Understanding China’s Employability landscape

APD NEWS

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An informative panel discussion on China’s fast moving employability landscape for returning graduates of Australian universities and institutions was held in Beijing on November 9.

The discussion, organized by the China-Australia Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, was held at the Opposite House in Sanlitun, where panelists from key sectors and industries were present, including Vicki Thomson, Chief Executive of Group of Eight Australia, Anthony McQuade, Head of Agency North China, Savils, and Teppo Helles, Human Resources Director of HNA Hospitality Group. Dr. Amanda Barry, AustCham Education Industry Forum Chair and Director of the China Liaison Office at Australian National University chaired the event.

The discussion began with an introduction by Dr. Amanda Barry about statistics on returning Chinese students from international universities. In total, there have been 2.65 million returnees to China from overseas universities, with 400,000 of these students being from 2016 alone, thus emerging an increasingly competitive environment for returnees as the numbers grow. Of the total amount of returnees, 60 percent of them have a master’s degree or higher degrees, and 35 percent came to Beijing for work.

Speakers put forward insightful opinions in the discussion. One of the major topics brought up by Vicki Thomson was how to make Chinese parents to know the benefits of overseas study. Besides academic courses, doing part time jobs, being volunteers and taking part in extracurricular activities and school associations will benefit for the overseas students. Vicki Thomson also said invisible benefits of overseas study will be easier to understand when the overseas graduates have their children.

After the discussion, speakers answered the questions from the attendees.

How to meet challenges of the increasingly competitive job market is their major concern because many overseas graduates find they are out of the domestic job networking. They hoped Australia-China groups in China and the Australian universities will be able to help Chinese graduates connect with job networking.

To address the issue, an online employment platform AOZHOUHAIGUI.COM was introduced, which provides free services for graduates and alumni from the Group of Eight Australian Universities. The platform, which has run for one year, aims to help students meet requirements of China’s top employers, according to the speakers.

The speakers also vowed more efforts to help graduates find jobs.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)