Chinese electrical appliance manufacturer Midea organizes a career talk at a university in Boston, United States. [Photo provided to CHINA DAILY]
With the job market for college graduates in China remaining uncertain, electrical appliance manufacturer Midea has said it is increasing its recruitment, particularly among Chinese graduates who've studied overseas.
Midea, listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange and valued at about $60 billion, operates in more than 200 countries and regions around the globe, with 33 R&D centers and 40 production bases, so its demand for internationally minded professionals remains high, the company said.
In July, Midea hosted six job fairs in the United States, including at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, where it attracted some 300 graduates to take an interest in its opportunities. Most of the technical positions were aimed at PhD graduates, Midea said.
"Almost all the positions attracted competition among Chinese students pursuing further studies abroad, and many are currently in the interview process," said Liu Ruiqun, director of global campus recruitment at Midea Group.
"To align with the group's development strategy, our demand for international talent continues to increase and the scale of our recruitment of overseas graduates has continued to rise over the years. Also, we're increasingly focusing on highly educated groups," she said.
The jobless rate among those aged 16 to 24 was 13.2 percent in June, and the urban unemployment rate for those aged between 25 and 29 was 6.4 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Despite these figures being higher than desired, multinational companies like Midea still require returnees with PhD degrees to make good use of their professional knowledge, international vision and capabilities for innovation.
"We welcome excellent students in top professional fields from universities both from home and abroad. It's basically about whether a certain discipline of a school is competitive globally, and matches the technology required by our group," Liu said.
In March, four Chinese giants in technology, electric vehicle batteries and fast-fashion online retail held recruitment fairs at seven universities in the United Kingdom seeking Chinese graduates with excellent qualifications and skills.
Some Chinese enterprises, especially those in the industries of automobiles, internet, healthcare, new energy and investment, have been looking to go global in recent years.
An employer talks with a candidate at a section dedicated to overseas doctoral graduates at a job fair in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, in June last year. [Photo provided to CHINA DAILY]
Industry observers have said that such enterprises have reached a phase of their development where they need high-end talent to support them, making sure they are at the forefront of industrial development, while they can provide a platform for technical talent to unleash their professional skills.
In July, the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China resolved to improve the modern enterprise system with Chinese characteristics, and support and guide all kinds of enterprises to improve their efficiency of resource utilization, operation and management, and accelerate building more world-class enterprises.
The session also resolved to improve the resilience and safety of industrial and supply chains, especially in fields such as integrated circuits, medical equipment, instrumentation, basic software, industrial software and advanced materials.
Wang Qian, China country manager of professional network LinkedIn, said she believes there will be a better future for Chinese enterprises and returnees with PhD degrees.
"Enterprises may need to create an environment that allows high-end talent to exert their greater ability. Similarly, returnees with excellent education experience may need to adapt to the culture of Chinese enterprises. So both parties need some time to prepare," Wang said.
A career fair dedicated to returning overseas students draws participants in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, in April last year. CHEN WEN/CHINA NEWS SERVICE
According to LinkedIn data, there are currently more than 90,000 Chinese businesses operating overseas with overseas recruitment needs. Such enterprises have recruitment demands for as many as 4.5 million overseas positions.
Recruiting someone with a PhD degree is different from someone with a master's or bachelor's degree, as the latter usually master general skills, while PhD students are likely people with specific work experience in a particular field, said Wang.
"For example, if someone completes PhD studies at a lab of a foreign university, that means he or she specializes in research in a very specific field. If a company believes such a field matches the technologies that it currently needs, it will look for candidates from those labs," she said.
Liu said Midea started recruiting Chinese students studying overseas in 2017, but it only accounted for fewer than 10 percent of its total recruitment at that time. It has since grown to over 10 percent, she added.
Wang from LinkedIn said Chinese tech companies are increasingly eyeing highly educated returnees from universities in the fields of science and engineering in countries such as Singapore and the UK.
"Although the overall size of recruitment among companies has decreased due to the macroeconomic environment, the proportion of recruiting overseas returnees has increased. For many companies, their number of positions offered to highly educated returnees increased by 50 to 100 percent last year compared with the previous year," she said.
Participants cheer during an activity aimed at connecting overseas students returning to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, in July last year. CHEN JIMIN/CHINA NEWS SERVICE
For Midea, the increasing need for PhD graduates from overseas is derived from the group's adjustment in its main strategy, which focuses on a forward-looking vision to secure leading technological ability for the future, said Liu.
"That requires future-oriented technological R&D capabilities, and thus has led to our change in need for talent," Liu said.
The Shanghai Institute of Material Medical at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which conducts R&D into new drugs, started overseas recruitment in 2018. In the following year, more than 10 Chinese with PhD degrees and outstanding work experience overseas joined the institute as principal investigators.
"Over the past years, we've continued to escalate our scale to recruit returnees from overseas. It has also come as a result of China's development in the pharmaceutical field," said Piao Song, head of recruitment at the institute.
"While Shanghai is gathering pace to build itself into a science and technology innovation center, talent at all levels are welcome. We offer young researchers job positions as principal investigators, which means they can work on projects according to their own ideas, and this is very different from following the boss at a lab overseas," she said.
Industry insiders have noted that PhD graduates from domestic universities are competitive as well. They possess some other advantages.
"For example, they may have profound networking with local academic and industrial circles, and have more practical experience of working on domestic projects," said Wang.
Jasmine Jiang, cofounder of Zhike, which provides career counseling for job seekers, said, "They may have a better understanding of the domestic innovation system, so that they may have more chances to push their innovative technologies into industrialization."
