piece, for a balanced view.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/13/china-jobs-employment-leadership-careers-work.html

Should You Look For Work In China?

Shaun Rein, 08.13.09, 03:00 PM EDT

[ipsi()]

Just out of curiosity, parasite, what was it that you were doing with your CS degree?

I'm interested because I'm currently working as a software engineer (Enterprise Java), and am considering going overseas at some point, for a change if nothing else. China's one of the places I'd consider. Been working full-time for about a year, and part-time for about 6 months before that, in basically the same role. Have a degree (well, 3, actually) from the local University, and that will look good so long as no-one asks about my grades.

Anyway, I guess what I want to know is if you had anything to do with that sort of development, and if you did, how the Chinese programmers compared to the 'ideal' programmer, if you will. That is, is their answer to the 'Hmm... This code almost does want I want..." problem more likely to be to copy the code and make changes (please god no!), or the sensible approach of "Better refactor it and make it generic enough that it will do both things"?

Sorry for veering off-topic slightly (if the Admins prefer, I can start a new thread), but this is something I'm curious about. I'm fairly sure the Chinese are said to do well in the Sciences, so I would hope that, by and large, they're the second type of programmer and not the first (sadly, the first type exists the world over. I'm still dealing with the legacy of one of them at work...). Of course, if they were the first (copy & paste) type of programmer, it would mean I'd have more to bring to the table than just a pretty () white face and the amazing power to speak English.