The Chinese, mostly local government officials, including representatives from personnel or talent recruitment bureaus, had travelled half way around the world to look for the best and brightest to play a leading role in furthering their cities’ economic transformation.
While the Chinese scouts chiefly targeted overseas mainland Chinese in the past, this time round, they broadened their search to include Americans as well.
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China comes a-calling for US job seekers
By Tracy Quek
24 October 2009
RESTON (VIRGINIA): Many flew across the country, some drove for hours from neighbouring cities, while others splurged on exorbitant taxi fares just to get here despite the driving rain.
At stake was something rare in these tough economic times: A job with some of the fastest-growing cities and industries.
The anxious job seekers, numbering in the hundreds, crowded into the Hyatt Regency Reston hotel’s ballroom over the past weekend.
They handed out resumes and filled out endless application forms at the tables of many eager recruiters.
It was a scene that would have heartened anxious United States politicians fretting over the growing numbers of unemployed in the country.
But there was a twist: The recruiters were all from China, and the jobs available were in booming, bustling cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.
The Chinese, mostly local government officials, including representatives from personnel or talent recruitment bureaus, had travelled half way around the world to look for the best and brightest to play a leading role in furthering their cities’ economic transformation.
While the Chinese scouts chiefly targeted overseas mainland Chinese in the past, this time round, they broadened their search to include Americans as well.
‘We advertised the fair among Americans for the first time as mainland recruiters told us clearly that they would like to hire some Americans,’ said Mr. You Weishun, director of the North America Chinese Scholars International Exchange Centre, which organised the event.
He said that 1,500 job seekers, mostly overseas Chinese, attended the three-day fair which started on Oct 16.
It drew the biggest turnout of all eight annual job fairs the centre has organised so far. Nine in 10 applicants had either a master’s degree or a doctorate.
Recruiters from about a dozen provinces and cities, including north-eastern Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, and Kunming city, the capital of south-west Yunnan province, made the trip.
They were looking for expertise in fast-growing sectors such as finance, information technology, environmental protection and biomedical technology.
‘America’s crisis is our opportunity,’ Mr. Zeng Lingheng, an official from Kunming, told The Straits Times. ‘Kunming is in the middle of upgrading and transforming its industries. We lack experts in many top positions who can take our industries and companies to the next level, to go international.’
To help spread the word among non-Chinese speakers, a one-page letter to potential job fair participants, written in English, was posted on the centre’s website at www.nacenter.us.
It invited people to submit their resumes to the centre before the job fair so that Chinese employers could narrow down the candidates they were interested in.
Mr. You said 25 Americans sent in their resumes. Some such as Mr. Timothy Little took the trouble to turn up in person.
Mr. Little, 31, had taken a four-hour flight a day earlier from Denver, where he is studying for a master’s in global finance, trade and economic integration.
He speaks basic Chinese from having taken short language courses in China, and plans to head to the mainland to look for work after he graduates from Denver University next June.
The current US recession and tight job market are added incentives for him to head East. ‘If I remain here, I would be a small fish in a big pond because of the increased competition,’ said Mr. Little.
China’s comparatively robust economy, and its government’s emphasis on attracting foreign talent to help domestic corporations internationalise and navigate foreign markets, have created opportunities for US job seekers looking to dodge the doldrums at home.
China’s GDP is expected to grow by more than 8 per cent this year, while the US economy is projected to contract by at least 2 per cent.
China’s urban unemployment rate is about 4.3 per cent, according to government data. The US is grappling with a jobless rate of over 9 per cent.
The economic dynamics between the two countries has opened up business opportunities for some.
Mr. Steve Norman, 24, an American, and his business partner Mr. Andrew Chiang, 30, who is British, set up Daybreak:Asia, a cultural exchange firm, in August this year to help recent US college graduates find jobs and internships in China.
The two men - who together have 15 years of China experience in finance and non-profit sectors - are now in the US on a three-month recruitment drive at Ivy League universities, hoping to connect people in English language teaching jobs and branding, business development and marketing work with small and medium enterprises in Beijing.
China is also looking increasingly attractive to would-be foreign entrepreneurs because of the lower costs of setting up a business there, as well as incentives such as generous start-up funding and bonuses from local governments.
Mr. John Sullivan, 49, drove over from New York to suss out how he could put his background in commercial real estate lending and finance to use in Shanghai, with a long-term plan of starting up his own company in China.
He left his job on Wall Street 10 months ago when the bank he was with started to downsize. ‘China is where the growth is, and that is where the future is,’ he said.
The crowd of overseas Chinese at the fair was also drawn for the same reason.
Miss Ya Ya, 21, arrived in Los Angeles to begin a master’s in applied finance at Pepperdine University from Shanghai just two months ago and plunged straight into job-hunting mode. But she found that cost-conscious US employers were hesitant about the expenses involved in hiring a foreigner and that finance jobs were less abundant than she had thought.
Miss Ya heard about the China job fair two weeks ago and flew in from Los Angeles.
In between filling up application forms, she remarked: ‘Before I arrived, I never thought I would go back. Now, it’s looking more and more that I will be heading home sooner than I thought.’
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